But there of that he was deny'd, Thus 'twixt his daughters, for relief And calling to remembrance then He bore the wounds of woe: Which made him rend his milk-white locks, And tresses from his head, And all with blood bestain his cheeks, With age and honour spread: To hills and woods, and watry founts, Till hills and woods, and senseless things, Even thus possest with discontents, In hopes from fair Cordelia there To find some gentler chance: Most virtuous dame! which when she heard Of this her father's grief, As duty bound, she quickly sent Him comfort and relief: And by a train of noble peers, In brave and gallant sort, She gave in charge he should be brought To Aganippus' court; Whose royal king, with noble mind, So freely gave consent, To muster up his knights at arms, And so to England came with speed, To repossess king Leir, And drive his daughters from their thrones By his Cordelia dear: Where she, true hearted noble queen, Was in the battle slain: Yet he good king, in his old days, But when he heard Cordelia's death, Of her dear father, in whose cause But on her bosom left his life, The lords and nobles when they saw The other sisters unto death They doomed by consents; And being dead, their crowns they left Thus have you seen the fall of pride, *This ballad, which by no means deserves a place in any edition of Shakspeare, is evidently a most servile pursuit,-not, indeed, of our author's play, which the writer does not appear to have read, but-of Holinshed's Chronicle, where, as in Geoffrey of Monmouth, the King of France is called Aganippus. I suppose, however, that the performance and celebrity of the play might have set the balladmaker at work, and furnished him with the circumstance of Lear's madness, of which there is no hint either in the historian or the old play. The omission of any other striking incident may be fairly imputed to his want of either genius or information. All he had to do was to spin out a sort of narrative in a sort of verse, to be sung about the streets, and make advantage of the publick curiosity. I much doubt whether any common ballad can be produced anterior to a play upon the same subject, unless in the case of some very recent event. Ritson. |