Coleridge says: "Kent is perhaps the nearest approach to perfect goodness in all Shakespeare's characters, and the most individualised". His loyal love stands in bright contrast to Lear's selfishness. He asks only to love, not to be loved. His conscience is ever clear, his loyalty unwavering, his trust in Cordelia absolute. See him sitting in the stocks, thinking the moon comes out in order that he may be comforted by the dear letter of Cordelia, and falling asleep as he reads it, like a tired child. He is faithful not to death, but beyond; and when Lear passes away, he sinks too :—

"I have a journey, too, shortly to go;

My master calls me; I must not say no".

Kent is contrasted with Oswald :

"No contraries hold more antipathies

Than I and such a knave".

Yet there is in Oswald a consistent mercenary loyalty towards his employer. As Edgar says:—

"I know thee well: a serviceable villain,
As duteous to the vices of thy mistress
As badness would desire".

(Act iv., sc. vi.)

Kent calls him "a superserviceable slave," "a dog" to follow those who feed him; and the fool describes him as a "Sir who serves and seeks for gain". Such loyalty is utterly opposed, however, to that of Kent, who in disguise

Followed his enemy king, and did him service
Improper for a slave ".

Externally, too, how different is he from the true gentleman. Do we not see the dandy conscious of his clothes, as the earl in fustian looks him down and says, "A tailor made thee". Kent is not ashamed of

poverty, but he knows what will provoke a flunkey when he calls Oswald a "three-suited, hundred-pound, worsted-stocking knave". See the vulgarity of Oswald's manners, bowing, smiling, or grimacing whenever he speaks. He is clearly one of Cornwall's "twenty ducking observants". He tries to look contemptuous, but is really terrified at Kent :

says Kent,

"Such smiling rogues,"

"A plague upon your epileptic visage !
Smile you my speeches, as I were a fool!"

It is he who has fanned into a flame the anger of
Goneril.

"Gon.: Did my father strike my gentleman for chiding of his

fool?

"Oswald: Ay, madam."

(Act i., sc. iii.)

And then he goes from her to provoke the king, and to carry her cruel letters to Regan. Kent knew all this, hence his violent words, that he might make the coward fight. Hence his indignant protest :—

"Such rogues,

Like rats, oft bite the holy cords atwain

Which are too intrinse t' unloose! smooth every passion
That in the natures of their lords rebels;

Bring oil to fire, snow to their colder moods;
Renague, affirm, and turn their halcyon beaks
With every gale and vary of their masters,
Knowing nought, like dogs, but following".

(Act ii., sc. ii.)

Oswald it was who informed against Gloster, and for gain sought to kill the blind old man. Yet base as he was, he was throughout "duteous to his mistress". Regan could extract nothing from him, and his last thought was for the safe delivery of Goneril's letter.

Of Edmund we need say but few words, he is a

more ordinary villain, a cross between Iago and Richard III., and a Mephistopheles in his cold wickedness. Yet even him we may pity, when we remember he was an outcast and a homeless exile for nine long years. Some little hint we have of what he might have been had he lived amongst good men :—

"This speech of yours hath mov'd me,
And shall perchance do good,"

(Act v., sc. iii.)

what he might have become, if a pure and holy love could have been his, when the thought that any one, even those wicked sisters, cared for him, made him wish to be better.

"Yet Edmund was beloved:

The one the other poison'd for my sake
And after slew herself".

"I pant for life: some good I mean to do,
Despite of mine own nature."

(Act v., sc. iii.)

Much remains to say of the simple devotion of the poor fool, much of the general aspect of the time, but this has been treated more fully by Ulrici and Gervinus. The play has supplied many saws with which we are familiar-best known of all :

and

"A dog's obeyed in office."

"Truth's a dog must to kennel ".

"Speak less than thou knowest."

"Fortune ne'er turns the key to the poor."

"We'll set thee to school to an ant, to teach thee.

There's no labouring in the winter."

"Let go thy hold, when a great wheel runs down a hill, but the great one that goes upward, let him draw thee after."

"He that hath and a little thing wit

Must make content with his fortunes fit."
"Striving to better, oft we mar what's well."

On the Theology of Paradise Lost.

ON DIFFERENT THEOLOGICAL CONCEPTIONS OF SEVENTEENTH CENTURY AND OUR OWN DAY EMBODIED IN THE FORM OF IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.

NINETEENTH century to seventeenth.

19th: The world believes that monotheism has long been the faith at least of Europe-but surely there are still many gods that are worshipped. What, e.g., is your own conception as set forth in your great poem which we still read and admire for its grandeur, and which some regard as Bible truth? Your teaching regarding God and the devil seems to me abominable, and quite opposed to the teaching of Christ. Now what do you understand by God?

17th: A Being, Almighty, All-wise, All-good.

19th: But what is your definition of good?
17th: One is good who is a just ruler. }
19th: What is your idea of just rule?

17th: The establishment of perfect order. Kosmos as opposed to chaos.

19th: This would be my idea of goodness in a machine, and in the material universe regarded as such-but granted the possibility of any being besides God, i.e., an intellectual and moral vera causa, with a limited perception of truth, and a limited power of love, he must be capable of thinking and willing other than God; if the fundamental doctrine of Puritanism is right, that we are to submit to no external authority, his duty will in that case surely be to do what seems to him the

right, even though it be different from what God has pronounced to be right.

17th: Then if he does, God knowing that creature is wrong, if he cannot get him to understand, or trust, or submit, is bound to use his Almighty power to save the universe.

19th: Your conception of God seems to me wholly evil-it is the worship then of mere force, not of goodness. What title has God to force Lucifer to do homage? If he and others believe himself to be a worthier vicegerent than the Christ, surely they were right to protest, and a ruler who could treat the angel hosts as they were treated, because in their judgment the supreme force was wrong, is in my eyes worse than the devil. To call the God of Milton Love, is to call black white.

17th: I believe the outrageously wicked teaching of which I hear so much now is due to your false conception of goodness. Why, a good Being must, as far as he is able, bring about good. I hear it is the fashion in your world now to hate authority and power merely as such. If another is abler or richer, especially if another is a ruler, that is enough, he is to be blown up with dynamite; the poor Czar was not killed because he had done any wrong, but because he was Czar-landlords are stabbed because they are landlords à bas les aristocrats, we will have our rights-to smash and destroy goods honestly gained, to hinder peaceable people from doing what they wish. Why in my day people's hair stood up, when they heard of gunpowder plot; now Guy forsooth must no longer be burnt; and Cabinet ministers make alliances with the Guys of to-day. My idea of the devil is an archrebel, he hates all authority and power, and under his rule chaos would return, his character I see in those