It is at the close of this scene that the misfortune which he has dreaded so much, overtakes him: "his wits," as Kent observes, "begin to unsettle;" but it is not a total dereliction of intellect: Lear is neither absolutely delirious, nor maniacal; but he labours under that species of hallucination which leaves to the wretched sufferer a sense of his own unhappiness: a state of being, beyond all others, calculated to awaken the most thrilling sensations of pity.
A picture of more terrible grandeur or of wilder sublimity, than what occurs, during the exposure of the aged monarch to the impetuous fury of the storm, was never imagined. Every thing conspires to render it unparalleled in its powers of impression. On a
night, when the conflicting elements of fire, air, and water, deafen nature itself with their uproar; on a night,
———— "wherein the cub-drawn bear would couch,
The lion and the belly-pinched wolf
Keep their fur dry,"[464:A]
is the miserable old king driven out by his unnatural daughters, to wander over a bleak and barren heath in search of shelter, destitute of even common necessaries, a very beggar on the bounty of his former subjects, and accompanied only by his fool, and the faithful though banished Kent. It is with difficulty that they persuade him to take refuge from the storm; at length, he yields, at the same time addressing the fool in terms which, perhaps more than any other lines in the play, unveil the native goodness of his heart:—
————————————— "Come, your hovel,
Poor Fool and knave, I have one part in my heart
That's sorry yet for thee."[464:B]