ABSTRACT
To attempt to give a description of the play itself or of its effect upon the mind is mere impertinence: yet people must say something. It is then the best of all Shakespear’s plays, for it is the one in which he was the most in earnest. The passion which he has taken as his subject is that which strikes its root deepest into the human heart; of which the bond is hardest to be unloosed; and the cancelling and tearing to pieces of which gives the greatest revulsion to the frame. The character of Lear itself is very finely conceived for the purpose. It is only ground on which such a story could be built with the greatest truth and effect. It is his rash haste, his violent impetuosity, his blindness to every thing but the dictates of his passions or affections, that produces all his misfortunes, that aggravates his impatience of them, that enforces people's pity for him.
