Of the alterations introduced by this reformer of Shakspeare, the first and most obvious is the change of the catastrophe. King Lear and Cordelia, instead of dying as in the original, are finally triumphant, and _live very happy after_. Here is improvement, here is poetical justice, here is every thing that can be desired to the perfection of a drama. "Since all reasonable beings," says doctor Johnson, "naturally love justice, I cannot easily be persuaded, that the observation of justice makes a play worse; or that, if other excellencies are equal, the audience will not always rise better pleased from the final triumph of persecuted virtue." This reasoning is just; but the critic has unfortunately advanced a sentence, which must be a perpetual stumbling-block to every advocate of Tate, viz. "_if other excellencies are equal_," &c. Had Shakspeare chosen, according to the "faith of chronicles," to represent Cordelia triumphant; had he adorned the scenes of poetical justice with his peculiar spirit, and nature, and poetry; then indeed the excellencies of the drama, though different in kind, would probably have been equal in magnitude: though I think it very doubtful, whether even then the change of the catastrophe would not have been a deformity, rather than an improvement. Unquestionably our affection for persecuted virtue is strengthened by the very distresses in which it is involved. The triumph of Cordelia would certainly draw from us an instantaneous acknowledgment of satisfaction: but the impression could not be lasting; while her fall is fixed more deeply on the attention, and raises a more permanent feeling of pity for her sufferings, and indignation against her persecutors. Shakspeare must have thought so, when he chose, in violation of the truth of history, to deprive her of poetical justice. To conclude the question relative to the catastrophe, it is utterly impossible that the mind of Lear should be capable of surviving so violent a change of circumstances. In the original, he is very naturally represented by Shakspeare as bending under the weight of his calamities, and expiring of a broken heart. "_Enter Lear, with Cordelia dead in his arms._ "_Lear._ Howl, howl, howl, howl!--O, you are men of stones; Had I your tongues and eyes, I'd use them so That heaven's vault should crack:--O, she is gone forever!-- I know, when one is dead, and when one lives; She's dead as earth.---- "Cordelia, Cordelia, stay a little. Ha! What is't thou says't?--Her voice was ever soft, Gentle, and low; an excellent thing in woman:-- I kill'd the slave that was a hanging thee. And my poor fool is hang'd! No, no, no life: Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life, And thou no breath at all? O, thou wilt come no more, Never, never, never, never, never!--