That it intends to do ?-My lord of Burgundy, What say you to the lady? Love is not love, When it is mingled with respects," that stand Aloof from the entire point. Will you have her? She is herself a dowry.

Bur.
Royal Lear,
Give but that portion which yourself propos'd,
And here I take Cordelia by the hand,
Duchess of Burgundy.

Lear. Nothing: I have sworn: I am firm.
Bur. I am sorry, then, you have so lost a father,
That you must lose a husband.

France. Come, my fair Cordelia.

KING LEAR.

[Exeunt FRANCE and CORDELIA. Gon. Sister, it is not a little I have to say, of what most nearly appertains to us both. our father will hence to-night. I think,

Reg. That's most certain, and with you; next month with us.

Gon. You see how full of changes his age is; the observation we have made of it hath not been little he always loved our sister most; and with what poor judgment he hath now cast her off, appears too grossly.

Reg. "Tis the infirmity of his age: yet he hath ever but slenderly known himself.

Gon. The best and soundest of his time hath been but rash; then must we look to receive from his age, not alone the imperfections of long-engrafted condition, but therewithal, the unruly waywardness that infirm and choleric years bring with them.

Reg. Such unconstant starts are we like to have from him, as this of Kent's banishment.

Gon. There is further compliment of leave-taking between France and him. 'Pray you, let us hit together: If our father carry authority with such dispositions as he bears, this last surrender of his will but offend us.

Reg. We shall further think of it.

Edm. So please your lordship, none.

397

Glo. Why so earnestly seek you to put up that
[Putting up the Letter.
letter?

Edm. I know no news, my
lord.
Glo. What paper were you reading?
Edm. Nothing, my lord.

spatch of it into your pocket? The quality of nothing
Glo. No? What needed then that terrible de-
hath not such need to hide itself. Let's see: Come,
if it be nothing, I shall not need spectacles.

letter from my brother, that I have not all o'erread;
Edm. I beseech you, sir, pardon me: it is a
your over-looking.
for so much as I have perused, I find it not fit for

Glo. Give me the letter, sir.

The contents, as in part I understand them, are to Edm. I shall offend, either to detain or give it, blame.

Glo. Let's see, let's see.

Edm. I hope, for my brother's justification, he wrote this but as an essay or taste of my virtue. makes the world bitter to the best of our times; keeps Glo. [Reads.] This policy, and reverence of age, our fortunes from us, till our oldness cannot relish them. I begin to find an idle and fond11 bondage in the oppression of aged tynny; who sways, not as it hath power, but as it is suffered. Come to me, that of this I may speak more. If our father would [Exeunt. sleep till I waked him, you should enjoy half his revenue for ever, and live the beloved of your brother, Edgar.-Humph-Conspiracy!-Sleep till I waked Edgar!-Had he a hand to write this? a heart and him-you should enjoy half his revenue,-My son brain to breed it in ?-When came this to you? Who brought it?

Gon. We must do something, and i' the heat.2

SCENE II. A Hall in the Earl of Gloster's

Castle. Enter EDMUND, with a Letter.

Edm. Thou, nature, art my goddess; to thy law
My services are bound; Wherefore should I
Stand in the plague of custom; and permit
The curiosity's of nations to deprives me,
For that I am some twelve or fourteen moonshines
Lag of a brother? Why bastard? wherefore base?
When my dimensions are as well compact,
My mind as generous, and my shape as true,
As honest madam's issue? Why brand they us
With base? with baseness? bastardy? base, base?
Who, in the lusty stealth of nature, take
More composition and fierce quality,
Than doth, within a dull, stale, tired bed,
Go to the creating a whole tribe of fops,
Got 'tween asleep and wake ?-Well, then,
Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land:
Our father's love is to the bastard Edmund,
As to the legitimate: Fine word,-legitimate!
Well, my legitimate, if this letter speed,
And my invention thrive, Edmund the base
Shall top the legitimate. I grow: I prosper :-
Now, gods, stand up for bastards!

Enter GLOSTER.

Glo. Kent banish'd thus! And France in choler
parted!

