ss, where the King and the Fool and the Tom-o'-Bedlam conspire
to produce such a medley of mirth checked by misery, and misery
rebuked by mirth; where the society of those "strange bedfellows"
which misfortunes have brought Lear acquainted with, so finely sets
forth the destitute state of the monarch; while the lunatic bans of
the one, and the disjointed sayings and wild but pregnant allusions
of the other, so wonderfully sympathize with that confusion, which
they seem to assist in the production of, in the senses of that
"child-changed father."

In the scene in Bedlam, which terminates the _Rake's Progress_, we
find the same assortment of the ludicrous with the terrible. Here is
desperate madness, the overturning of originally strong thinking
faculties, at which we shudder, as we contemplate the duration and
pressure of affliction which it must have asked to destroy such a
building;--and here is the gradual hurtless lapse into idiocy, of
faculties, which at their best of times never having been strong, we
look upon the consummation of their decay with no more of pity than
is consistent with a smile. The mad tailor, the poor driveller that
has gone out of his wits (and truly he appears to have had no great
journey to go to get past their confines) for the love of _Charming
Betty Careless_,--. these half-laughable, scarce-pitiable objects,
take off from the horror which the principal figure would of itself
raise, at the same time that they assist the feeling of the scene by
contributing to the general notion of its subject:--

"Madness, thou chaos of the brain,
What art, that pleasure giv'st and pain?
Tyranny of Fancy's reign!
Mechanic Fancy, that can build
Vast labyrinths and mazes wild,
With rule disjointed, shapeless measure,
Fill'd with horror, fill'd with pleasure!
Shapes of horror, that would even
Cast doubts of mercy upon heaven;
Shapes of pleasure, that but seen,
Would split the shaking sides of Spleen."[1]

[Footnote 1: Lines inscribed under the plate]

Is it carrying the spirit of comparison to excess to remark, that in
the poor kneeling weeping female who accompanies her seducer in his
sad decay, there is something analogous to Kent, or Caius, as he
delights rather to be called, in _Lear_,--the noblest pattern of
virtue which even Shakspeare has conceived,--who follows his royal
master in banishment, that had pronounced _his_ banishment, and
forgetful at once of his wrongs and di