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pretty knave," "my boy," "lad," "my good boy," &c. &c.; and when driven by Regan from her castle, it is the fool to whom he utters his grief; "Oh, fool, I shall go mad." (Act II. Sc. 4.) On the heath, in the storm of that terrible night

"The night wherein the cub-drawn bear would couch,

The lion and the belly-pinched wolf

Keep their fur dry,"

we have another instance of Lear's affection for his faithful follower, who is even then by his side.

When Kent has found a

hovel for a shelter, Lear makes the fool enter first into it; and nothing can exceed the tenderness of the following speech, which Lear addresses to the fool on their road :

"Come on, my boy, how dost, my boy? art cold?

I am cold myself.-Where is this straw, my fellow ?

The art of our necessities is strange,

That can make vile things precious. Come, your hovel,
Poor fool and knave; I have one part in my heart

That's sorry yet for thee."-ACT III. Scene 2.

That the fool equally well loved his master appears to me plain. We find his jests are all on Lear's folly in giving up the crown; and the expression, "nuncle Lear," appears to me one of peculiar endearment. It is also worthy of remark, that this is the only fool who is really loved by his master.

I have said that the language of this play is not surpassed by any of our author's works; and, in the absence of other general remarks, I trust I shall not weary my readers, if I detain them a short time for the purpose of pointing out some of the most beautiful passages.

I do not remember ever to have met with a passage more sublime than that uttered by Lear in the storm.

"Let the great gods,

That keep this dreadful pother o'er our heads,

Find out their enemies now. Tremble, thou wretch,

That hast within thee undivulged crimes,

Unwhipped of justice. Hide thee, thou bloody hand;

Thou perjured, and thou simular man of virtue,

That art incestuous; caitiff, to pieces shake,

That under covert, and convenient seeming,

Hast practised on man's life! Close pent-up guilt,

Rive your concealing continents, and cry
These dreadful sommoners grace. I am a man,

More sinned against than sinning."-ACT III. Scene 2.

Where shall we find a finer description of filial ingratitude than that of Lear in this play? Brief though it be, it comprehends in two lines more than any writer has before given us.

-“Filial ingratitude!

Is it not as this mouth should tear this hand

For lifting food to it?"-ACT II. Scene 4.

Another passage in the same scene, which irresistibly commands our attention, presents us with a picture inexpressibly sublime. Lear, who in Act II. Sc. 4, utters that beautiful reflection,

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"O, reason not the need! our basest beggars

Are in the poorest thing superfluous.

Allow not nature more than nature needs,
Man's life is cheap as beast's,"

now proceeds to carry this idea out.

Seeing Edgar without

clothes, he breaks forth into this sublime soliloquy :

"Is man no more than this? Consider him well. Thou owest the worm no silk, the beast no hide, the sheep no wool, the cat no perfume.Ha! here's three of us are sophisticated.".

Perhaps there is no passage in this play so well known, and so often quoted, as the description of Dover cliff. A great critic has stated his opinion that no man can read this without feeling giddy. The conclusion of this description,

"I'll look no more,

Lest my brain turn, and the deficient sight
Topple down headlong,"

has certainly the effect of making the reader feel that he is on a height, and must therefore be considered a consummate piece of

art.

From the time when Lear begins to recover his senses, we have a series of the most beautiful passages. He, who can read this play attentively, and pass over the following passage without tears, must have a heart not to be envied.

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Not an hour more nor less; and, to deal plainly,

I fear, I am not in my perfect mind.

Methinks I should know you, and know this man ;

Yet I am doubtful: for I am mainly ignorant
What place this is ;-and all the skill I have
Remembers not these garments; nor I know not
Where I did lodge last night. Do not laugh at me,
For, as I am a man, I think this lady

To be my child-Cordelia."-ACT IV. Scene 7.

Again, what can be more beautifully pathetic than the speech of the poor old childish king to his daughter, when they are being led to their prison.

"LEAR. No-no-no-no! come, let's away to prison.