And the king gone to-night! subscrib'd' his power!
Confin'd to exhibition! All this done
Upon the gad!-Edmund! How now? what

news?

1 i. e. temper; qualities of mind confirmed by long habit. Thus in Othello:

A woman of so gentle a condition.' 2 We must strike while the iron's hot.

the cunning of it; I found it thrown in at the caseEdm. It was not brought me, my lord, there's ment of my closet.

Glo. You know the character to be your brother's?

swear it were his; but, in respect of that, I would Edm. If the matter were good, my lord, I durst fain think it were not.

Glo. It is his.

Edm. It is his hard, my lord; but, I hope, his heart is not in the contents.

Glo. Hath he never heretofore sounded you in this business?

Edm. Never, my lord: But I have often heard him maintain it to be fit, that, sons at perfect age, and fathers declining, the father should be as ward to the son, and the son manage his revenue.

Glo. O, villain, villain!-His very opinion in the letter!-Abhorred villain! Unnatural, detested, brutish villain! worse than brutish!-Go, sirrah, seek him; I'll apprehend him :-Abominable villain!-Where is he?

if

Edm. I do not well know, my lord. If it shall please ye to suspend your indignation against my brother, till you can derive from him better testimony of his intent, you shall run a certain course; where,12 you violently proceed against him, mistaking his mina contulissent, e quibus ego formæ blanditiam et elegantiam, robustas corporis vires, mentemque innu3 Edmund calls nature his goddess, for the same rea- soboles, his orbatus sum bonis." Had the book been bilem, consequutus fuissem. At quia conjugatorum sum son as we call a bastard a natural son: one who, ac-published but ten or twenty years sooner, who would cording to the law of nature is the child of his father; not have believed that Shakspeare alluded to this pasbut, according to those of civil society, is nullus filius. sage? 4 Wherefore should I submit tamely to the plague were, what such an atheist as Vanini would say when But the divinity of his genius foretold, as it (i. e. the evil,) or injustice of custom?' he wrote on such a subject.'-Warburton. 7 To subscribe is to yield, to surrender. 8 Exhibition is an allowance, a stipend. was a sharp pointed piece of steel, used as a spur to 9 i. e. in haste, equivalent to upon the spur. A gad urge cattle forward; whence goaded forward. Nares suggests that to gad and gadding originate from being on the spur to go about.

5 The nicety of civil institutions, their strictness and scrupulosity. See note 2, on the first scene.

6 To deprive is equivalent to disinherit. Exhæredo is rendered by this word in the old dictionaries: and Holinshed speaks of the line of Henry before deprived. How much the following lines are in character, may be seen by that monstrous wish of Vanini, the Italian atheist, in his tract De Admirandis Nature, &c. printed at Paris, 1616, the very year our poet died :--"O utinam extra legitimum et connubialem thorum essum procreatus! Ita enim progenitores mei in venerem incaluissent ardentius ac cumulatim affatimque generosa se

Mr.

virtue. To assay, or rather essay, of the French
10 As an essay,' &c. means as a trial or taste of my
word essayer,' says Baret; and a little lower: To
taste or assay before; prælibo.'
11 I. e. weak and foolish.

12 Where for whereas,

purpose, it would make a great gap in your own liest star in the firmament twinkled on my bastard honour, and shake in pieces the heart of his obedi-izing. Edgarence. I dare pawn down my life for him, that he hath writ this to feel my affection to your honour,' and to no other pretence of danger.

Glo. Think you so?

Edm. If your honour judge it meet, I will place you where you shall hear us confer of this, and by an auricular assurance have your satisfaction; and that without any further delay than this very evening.

Glo. He cannot be such a monster.
Edm. Nor is not, sure.

Glo. To his father, that so tenderly and entirely loves him.-Heaven and earth!3]-Edmund, seek him out; wind me into him, I pray you: frame the business after your own wisdom: I would unstate myself, to be in a due resolution."

Edm. I will seek him, sir, presently; convey the business as I shall find means, and acquaint you

withal.

