King Lear: Macready as Lear, London, Covent Garden Theatre, 1838. Shakespeare's Cliff as backdrop.

"Mr. Macready's Lear, remarkable before for a masterly completeness of perception, is heightened by introduction of the Fool to a surprising g degree. . . . His love for the Fool is associated with Cordelia, who has been kind to the poor boy, and for the loss of whom he pines away. And are we not even then prepared for the sublime pathos of the close, when Lear, bending over the dead body of all he had left to love upon earth, connects with her the memory of that other gentle, faithful, and loving being who had passed from his side - unites, in that moment of final agony, the two hearts that had been broken in his service - and exclaims 'And my poor fool is hanged!'" Theatrical Examiner (London) Feb. 4 1838: 19th C. London Library Newspapers.