We two alone will sing like birds i' the cage;
When thou dost ask me blessing, I'll kneel down

And ask of thee forgiveness. So we'll live,
And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh
At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues

Talk of court news; and we'll talk with them too,-
Who loses and who wins; who's in, who's out;
And take upon us the mystery of things,

As if we were God's spies. And we'll wear out
In a walled prison packs and sects of great ones,
That ebb and flow by the moon."-ACT v. Scene 3.

In the very end of the play, in the

"Last scene of all

That ends this strange eventful history,"

we have a passage of surpassing beauty.

"LEAR. And my poor fool is hanged! no, no, no life.
Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life,

And thou no breath at all? Oh, thou wilt come no more.
Never, never, never, never, never!—

Pray you undo this button. Thank you, sir.

Do you see this? Look on her,-look on her lips,——
Look there, look there!-

This is almost unequalled.

(Dies.)"

I cannot but express my regret that the fate of the fool, Lear's faithful follower, is left uncertain. Some, indeed, have supposed that the fool was hanged with Cordelia, and that the words, "poor fool," in the above passage, apply to the fool; but this is by no means probable. The last we see or hear of this interesting character is in the conclusion of the sixth scene of the third act, where we find him helping to carry off old Lear; moreover, I do not see how he could have been taken, as we do not hear of his being with Lear and Cordelia when they were made prisoners.

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I think the probability is, that the fool died at Dover, whither he helped to bear his master. Probably that "pining away," which we hear of before we see him, increased with the unceasing troubles of the aged king, and the "pelting of that pitiless storm" to which he was exposed on the heath, brought him to his end; and this is the more probable, as Lear never mentions him. Had the fool died after the recovery of the king, we should doubtless have heard of him; and I cannot but wish that one word of farewell from the loving master had confirmed our suspicions of the fate of his faithful and attached follower.

THE FIRMAMENT.

C. H. H.

"The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament sheweth his handy work."-Psalm xix.

I.

THE heavenly vault, with azure glow,
O'er every clime and nation hung,

Reveals to all the earth below,

The source divine from whence it sprung.

The bright, eternal orb of day,

That mounts on wings of living flame,

And thousand stars' effulgent ray,

The glory of the Lord proclaim.

II.

No voice is heard; yet who can turn,
At midnight's hour, his pensive eye
To where in silent splendour burn
Unnumbered orbs of fire on high,

Nor think how vast must be the power

Which formed the glittering train, that there /

To every land, in every hour,

Their Maker's wondrous skill declare.

F. L. SIMS.

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It walks not on the earth, it floats not on the air;

But treads with silent footstep, and fans with silent wing

The tender hopes which in their hearts the best and gentlest bear;
Who, soothed to false repose by the fanning plumes above,

And the music-stirring motion of its soft and busy feet,
Dream visions of aerial joy, and call the monster Love,
And wake, and find the shadow Pain."

MANY are the dark blots that sin hath cast over the page of human life; many are the traces of misery and desolation that serve to show where the footsteps of crime have been; but never is its power manifested in such dreadful might, never is its blighting nature shown so fearfully, as when it seizeth on those feelings of our nature which are left us, the relics of Eden's innocence, and turneth them to ministers of its own dark purpose.

The main feature of my tale is one far from uncommon; for while the love of gold, or that passion, like in nature though men have given it a more noble name, rules with its iron sceptre the hearts of men, there will not be wanting many, (it may be the greater part of men are such,) who, strangers to any more gentle feelings themselves, care little for them in others; there will not be wanting fathers, who, without remorse, will clothe their children in purple and gold, unheeding of the breaking heart the idle splendour hides.

Yet, were I to give such a character to the Baron de Leon, I should do him some wrong. He loved his only child Alice with a father's fondest love; he would have spared nothing to pleasure her, though it had cost him his heart's blood. But there was one thing which an old Norman baron, of ancient line, whose escutcheon had been handed down without a blot for ages, could not give up his honour, the honour of his race. He could not bear to think his noble castles and wide domains should ever pass into the possession of a house less noble than his own. The safety. of this matter depended, of course, upon the marriage of his daughter, the only descendant of the family; and the Baron had for a long time been seeking for some house whose arms might, in

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