is it, then, which lends to Cordelia
that peculiar and individual truth of character, which distinguishes her
from every other human being?

It is a natural reserve, a tardiness of disposition, "which often leaves
the history unspoke which it intends to do;" a subdued quietness of
deportment and expression, a veiled shyness thrown over all her
emotions, her language and her manner; making the outward demonstration
invariably fall short of what we know to be the feeling within. Not only
is the portrait singularly beautiful and interesting in itself, but the
conduct of Cordelia, and the part which she bears in the beginning of
the story, is rendered consistent and natural by the wonderful truth and
delicacy with which this peculiar disposition is sustained throughout
the play.

In early youth, and more particularly if we are gifted with a lively
imagination, such a character as that of Cordelia is calculated above
every other to impress and captivate us. Any thing like mystery, any
thing withheld or withdrawn from our notice, seizes on our fancy by
awakening our curiosity. Then we are won more by what we half perceive
and half create, than by what is openly expressed and freely bestowed.
But this feeling is a part of our young life: when time and years have
chilled us, when we can no longer afford to send our souls abroad, nor
from our own superfluity of life and sensibility spare the materials out
of which we build a shrine for our idol--then do we seek, we ask, we
thirst for that warmth of frank, confiding tenderness, which revives in
us the withered affections and feelings, buried but not dead. Then the
excess of love is welcomed, not repelled: it is gracious to us as the
sun and dew to the seared and riven trunk, with its few green leaves.
Lear is old--"fourscore and upward"--but we see what he has been in
former days: the ardent passions of youth have turned to rashness and
wilfulness: he is long passed that age when we are more blessed in what
we bestow than in what we receive. When he says to his daughters, "I
gave ye all!" we feel that he requires all in return, with a jealous,
restless, exacting affection which defeats its own wishes. How many such
are there in the world! How many to sympathize with the fiery, fond old
man, when he shrinks as if petrified from Cordelia's quiet calm reply!

LEAR.

Now our joy,
Although the last not least--
What can you s