7

Enter EDGAR.

and pat he comes, like the catastrophe of the old comedy:12 My cue is villanous melancholy, with a sigh like Tom o' Bedlam.-O, these eclipses do portend these divisions! fa, sol, la, mi.12

Edg. How now, brother Edmund? What serious contemplation are you in?

Edm. I am thinking, brother, of a prediction I read this other day, what should follow these echip

ses.

Edg. Do you busy yourself with that?

Edm. I promise you,14 the effects he writes of, succeed unhappily: [as of unnaturalness between the child and the parent; death, dearth, dissolutions of ancient amities; divisions in state, menaces and maledictions against king and nobles; needless diffidences, banishment of friends, dissipation of cohorts," nuptial breaches, and I know not what. Edg. How long have you been a sectary astrenomical?

Edm. Come, come ;] when saw you my father last?

Edg. Why, the night gone by.
Edm. Spake you with him?
Edg. Ay, two hours together.
Edm. Parted you in good terms? Found you
no displeasure in him, by word or countenance ?
Edg. None at all.

Glo. These late eclipses in the sun and moon portend no good to us: Though the wisdom of nature can reason it thus and thus, yet nature finds itself scourged by the sequent effects: love cools, friendship falls off, brothers divide: in cities, mutinies; in countries, discord; in palaces, treason; and the bond cracked between son and father. [This villain of mine comes under the prediction; there's son against father: the king falls from bias of nature; there's father against child. We have seen the best of our time: Machinations, hollowness, Edm. Bethink yourself, wherein you may have treachery, and all ruinous disorders, follow us dis-offended him: and at my entreaty, forbear his prequietly to our graves-Find out this villain, sence, till some little time hath qualified the heat of Edmund, it shall lose thee nothing; do it carefully: his displeasure; which at this instant so rageth in -And the noble and true-hearted Kent banished! him, that with the mischief of your person it would his offence, honesty!-Strange! strange! [Exit. scarcely allay. Edm. This is the excellent foppery of the world," that, when we are sick in fortune (often the surfeit of our own behaviour,) we make guilty of our disasters, the sun, the moon, and the stars: as if we were villains by necessity: fools, by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and treachers10 by spherical predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers, by an enforced obedience of planetary influence: and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on: An admirable evasion of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish disposition to the charge of a star! My father compounded with my mother under the dragon's tail; and my nativity was under ursa major; so that it follows, I am rough and lecherous.Tut, I should have been that I am, had the maiden

1 The usual address to a lord.

2 i. e. design or purpose.

3 The words between brackets are omitted in the folio.

4 Wind me into him. Another example of familiar expressive phraseology not unfrequent in Shakspeare. 5 I would unstate myself to be in a due resolution,' means I would give all that I am possessed of to be satisfied of the truth.' So in the Four Prentices, Reed's Old Plays, vol. viii. p. 92 :--

Ah, but the resolution of thy death!
Made me to lose such thought.'
Shakspeare frequently uses resolved for satisfied. And
in the third act of Massinger's Picture, Sophia says:-
I have practised

For my certain resolution with these courtiers.'
And in the last Act she says:---

Nay, more, to take,

For the resolution of his fears, a course
That is, by holy writ, denied a Christian.'

6 To convey is to conduct, or carry through.

Edg. Some villain hath done me wrong.

Edm. That's my fear. [I pray you, have a continent16 forbearance, till the speed of his rage goes slower; and, as I say, retire with me to my lodging, from whence I will fitly bring you to hear my lord speak: Pray you, go; there's my key;-If you do stir abroad, go armed.

Edg. Armed, brother?]

Edm. Brother, I advise you to the best: go armed; I am no honest man, if there be any good meaning towards you: I have told you what I have seen and heard, but faintly; nothing like the image and horror of it: 'Pray you, away.

Edg. Shall I hear from you anon?
Edm. I do serve you in this business.-

[Exit EDGAR.

11 So Chaucer's Wife of Bath (v. 6196):——
'I followed ay min inclination,
By vertue of my constellation,

12 Perhaps this was intended to ridicule the very awkward conclusions of our old comedies, where the persons of the scene make their entry inartificially, and just when the poet wants them on the stage.

