painter, could not have made him so ill, though they had been but two hours at the trade.* CORN. Speak yet, how grew your quarrel? Osw. This ancient ruffian, sir, whose life I have spar'd,

At suit of his grey beard,—

KENT. Thou whoreson zed! thou unnecessary letter!--My lord, if you will give me leave, I will tread this unbolted villain into mortar, and daub the wall of a jakes with him.-Spare my grey beard, you wagtail?" Peace, sirrah!

CORN.
You beastly knave, know you no reverence?
KENT. Yes, sir, but anger hath a privilege.
CORN. Why art thou angry

?

KENT. That such a slave as this should wear a sword,

[these,

Who wears no honesty. Such smiling rogues as
Like rats, oft bite the holy cords a-twain
Which are too intrinse t'unloose: smooth every

passion

That in the natures of their lords rebels;
Bring oil to fire, snow to the colder moods;
Renege, affirm, and turn their halcyon beaks
With every gale§ and vary of their masters,
Knowing nought, like dogs, but following,-
A plague upon your epileptic visage!
Smile you my speeches, as I were a fool?
Goose, if I had you upon Sarum plain,
I'd drive ye cackling home to Camelot.(1)
CORN. What, art thou mad, old fellow ?
GLO. How fell you out? say that.
KENT. No contraries hold more antipathy,
Than I and such a knave.

CORN. Why dost thou call him knave? What's

Than twenty silly ducking 6bservants, That stretch their duties nicely.

KENT. Sir, in good sooth,* in sincere verity, Under the allowance of your grand + aspéct, Whose influence, like the wreath of radiant fire On flickering Phoebus' front,

CORN.

What mean'st by this? KENT. To go out of my dialect, which you discommend so much. I know, sir, I am no flatterer: he that beguiled you in a plain accent, was a plain knave; which, for my part, I will not be, though I should win your displeasure to entreat me to 't.

CORN. What was the offence you gave him?
Osw.
I never gave him any:

It pleas'd the king his master very late,
To strike at me, upon his misconstruction;
When he, conjunct,§ and flattering his displeasure,
Tripp'd me behind; being down, insulted, rail'd,
And put upon him such a deal of man,
That worthied him, got praises of the king
For him attempting who was self-subdu'd ;
And, in the fleshment of this dread || exploit,
Drew on me here again.

KENT. None of these rogues and cowards,
But Ajax is their fool.

CORN. Fetch forth the stocks, ho! You stubborn ancient knave, you reverend braggart, We'll teach you—

KENT. Sir, I am too old to learn: Call not your stocks for me: I serve the king; On whose employment I was sent to you: You shall do small respect, show too bold malice Against the grace and person of my master, Stocking his messenger.

CORN.

noon!

Fetch forth the stocks!As I have life and honour, there shall he sit till [night too. REG. Till noon! till night, my lord; and all KENT. Why, madam, if I were your father's dog, You should not use me so.

REG. Sir, being his knave, I will. CORN. This is a fellow of the self-same colour Our sister speaks of.-Come, bring away the stocks. [Stocks brought in.

GLO. Let me beseech your grace not to do so: His fault is much, and the good king his master Will check him for't: your purpos'd low correction Is such, as basest and contemned'st** wretches, For pilferings and most common trespasses

(*) First folio omits, good.

a For following her affairs,-Put in his legs.-] A line not found in the folio. b

Thou out of heaven's benediction com'st
To the warm sun!]

This "common saw" we meet with in Heywood's "Dialogues on Proverbs,"

"In your running from him to me, ye runne

Out of God's blessing into the warme sunne."

It is found also in Howell's collection of English Proverbs in his Dictionary, 1660, and there explained,-"He goes out of God's blessing to the warm sun, viz. from good to worse." The application, we must suppose, is to Lear's quitting one daughter only to meet more inhospitable treatment from another.

A good man's fortune may grow out at heels:
Give you good morrow!

GLO. [Aside.] The duke's to blame in this;
't will be ill taken.
[Exit.
KENT. Good king, that must approve the com-

mon saw,

Thou out of heaven's benediction com'st
To the warm sun !b

Approach, thou beacon to this under globe,
That by thy comfortable beams I may

Peruse this letter!-Nothing almost sees miracles,
But misery;-I know 'tis from Cordelia ;
Who hath most fortunately been inform'd
Of my obscured course, and she'll find time
From this enormous state-seeking, to give
Losses their remedies."
watch'd,

All weary and o'er

I know 'tis from Cordelia;

Who hath most fortunately been inform'd
Of my obscured course, and she'll find time
From this enormous state-seeking, to give
Losses their remedies.]

Some editors have gone so far as to degrade this passage altogether from the text: Steevens and others conjecture it to be made up from fragments of Cordelia's letter. We agree with Malone that it forms no part of that letter, but are opposed to his notion that "two half lines have been lost between the words state and seeking." The slight change of" she'll" for shall,-the ordinary reading being, "and shall find time," &c.-appears to remove much of the difficulty; that occasioned by the corrupt words, "enormous state-seeking," will some day probably find an equally facile remedy.

