Part 24 (1/2)

_Lear_. Why?

_Fool_. Why, to put his head in; not to give it away to his daughters, and leave his horns without a case.

_Lear_. ... Be my horses ready?

_Fool_. Thy a.s.ses are gone about 'em. The reason why the seven stars are no more than seven, is a pretty reason.

_Lear_. Because they are not eight?

_Fool_. Yes, indeed: Thou wouldest make a good--fool.

He cannot tell how an _oyster_ makes his sh.e.l.l, but the nose has not stood in the middle of _his_ face for nothing. There has been some prying on either side of it, apparently; and he has pried to such good purpose, that some of the prime secrets of the new philosophy appear to have turned up in his researches. 'To take it again _perforce_,'

mutters the king. 'If thou wert my fool, Nuncle, I'd have thee beaten _for being_ OLD _before thy time_.' [This is a wit 'of the self-same colour' with that one who discovered that the times from which the world's practical wisdom was inherited, were the times when the world was young. 'They told me I had white hairs in my beard ere the black ones were there!'] 'I'd have thee beaten for being old before thy time.'--'_How's_ that?'--'Thou shouldst _not_ have been OLD _before thou hadst been_ WISE.'

And it is in the Second Act that poor Kent, in his misfortunes, furnishes occasion for another avowal on the part of this same learned critic, of a preference for a practical philosophy, though borrowed from the lower species. He comes upon the object of his criticism as he sits in the stocks, because he could not adopt the style of his time with sufficient earnestness, though he does make an attempt 'to go out of his dialect,' but was not more happy in it than some other men of his politics were, in the Poet's time.

'Sir, in good sooth, in sincere verity, _Under the allowance of your grand aspect, Whose influence, like the wreath of radiant fire On flickering Phebus' front--_

_Cornwall_. 'What mean'st by this?'

_Kent_. 'To go out of my dialect, _which you discommend so much_.

[Halting in his blank verse for the explanation]:--It is from that seat, to which the plainness of this man, with the official dignities of his time, has conducted him, that he puts the inquiry to that keen observer, whose observations in natural history have just been quoted,--

_Kent_. How chances that the _king comes with so small a train_?

_Fool_. An thou had'st been set in the stocks for that question, _thou, had'st well deserved it_.

_Kent_. Why, fool?

_Fool_. We'll set thee _to school to an ant_, to teach thee there is no labouring in the winter. All that follow their noses are _led by their eyes_, but--BLIND MEN.

_Kent_. Where learned'st thou _that_, fool?

_Fool_. Not in the stocks, _fool_.

[Not from being punished with the sequent effect; not in consequence of an improvidence, that an _ant_ might have taught me to avoid.]

'I have no _way_, and _therefore_ want no eyes,' says another duke, who is also the victim of that '_absolute_' authority which is abroad in this play. 'I stumbled when I _saw_,' and this is _his prayer_.

Let the superfluous and l.u.s.t-dieted man That slaves your ordinance; that will not SEE Because he doth not FEEL, _feel_ your power quickly.

'Thou seest how this world goes,' says the outcast king, meeting this poor outcast duke, just after his eyes had been taken out of his head, by the persons then occupying the chief offices in the state. 'Thou seest how this world goes.' 'I SEE it FEELINGLY,' is the duke's reply.

_Lear_. What! art _mad_? A man may _see_ how this world goes with _no_ eyes. Look with thine _ears_.

And his account of how it goes is--as we shall see--one that requires to be looked at with _ears_, for it contains, what one calls elsewhere in this play,--_ear-kissing_ arguments.--'Get thee _gla.s.s_ eyes,' he says, in conclusion, 'and like a scurvy _politician_ pretend to SEE, the things thou dost not.' And that was not the kind of politician, and that was not the kind of political eye-sight, to which this statesman, and seer, proposed to leave the times, that his legacy should fall on, whatever he might be compelled to tolerate in his own.

'Upon _the crown_ o' the cliff. What _thing_ was that Which parted from you?'

'_A poor unfortunate beggar_.' [Softly.]