13 Shakspeare shows by the context that he was well acquainted with the property of these syllables in solmisation, which imply a series of sounds so unnatural The monkthat ancient musicians prohibited their use. ish writers on music say mi contra fa, est diaboius: the interval fa mi including a tritomus or sharp fourth, consisting of three tones without the intervention of a semi-tone, expressed in the modern scale by the letters FGAB, would form a musical phrase extremely dasagreeable to the ear. Edmund, speaking of eclipses as portents and prodigies, compares the dislocation of events, the times being out of joint, to the unnatural and

7 That is, though natural philosophy can give ac- offensive sounds fa sol la mi-Dr. Burney.

count of eclipses, yet we feel their consequences.

8 All between brackets is omitted in the quartos. 9 Warburton, in a long and ingenious note on this passage, observes, that in this play the dotages of a judicial astrology are intended to be satirized. It was a very prevailing folly in the poet's time.

10 Treachers is the reading of the folio, which is countenanced by the use of the word in many of our old dramas. Chaucer, in his Romaunt of the Rose, mentions the false treacher; and Spenser many times uses the same epithet. The quartos all read treach

erers.

14 The folio edition commonly differs from the first quarto, by augmentations or insertions, but in this place i varies by the omission of all between brackets easy to remark that in this speech, which ought, I think, to be inserted as it now is in the text, Edmund, with the common craft of fortune-tellers, mingles the past and the future, and tells of the future only what he already foreknows by confederacy, or can attain by probable conjecture.-Johnson.

15 For cohorts some editors read courts. 16 i. e. temperate. All between brackets is omitted in the quartos.

He flashes into one gross crime or other,
That sets us all at odds: I'H not endure it:

His knights grow riotous, and himself upbraids us
On every trifle ;-When he returns from hunting,
I will not speak with him: say, I am sick:-
If you come slack of former services,
You shall do well; the fault of it I'll answer.
Stew. He's coming, madam; I hear him.
[Horns within.
Gon. Put on what weary negligence you please,
You and your fellows; I'd have it come to question:
If he dislike it, let him to my sister,
Whose mind and mine, I know, in that are one,
[Not to be over-rul'd. Idle old man,'
That still would manage those authorities,
That he hath given away!-Now, by my life,
Old fools are babes again; and must be us'd
With checks, as flatteries,-when they are seen
abus'd.21

Remember what I have said.

1 This line and the four following are not in the folio. Theobald observes that they are fine in themselves, and much in character for Goneril.

2 I take the meaning of this passage to be, 'Old men are babes again, and must be accustomed to checks as well as flatteries, especially when the latter are seen to be abused by them.'

3 The words in brackets are found in the quartos, but omitted in the folio.

4 To diffuse here means to disguise, to render it strange, to obscure it. See Merry Wives of Windsor. We must suppose that Kent advances looking on his disguise. This circumstances very naturally leads to his speech, which otherwise would have no apparent introduction.

5 i. e. effaced.

6 To converse signifies immediately and properly to keep company, to have commerce with. His meaning is, that he chooses for his companions men of reserve and caution; men who are not tattlers nor talebearers. 7 It is not clear how Kent means to make the eating no fish a recommendatory quality, unless we suppose that it arose from the odium then cast upon the papists, who were the most strict observers of periodical fasts,

Kent. Service.

Lear. Who would'st thou serve?
Kent. You.

Lear. Dost thou know me, fellow?

Kent. No, sir; but you have that in your countenance, which I would fain call master. Lear. What's that?

Kent. Authority.

Lear. What services canst thou do?

Kent. I can keep honest counsel, ride, run, mar a curious tale in telling it, and deliver a plain message bluntly: that which ordinary men are fit for, I am qualified in; and the best of me is diligence. Lear. How old art thou?

Kent. Not so young, sir, to love a woman for singing; nor so old, to dote on her for any thing: I have years on my back forty-eight.

Lear. Follow me; thou shalt serve me; if I like
thee no worse after dinner, I will not part from thee
yet.-Dinner, ho, dinner!-Where's my knave?
my fool? Go you, and call my fool hither:
Enter Steward.

