_King Lear_.—There are passages in _King Lear_ which are enough to make us wish we had never been born. They are almost an impeachment of the Ruler of the Universe, and yet—there is Cordelia. Whence did she come? She is as much His handiwork as Regan, and in all our conclusions about Him we must take her into account. Lear does not go mad. He is mad from the beginning, but his madness is in abeyance. Look at the style of his curses on Goneril. Coleridge’s criticism is exact: ‘Lear’s self-supportless leaning for all pleasure on another’s breast.’ If a man desires not to go mad or not to be soured into oil of vitriol, let him watch the doors of his heart; let him never solicit any expression of love. Cordelia’s ‘nothing, my lord,’ as Coleridge says, is partly irrepressible disgust at her sisters’ hypocrisy. There was also, as France admits, ‘a tardiness in nature’ in Cordelia. She was her father’s favourite, but what sort of a life must she have lived with such a father before the time at which the play opens? We ought not to be surprised that she refuses to be demonstrative. She reacts against his exaggeration. I cannot read the blinding of Gloucester. The only excuse that can be offered, not good for much, is that Shakespeare found the story in the _Arcadia_, and that in his day horrors on the stage were not so repulsive as they are to us. Cordelia’s death taken from Holinshed is almost as bad. It is not involved in the tragedy like the death of Ophelia or of Desdemona. * * * * * _All’s Well that Ends Well_.—Johnson comments, ‘I cannot reconcile my heart to Bertram; a man noble without generosity, and young without truth; who married Helena as a coward, and leaves her as a profligate: when she is dead by his unkindness, sneaks home to a second marriage, is accused by a woman whom he has wronged, defends himself by falsehood, and is dismissed to happiness.’ This is just. Bertram is atrocious. With Helena before him he says, ‘If she, my liege, can make me know this clearly, I’ll love her dearly, ever, ever dearly.’ Did he require a deposition on oath in presence of a magistrate? He deserved a scourging in the market place. Coleridge calls Helena one of Shakespeare’s loveliest women. I cannot agree. She secures her husband’s embraces under a false pretence. How a woman could consent to lie in the arms of a man who had cast her off, and who believed when he was enjoying her that she was a mistress whom he preferred is beyond my comprehension. It is so in Boccaccio, but that is no excuse. Devotion to a man who is indifferent or who hates, is tragically possible, but in its greatest intensity would hardly permit such humiliation. The play is bad altogether. What was the necessity for suggesting Bertram’s second marriage? There is nowhere any trace of Shakespeare’s depth. The difficulties of the text are singular, and seem to mark this drama as one different from the rest.