ess this important moral, that
villany is never at a stop, that crimes lead to crimes, and at last
terminate in ruin.

But though this moral be incidentally enforced, Shakespeare has suffered
the virtue of Cordelia to perish in a just cause, contrary to the
natural ideas of justice, to the hope of the reader, and, what is yet
more strange, to the faith of chronicles. Yet this conduct is justified
by the Spectator, who blames Tate for giving Cordelia success and
happiness in his alteration, and declares, that, in his opinion, "the
tragedy has lost half its beauty." Dennis has remarked, whether justly
or not, that, to secure the favourable reception of Cato, "the town was
poisoned with much false and abominable criticism," and that endeavours
had been used to discredit and decry poetical justice. A play in which
the wicked prosper, and the virtuous miscarry, may doubtless be good,
because it is a just representation of the common events of human life:
but since all reasonable beings 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.

In the present case the publick has decided[16]. Cordelia, from the time
of Tate, has always retired with victory and felicity. And, if my
sensations could add any thing to the general suffrage, I might relate,
I was many years ago so shocked by Cordelia's death, that I know not
whether I ever endured to read again the last scenes of the play till I
undertook to revise them as an editor.

There is another controversy among the criticks concerning this play. It
is disputed whether the predominant image in Lear's disordered mind be
the loss of his kingdom or the cruelty of his daughters. Mr. Murphy, a
very judicious critick, has evinced by induction of particular passages,
that the cruelty of his daughters is the primary source of his distress,
and that the loss of royalty affects him only as a secondary and
subordinate evil. He observes, with great justness, that Lear would move
our compassion but little, did we not rather consider the injured father
than the degraded king.

The story of this play, except the episode of Edmund, which is derived,
I think, from Sidney, is taken originally from Geoffry of Monmouth, whom
Holinshed generally copied; but, perhaps, immediately from an old
historical ballad. M