You, you, sirrah, where's my daughter?
Stew. So please you

[Exit.

Lear. What says the fellow there? Call the clotworld's asleep.-How now? where's that mongrel? poll back.-Where's my fool, ho?-I think the Knight. He says, my lord, your daughter is not well.

Lear. Why came not the slave back to me, when I call'd him?

Knight. Sir, he answer'd me in the roundest manner, he would not.

Lear. He would not!

Knight. My lord, I know not what the matter is ; but, to my judgment, your highness is not entertain'd with that ceremonious affection as you were wont; there's a great abatement of kindness appears, as well in the general dependants, as in the duke himself also, and your daughter.

Lear. Ha! say'st thou so?

Knight. I beseech you, pardon me, my lord, if I be mistaken; for my duty cannot be silent, when I think your highness is wrong'd.

B

Lear. Thou but remember'st me of mine own conception; I have perceived a most faint neglect of late; which I have rather blamed as mine own jealous curiosity, than as a very pretence and which though enjoined to the people under the protestant government of Elizabeth, were not very palatable or strictly observed by the commonality. Marston's Dutch Courtezan says, I trust I am none of the wicked that eat fish a Fridays.' I cannot think with Mr. Blakeway, who says that Kent means to insinuate that he never desires to partake of fish because it was esteemed a luxury and therefore incompatible with his situation as an humble and discreet dependant. The repeated promulgation of mandates from the court for the better observation of fish days disproves this. I have before me a Letter of Archbishop Whitgift, in 1596, strictly enjoining the clergy of his diocess to attend to the observance of the fasts and fish days among their respective parishioners, and severely animadverting upon the refractory spirit which disposed them to eat flesh out of due season contrary to law.

8 By jealous curiosity Lear appears to mean a punetilious jealousy, resulting from a scrupulous watchfulness of his own dignity. See the second note on the first scene of this play.

9 A very pretence is an absolute design. So in a former scene, to no other pretence of danger.'

Lear. My lady's father! my lord's knave; you whoreson dog! you slave! you cur!

Stew. I am none of this, my lord; I beseech you, pardon me.

Lear. Do you bandy2 looks with me, you rascal? [Striking him. Stew. I'll not be struck, my lord. Kent. Nor tripped neither; you base foot-ball [Tripping up his Heels. Lear. I thank thee, fellow; thou servest me, and I'll love thee.

player.

Kent. Come, sir, arise, away; I'll teach you differences away, away: If you will measure your lubber's length again, tarry: but away: go to: Have you wisdom? so. [Pushes the Steward out. Lear. Now, my friendly knave, I thank thee: there's earnest of thy service.

[Giving KENT Money. Enter Fool. Fool. Let me hire him too;-Here's my coxcomb. [Giving KENT his Cap. Lear. How now, my pretty knave? how dost thou? Fool. Sirrah, you were best take my coxcomb. Kent. Why, fool?

ง

Fool. Why? For taking one's part that is out of favour: Nay, and thou canst not smile as the wind sits, thou'lt catch cold shortly. There, take my coxcomb: Why, this fellow has banish'd two of his daughters, and did the third a blessing against his will: if thou follow him, thou must needs wear my coxcomb.-How now, nuncle ? 'Would, I had two coxcombs and two daughters!

Lear. Why, my boy?

Fool. If I gave them all my living, I'd keep my coxcombs myself: There's mine; beg another of thy daughters.

Lear. Take heed, sirrah; the whip.

Fool. Truth's a dog that must to kennel? he must be whipped out, when Lady, the brach,' may stand by the fire, and stink.

Lear. A pestilent gall to me!

Fool. Sirrah, I'll teach thee a speech.

Lear. Do.

Fool. Mark it, nuncle :

Have more than thou showest,
Speak less than thou knowest,
Lend less than thou owest,"
Ride more than thou goest,
Learn more that thou trowest,"
Set less than thou throwest,
Leave thy drink and thy whore,
And keep in-a-door,

And thou shalt have more

Than two tens to a score.

Lear. This is nothing, fool.

