ve staid by her fire such a night as
that, and warmed himself. And she told her father how she had come
from France with purpose to bring him assistance; and he said, that
she must forget and forgive, for he was old and foolish, and did not
know what he did; but that to be sure she had great cause not to love
him, but her sisters had none. And Cordelia said, that she had no
cause, no more than they had.

So we will leave this old king in the protection of this dutiful and
loving child, where, by the help of sleep and medicine, she and her
physicians at length succeeded in winding up the untuned and jarring
senses which the cruelty of his other daughters had so violently
shaken. Let us return to say a word or two about those cruel
daughters.

These monsters of ingratitude, who had been so false to their old
father, could not be expected to prove more faithful to their own
husbands. They soon grew tired of paying even the appearance of duty
and affection, and in an open way shewed they had fixed their loves
upon another. It happened that the object of their guilty loves was
the same. It was Edmund, a natural son of the late earl of Gloucester,
who by his treacheries had succeeded in disinheriting his brother
Edgar the lawful heir from his earldom, and by his wicked practices
was now earl himself: a wicked man, and a fit object for the love of
such wicked creatures as Gonerill and Regan. It falling out about
this time that the duke of Cornwall, Regan's husband, died, Regan
immediately declared her intention of wedding this earl of Gloucester,
which rousing the jealousy of her sister, to whom as well as to Regan
this wicked earl had at sundry times professed love, Gonerill found
means to make away with her sister by poison: but being detected in
her practices, and imprisoned by her husband the duke of Albany, for
this deed, and for her guilty passion for the earl which had come to
his ears, she in a fit of disappointed love and rage shortly put an
end to her own life. Thus the justice of Heaven at last overtook these
wicked daughters.

While the eyes of all men were upon this event, admiring the justice
displayed in their deserved deaths, the same eyes were suddenly taken
off from this sight to admire at the mysterious ways of the same power
in the melancholy fate of the young and virtuous daughter, the lady
Cordelia, whose good deeds did seem to deserve a more fortunate
conclusion: but it is an awful truth, that innoce