Yet this conduct is justified
by _The Spectator_, who blames Tate for giving Cordelia success and
happiness in his alteration, and declares, that, in his opinion, _the
tragedy has lost half its beauty_. Dennis has remarked, whether justly
or not, that, to secure the favourable reception of _Cato, the town was
poisoned with much false and abominable criticism_, and that endeavours
had been used to discredit and decry poetical justice. A play in which
the wicked prosper, and the virtuous miscarry, may doubtless be good,
because it is a just representation of the common events of human life:
but since all reasonable beings naturally love justice, I cannot easily
be persuaded, that the observation of justice makes a play worse; or,
that if other excellencies are equal, the audience will not always rise
better pleased from the final triumph of persecuted virtue.
In the present case the public has decided. Cordelia, from the time of
Tate, has always retired with victory and felicity. And, if my
sensations could add any thing to the general suffrage, I night relate,
I was many years ago so shocked by Cordelia's death, that I know not
whether I ever endured to read again the last scenes of the play till I
undertook to revise them as an editor.
There is another controversy among the critics concerning this play. It
is disputed whether the predominant image in Lear's disordered mind be
the loss of his kingdom or the cruelty of his daughters.
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