support--
'Twixt two extremes of passion, joy and grief,
Burst smilingly.

So far, the resemblance of the two stories, and also of the ways in
which their painful effect is modified, is curiously close. And in
character too Gloster is, like his master, affectionate,[166] credulous
and hasty. But otherwise he is sharply contrasted with the tragic Lear,
who is a towering figure, every inch a king,[167] while Gloster is built
on a much smaller scale, and has infinitely less force and fire. He is,
indeed, a decidedly weak though good-hearted man; and, failing wholly to
support Kent in resisting Lear's original folly and injustice,[168] he
only gradually takes the better part. Nor is his character either very
interesting or very distinct. He often gives one the impression of being
wanted mainly to fill a place in the scheme of the play; and, though it
would be easy to give a long list of his characteristics, they scarcely,
it seems to me, compose an individual, a person whom we are sure we
should recognise at once. If this is so, the fact is curious,
considering how much we see and hear of him.

I will add a single note. Gloster is the superstitious character of the
drama,--the only one. He thinks much of 'these late eclipses in the sun
and moon.' His two sons, from opposite points of view, make nothing of
them. His easy acceptance of the calumny against Edgar is partly due to
this weakness, and Edmund builds upon it, for an evil purpose, when he
describes Edgar thus:

Here stood he in the dark, his sharp sword out,
Mumbling of wicked charms, conjuring the moon,
To prove's auspicious mistress.

Edgar in turn builds upon it, for a good purpose, when he persuades his
blind father that he was led to jump down Dover cliff by the temptation
of a fiend in the form of a beggar, and was saved by a miracle:

As I stood here below, methought his eyes
Were two full moons; he had a thousand noses,
Horns whelk'd and waved like the enridged sea:
It was some fiend; therefore, thou happy father,
Think that the clearest gods, who make them honours
Of men's impossibilities, have preserved thee.

This passage is odd in its collocation of the thousand noses and the
clearest gods, of grotesque absurdity and extreme seriousness. Edgar
knew that the 'fiend' was really Gloster's 'worser spirit,' and that
'the gods' were himself. Doubtless, however--for he is the most
religious person