in the play--he thought that it _was_ the gods who,
through him, had preserved his father; but he knew that the truth could
only enter this superstitious mind in a superstitious form.

The combination of parallelism and contrast that we observe in Lear and
Gloster, and again in the attitude of the two brothers to their father's
superstition, is one of many indications that in _King Lear_ Shakespeare
was working more than usual on a basis of conscious and reflective
ideas. Perhaps it is not by accident, then, that he makes Edgar and Lear
preach to Gloster in precisely the same strain. Lear says to him:

If thou wilt weep my fortunes, take my eyes.
I know thee well enough; thy name is Gloster:
Thou must be patient; we came crying hither:
Thou know'st, the first time that we smell the air,
We wawl and cry. I will preach to thee: mark.

Edgar's last words to him are:

What, in ill thoughts again? Men must endure
Their going hence, even as their coming hither:
Ripeness is all.

Albany is merely sketched, and he is so generally neglected that a few
words about him may be in place. He too ends a better and wiser man than
he began. When the play opens he is, of course, only just married to
Goneril; and the idea is, I think, that he has been bewitched by her
fiery beauty not less than by her dowry. He is an inoffensive
peace-loving man, and is overborne at first by his 'great love' for his
wife and by her imperious will. He is not free from responsibility for
the treatment which the King receives in his house; the Knight says to
Lear, 'there's a great abatement of kindness appears as well in the
general dependants as in _the duke himself also_ and your daughter.' But
he takes no part in the quarrel, and doubtless speaks truly when he
protests that he is as guiltless as ignorant of the cause of Lear's
violent passion. When the King departs, he begins to remonstrate with
Goneril, but shrinks in a cowardly manner, which is a trifle comical,
from contest with her. She leaves him behind when she goes to join
Regan, and he is not further responsible for what follows. When he hears
of it, he is struck with horror: the scales drop from his eyes, Goneril
becomes hateful to him, he determines to revenge Gloster's eyes. His
position is however very difficult, as he is willing to fight against
Cordelia in so far as her army is French, and unwilling in so far as she
represents her father. This di