qualifications; and therefore I do not add the
names of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth.]

[Footnote 186: It follows from the above that, if this idea were made
explicit and accompanied our reading of a tragedy throughout, it would
confuse or even destroy the tragic impression. So would the constant
presence of Christian beliefs. The reader most attached to these beliefs
holds them in temporary suspension while he is immersed in a
Shakespearean tragedy. Such tragedy assumes that the world, as it is
presented, is the truth, though it also provokes feelings which imply
that this world is not the whole truth, and therefore not the truth.]

[Footnote 187: Though Cordelia, of course, does not occupy the position
of the hero.]

[Footnote 188: _E.g._ in _King Lear_ the servants, and the old man who
succours Gloster and brings to the naked beggar 'the best 'parel that he
has, come on't what will,' _i.e._ whatever vengeance Regan can inflict.
Cf. the Steward and the Servants in _Timon_. Cf. there also (V. i. 23),
'Promising is the very air o' the time ... performance is ever the
duller for his act; and, _but in the plainer and simpler kind of
people_, the deed of saying [performance of promises] is quite out of
use.' Shakespeare's feeling on this subject, though apparently specially
keen at this time of his life, is much the same throughout (cf. Adam in
_As You Like It_). He has no respect for the plainer and simpler kind of
people as politicians, but a great respect and regard for their hearts.]

[Footnote 189: 'I stumbled when I saw,' says Gloster.]

[Footnote 190: Our advantages give us a blind confidence in our
security. Cf. _Timon_, IV. iii. 76,

_Alc._ I have heard in some sort of thy miseries.

_Tim._ Thou saw'st them when I had prosperity.]

[Footnote 191: Biblical ideas seem to have been floating in
Shakespeare's mind. Cf. the words of Kent, when Lear enters with
Cordelia's body, 'Is this the promised end?' and Edgar's answer, 'Or
image of that horror?' The 'promised end' is certainly the end of the
world (cf. with 'image' 'the great doom's image,' _Macbeth_, II. iii.
83); and the next words, Albany's 'Fall and cease,' _may_ be addressed
to the heavens or stars, not to Lear. It seems probable that in writing
Gloster's speech about the predicted horrors to follow 'these late
eclipses' Shakespeare had a vague recollection of the passage in
_Matthew_ xxiv., or of that in _Mark_ xiii., about the tribulations
wh