EDG. I heard myself proclaim'd;
And, by the happy hollow of a tree,
Escap'd the hunt. No port is free; no place,
That guard, and most unusual vigilance,

Does not attend my taking. Whiles I may scape,
I will preserve myself: and am bethought
To take the basest and most poorest shape,
That ever penury, in contempt of man,
Brought near to beast: my face I'll grime with
filth;

Blanket my loins; elf all my hair* in knots ;*
And with presented nakedness out-face
The winds and persecutions of the sky.
The country gives me proof and precedent
Of Bedlam beggars, (2) who, with roaring voices,
Strike in their numb'd and mortified bare arms
Pins, wooden pricks, nails, sprigs of rosemary;
And with this horrible object, from low farms,
Poor pelting villages, sheep-cotes, and mills,
Sometime with lunatic bans, sometime with prayers,
Enforce their charity.-Poor Turlygood (3) poor
Tom! с

That's something yet;-Edgar I nothing am.

[Exit.

My lord, when at their home
I did commend your highness' letters to them,
Ere I was risen from the place that show'd
My duty kneeling, came there a reeking post,
Stew'd in his haste, half breathless, panting t
forth

From Goneril, his mistress, salutations;
Deliver❜d letters, spite of intermission,
Which presently they read: on whose contents,
They summon'd up their meiny, straight took

horse;

Commanded me to follow, and attend

The leisure of their answer; gave me cold looks:
And meeting here the other messenger,
Whose welcome I perceiv'd had poison'd mine,
(Being the very fellow which of late
Display'd so saucily against your highness)
Having more man than wit about me, drew;
He rais'd the house with loud and coward cries:

FOOL. We'll set thee to school to an ant, to teach thee there's no labouring i' the winter. All that follow their noses are led by their eyes but blind men; and there's not a nose among twenty but can smell him that's stinking. Let go thy hold when a great wheel runs down a hill, lest it break thy neck with following it: ‡ but the great one that goes up the hill,§ let him draw thee after. When a wise man gives thee better counsel, give me mine again: I would have none but knaves follow it, since a fool gives it.

That sir which serves and seeks for gain,
And follows but for form,
Will pack when it begins to rain,

And leave thee in the storm.
But I will tarry; the fool will stay,
And let the wise man fly :
The knave turns fool that runs away;
The fool no knave, perdy.

KENT. Where learned you this, fool?
FOOL. Not i' the stocks, fool.

Re-enter LEAR, with GLOUCESTer.

LEAR. Deny to speak with me? They are sick? they are weary?

They have travell'd all the night?

fetches;

The images of revolt and flying off. Fetch me a better answer.

GLO.

My dear lord, You know the fiery quality of the duke; How unremoveable and fix'd he is In his own course.

Mere

LEAR. Vengeance! plague! death! confusion!Fiery? what quality? Why, Gloster, Gloster, I'd speak with the duke of Cornwall and his wife. GLO. Well, my good lord, I have inform'd them so.d

LEAR. Inform'd them! Dost thou understand me, man?

GLO. Ay, my good lord.

LEAR. The king would speak with Cornwall; the dear father

Would with his daughter speak, commands her service: †

Are they inform'd of this?-My breath and blood!

Fiery ? the fiery duke ?-Tell the hot duke, that— No, but not yet-may be, he is not well: Infirmity doth still neglect all office,

Whereto our health is bound; we are not ourselves,

When nature, being oppress'd, commands the mind

To suffer with the body: I'll forbear;
And am fall'n out with my more headier will,
To take the indispos'd and sickly fit

(+) First folio, commands, tends, service.

d Well, my good lord, &c.] This speech and Lear's rejoinder are found only in the folio.

e Is practice only.] Practice, it need hardly be repeated, meant artifice, conspiracy, &c.

f Till it cry sleep to death.] Till the clamour of the drum destroys or is the death of sleep. The line is usually given, however, "Till it cry, Sleep to death!"

that is, till it cry out, awake no more, and this very possibly was the poet's idea.

a-the cockney-] "Cockney," of old, bore more than one signification; as employed by Chaucer, in "The Reve's Tale," verse 4205,

"And when this jape is told another day,
I sal be hald a daf, a cokenay,"-

it plainly means an effeminate spoony. In Dekker's "Newes from Hell," &c. 1602,-""Tis not their fault, but our mothers', our cockering mothers, who for their labour made us to be called

knapp'd 'em o'the coxcombs with a stick, and cried, Down, wantons, down: 't was her brother, that, in pure kindness to his horse, buttered his hay.

cockneys," it has the same import. According to Percy, whose authority is the following couplet from the ancient ballad called "The Turnament of Tottenham,"

"At that feast were they served in rich array;

Every five and five had a cokenay,"

it meant a cook or scullion; and that, perhaps, is the sense of the word in the present place.