Page:Wit, humor, and Shakspeare. Twelve essays (IA cu31924013161223).pdf/208

 "When were you wont to be so full of songs, sirrah?" It was not his wont, then? By no means. This court-jester stood by when the latent disease of the King's brain was suddenly unmasked by the sincerity of Cordelia, whose love was more ponderous than her tongue. He saw her transformed, in an instant of the King's first lesion, from a daughter into an outcast. First, wonder at a blow which no one could anticipate, and then pity at seeing that love's vessel thus pushed over and its rareness spilled, has destroyed his appetite for mirth. He unconsciously resorts to the Fool's alternative between jesting and gravity, which is a fusion of both these qualities in irony; and he catches at the ragged edges of old songs when he feels himself tumbling into bitter aspersion of the King. He has, too, been affrighted by the sudden and groundless vehemence which hurls the faithful old Kent into exile as soon as he dared speak a word for Cordelia. What! Daughterhood stamped out like a spider, life-long loyalty sent to the dogs! This palace can dispense with jesting for the future; and our wits must yield a different grain. Touchstone is the wise fool of life's comedy. But Lear snatches at his fool's bauble, invests him with the pathos of a broken sceptre and a crumbling reason, and may well inquire when he learned to sing. "I have used it, Nuncle, e'er since thou madest thy daughters thy mother." His songs insinuate so much unpalatable truth that he tells the King to keep a schoolmaster that can teach his fool to lie, and pretends that under the circumstances, with the King undertaking to be the house-fool, lying might be an accomplishment.