while after their publication the satirist was at liberty to say a good word for Halifax, as he has said a good word for Addison. But whatever skill has been shown in the framing or hanging of the pictures, this Prologue or Epistle must be always regarded as a splendid gallery; though we may question whether the likenesses are not idealised throughout, by self-flattery where he talks of his own life, as by animosity where his subject is Atticus, Bufo, or Sporus. The Epilogue is not equal to the Prologue. The satire is transient, not concentrated; and the grand passage about the triumph of Vice- ' perhaps the noblest,' according to Warton, in all his works, without any exception whatever'-is, I think, one of those where Pope does not rise to the full height of his subject. An allegorical picture might doubtless be founded on the hints there given; but the attitude of most of the figures, and the expression of their features, would have to be the painter's own; and the conception which is most carefully elaborated, that of England's genius dragged at the chariot-wheels of the victorious power of evil, would be but too susceptible of a commonplace rendering.

But it is time to conclude a task which it is perhaps presumptuous to have undertaken. I should be glad to think that what has been here attempted insufficiently would be adequately performed by some other writer. Pope's poetry has hardly received yet the careful critical examination which it deserves. The last century, indeed, can boast of Johnson's masterly critique, and the more elaborate, though less penetrating, survey by Warton. But I am not aware of anything in our own day which meets the requirements of the subject. At one time it was made a battle-field for rival poets-Bowles, Campbell, and Byron-to fight out their contending theories; but no poet has done for Pope what Scott has done for

WANT OF GOOD CRITICISM ON POPE'S POETRY. 73

Dryden, producing a biography which is a real contribution to the history of English poetry. Parts of his works have been examined effectively by Professor Wilson and Mr. de Quincey; but there is no single judgment of his various writings worthy of being named with those articles on Dryden with which the 'Edinburgh Review' has been successively enriched by two of its most distinguished contributors.1 But the union of great knowledge of literary history with great power of poetical criticism is rare; where those qualities exist together there are other fields to invite them; and it is possible that we may have to wait some time before our literature receives the desired accession.

1 Vols. xiii. and xlvii. There are some valuable remarks in a third article on Dryden in the volume for 1855. The article on Pope, in vol. xxxii. of the Quarterly Review, contains some just criticism.

IN proposing to speak of one of the greatest works of England's greatest poet, I have chosen a subject which cannot have much recommendation on the ground of novelty. Where, however, there is so much power and beauty, there is sure to be novelty enough. We can never be certain that we apprehend that power and beauty fully -rather, we may be certain that we never can fully apprehend them; and so, regarding our wealth as inexhaustible, we may well expect that each successive visit to the treasure-house will only enable us to carry away more.

Most of us know the story of King Lear too well to need being reminded of it at any great length. We know how the king, feeling old age increase upon him, resolves to disburden himself of his royalty, and share his kingdom among his three daughters-how the two elder, in return for their large professions of love, receive their portions, while the third, not caring to vie with them in lip-service, is excluded from her inheritance-how the king finds his elder daughters grudge him the entertainment they had promised him at their courts-how he expostulates till impatience turns to madness, and he breaks away, a houseless wanderer, seeking refuge, as it were, in the storm without from the storm within-how his discarded daughter levies an army to reinstate her father in his kingdom-how she is vanquished and put to death in spite of those who

1 This Lecture was delivered at the Boston Athenæum, the Oxford Working Men's Association, and the Woodstock Night Schools in 1857 and 1858. In printing this and the following Lecture the Editor has made but few verbal alterations.

would have saved her-and how the worn-out thread of his life is snapped by the shock, and he dies upon her body. We are acquainted, too, with the by-plot, if such a name can properly be given to what is really an integral part of that grand complex unity-the second story of filial ingratitude and filial love, of the base-born son who supplants his brother and his father, and the lawful son who, himself an outcast, attends on the father who had wronged him, as he wanders helpless and blind. After this preliminary recapitulation we may proceed to the play itself, which I shall attempt to recall to recollection by the quotation of the more striking passages.

In the opening of the play we have a conversation between two noblemen, the Earl of Kent and the Earl of Gloster, on the partition of the kingdom, which has been already announced, though not formally carried into effect. So far the dialogue would seem to be merely a simple and natural introduction to the play, in which no more is meant than meets the eye. But this is not all. Gloster has with him his base-born son, Edmund, and the conversation happens to turn on him, when it is conducted, on the part of the father at least, in a vein of levity which passes into grossness. Readers of Shakspeare will be apt to conclude that this is no more than the ordinary manner of speaking, such as is unhappily only too common in the works of the poet and his contemporaries. But I believe that in this case at least Shakspeare meant much more. Gloster has a terrible future in store for him, and that future is to be brought about through the instrumentality of that very son of whose birth he now speaks so lightly. When we see him the sufferer in a scene which for its combination of physical and moral horror is probably unmatched in any of Shakspeare's undisputed works, the victim of a fate which, however softened and alleviated, renders life henceforth a blank and a desola

tion, we feel indeed the deepest pity; but we cannot help recurring in thought to the original fault which in the order of Providence has been destined so to avenge itself. This is no mere imaginary connection of sin and suffering: it is what Shakspeare himself intended us to observe. When Edmund is dying, in the Fifth Act, Edgar speaks to him of their father:

The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices
Make instruments to plague us.

The dark and vicious place where thee he got
Cost him his eyes.

With this connection before us, we cannot doubt that there is a real significance in the lightness with which Gloster in this first scene is made to speak of the sin of his youth. It shows us that he has yet to be taught by suffering; it projects, as it were, the dark shadow of the event. Further, it affords a glimpse of the kind of influences that have been allowed to work on Edmund's own mind. He is the child of a shame which he knows is thought no shame; and so it is scarcely more than natural that he should plot against a brother to whom he deems himself unjustly postponed, and even against a father who, though he ought to have inspired love, can hardly have established a claim to respect. Thus in the compass of a short and seemingly slight dialogue, we are already made acquainted with one of the chief agencies which is to bring about the catastrophe.

The force of the scene of the giving away of the kingdom is patent to everybody. In saying that Lear resigns his power to those who love him not, and excludes her who alone truly loves him, we have in effect said all. The error and injustice have been committed once for all, and the object of the rest of the play is simply to bring their