m old, wayward,
unreasonable, piteous: he is still terrible, grand, the king of men.
Through his eyes we see the Lear of Lear's prime, whom Cordelia never
saw. Kent never forgets this Lear. In the Storm-scenes, even after the
King becomes insane, Kent never addresses him without the old terms of
respect, 'your grace,' 'my lord,' 'sir.' How characteristic it is that
in the scene of Lear's recovery Kent speaks to him but once: it is when
the King asks 'Am I in France?' and he answers 'In your own kingdom,
sir.'

In acting the part of a blunt and eccentric serving-man Kent retains
much of his natural character. The eccentricity seems to be put on, but
the plainness which gets him set in the stocks is but an exaggeration of
his plainness in the opening scene, and Shakespeare certainly meant him
for one of those characters whom we love none the less for their
defects. He is hot and rash; noble but far from skilful in his
resistance to the King; he might well have chosen wiser words to gain
his point. But, as he himself says, he has more man than wit about him.
He shows this again when he rejoins Lear as a servant, for he at once
brings the quarrel with Goneril to a head; and, later, by falling upon
Oswald, whom he so detests that he cannot keep his hands off him, he
provides Regan and Cornwall with a pretext for their inhospitality. One
has not the heart to wish him different, but he illustrates the truth
that to run one's head unselfishly against a wall is not the best way to
help one's friends.

One fact about Kent is often overlooked. He is an old man. He tells Lear
that he is eight and forty, but it is clear that he is much older; not
so old as his master, who was 'four-score and upward' and whom he 'loved
as his father,' but, one may suppose, three-score and upward. From the
first scene we get this impression, and in the scene with Oswald it is
repeatedly confirmed. His beard is grey. 'Ancient ruffian,' 'old
fellow,' 'you stubborn ancient knave, you reverent braggart'--these are
some of the expressions applied to him. 'Sir,' he says to Cornwall, 'I
am too old to learn.' If his age is not remembered, we fail to realise
the full beauty of his thoughtlessness of himself, his incessant care of
the King, his light-hearted indifference to fortune or fate.[174] We
lose also some of the naturalness and pathos of his feeling that his
task is nearly done. Even at the end of the Fourth Act we find him
saying,

My point an