Fool. Then 'tis like the breath of an unfee'd lawyer; you gave me nothing for't; Can you make no use of nothing, nuncle?

Lear. Why, no, boy; nothing can be made out of nothing.

Fool. 'Pr'ythee, tell him, so much the rent of lus land comes to; he will not believe a fool.

Lear. A bitter fool!

[TO KEST.
Fool. Dost thou know the difference, my boy,
between a bitter fool and a sweet fool?
Lear. [No, lad; teach me.
Fool. That lord, that counsel'd thee
To give away thy land,
Come place him here by me,-

Or do thou for him stand:
The sweet and bitter fool
Will presently appear;
The one in motley here,

The other found out there
Lear. Dost thou call me fool, boy?
Fool. All thy other titles thou hast given away;
that thou wast born with.

Kent. This is not altogether fool, my lord.

Fool. No, 'faith, lords and great men will not let me; if I had a monopoly out, they would have part on't: and ladies, too, they will not let me have all fool to myself; they'll be snatching.]—Give me an egg, nuncle, and I'll give thee two crowns. Lear. What two crowns shall they be?

Fool. Why, after I have cut the egg i' the middle,
and eat up the meat, the two crowns of the egg.
When thou clovest thy crown i'the middle, and
back over the dirt: Thou had'st little wit m thy
gavest away both parts, thou borest thine ass on thy
bald crown, when thou gavest thy golden one away.
that first finds it so.
If I speak like myself in this, let him be whipp'd

Fools had ne'er less grace in a year;11 [Singing.
For wise men are grown foppish ;

And know not how their wits to wear,

Their manners are so apish.

'Lear. When were you wont to be so full of songs, sirrah?

Fool. I have used it, nuncle, ever since thon madest thy daughters thy mother; for when tha term of respect and familiar endearment in Franer, 2 mon oncle, qui le ventre me comble.' It is remarkable, observes Mr. Vaillant, that the lower people in Shop shire call the judge of assize my uncle the judge." 6 All my estate or property.

1 This is an endearing circumstance in the Fool's cha-well as mu tante. They have a proverb, Il est biry racter, and creates such an interest in his favour as his wit alone might have failed to procure for him.-Stee

vens.

2 A metaphor from tennis. 'Come in and take this bandy with the racket of patience.'-Decker's Satiromastir. To bandy a ball,' Cole defines clara pilam torquere; To bandy at tennis,' reticulo pellere. To bandy blows' is still a common idiom.

3 i. e. be turned out of doors and exposed to the inclemency of the weather.

7 It has already been shown that brach was 3 mer nerly name for a bitch. So Hotspur, in The Sen Part of King Henry IV. says:-'I would rather bear Lady my brach howl in Irish.'

8 That is, do not lend all that thou hast. To car in ancient language is to possess.

9 To trow is to believe. The precept is admirable Set in the next line means stake.

4 The reader may see a representation of this ernament of the fool's cap in Mr. Douce's Illustrations of Shakspeare, vol. ii. Natural ideots and fools have, and 10 The passage in brackets is omitted in the f still do accustome themselves to weare in their cappes perhaps for political reasons, as it seem to censura da cockes feathers, or a hat with a necke and heade of a monopolies, the gross abuses of which, and the cocke on the top, and a bell thereon.'-Minshew's Dic-ruption and avarice of the courtiers, who went sherrer tionary, 1617. with the patentee, were more legitimate than sale 11 There never was a time when fools were less favour; and the reason is, that they were never in little wanted, for wise men now supply their place. In Mother Bombie, a Comedy, by Lyly, 1594, I think gentlemen had never less wit in a year? k remarkable that the quartos readless wit, instead less grace,' which is the reading of the folio.

5 A familiar contraction of mine uncle, as ningle, &c.jects of satire. It seems that the customary appellation of the old licensed fool to his superiors was uncle. In Beaumont and Fletcher's Pilgrim, when Alinda assumes the character of a fool, she uses the same language. She meets Alphonso, and calls him nuncle; to which he replies by calling her naunt. In the same style it appears the fools called each other cousin. Mon oncle was long a