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Gon. Hear me, my Lord;

What need you five and twenty, ten, or five,
To follow in a house, where twice so many

Have a command to tend you?

Reg. What needs one ?

Lear. O, reason not the need; our basest beggars

Are in the poorest thing superfluous.

Allow not nature more than nature needs,

Thou art a lady;

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Man's life is cheap as beasts'.
If only to go warm were gorgeous,
Why, nature needs not what thou gorgeous wear'st,
Which scarcely keeps thee warm. But for true need!
You heav'ns, give me that patience which I need!
You see me here, you Gods, a poor old man,
As full of grief as age; wretched in both !
If it be you, that stir these daughters' hearts
Against their father, fool me not so much
To bear it tamely; touch me with noble anger;
O let not women's weapons, water-drops,
Stain my man's cheeks. No, you unnat'ral hags,
I will have fuch revenges on you both,
That all the world shall-I will do fuch things,
What they are, yet I know not, but they shall be
The terrors of the earth. You think, I'll weep;

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No, I'll not weep. I have full caufe of weeping.
This heart shall break into a thousand flaws
Or ere I weep. O fool, I shall go mad.

[Exeunt Lear, Glo'fter, Kent, and Fool.

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Corn. Let us withdraw, 'twill be a storm.

[Storm and tempest.

Reg. This house is little; the old man and his people Cannot be well bestow'd.

Gon. 'Tis his own blame hath put himself from rest,

And muft needs taste his folly.

Reg. For his particular, I'll receive him gladly;

But not one follower.

Gon. So I am purpos'd.

Where is my Lord of Glo'fter?

Enter Glo'fter.

Corn. Follow'd the old man forth. He is return'd, Glo. The King is in high rage, and will I know not

whither.

Corn. 'Tis best to give him way, he leads himself. Gon. My Lord, intreat him by no means to stay. Glo. Alack, the night comes on, and the high

winds

Do forely ruffle, for many miles about
There's scarce a bush.

Reg. O Sir, to wilful men,

The injuries, that they themselves procure,
Must be their school-masters. Shut up your doors,
He is attended with a desp'rate train,

And what they may incense him to, being apt
To have his ear abus'd, wisdom bids fear.

Corn. Shut up your doors, my Lord, 'tis a wild night.

My Regan counsels well. Come outo'th' storm. [Exeunt.

ACT

ACT III. SCENE Ι.

A

HEATH.

A storm is beard, with thunder and lightning. Enter Kent, and a Gentleman, feverally.

KENT.

HO's there, besides foul weather?

W

Gent. One minded like the weather, most

unquietly.

Kent. I know you. Where's the King?
Gent. Contending with the fretful elements;

Bids the wind blow the earth into the fea;
Or fwell the curled waters 'bove the main,
That things might change, or cease, tears his white

hair

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Which the impetuous blasts with eyeless rage
Catch in their fury, and make nothing of;
Strives in his little World of Man t'outscorn
The to-and-fro-conflicting Wind and Rain.

This night, wherein the cub-drawn bear would couch,
The lion, and the belly-pinched wolf
Keep their furr dry, unbonnetted he runs,
And bids what will, take all.

Kent. But who is with him?

8 tears bis white hair ;] The fix following verses were omitted in all the late Editions : I have replaced them from the first, for they are certainly ShakeSpear's. POPE.

The first folio ends the speech at change, or cease, and begins again with Kent's question, but who is with him? The whole speech is forcible, but too long for the occafion, and properly retrenched.

9 This night wherein the Cubdrawn bear would couch.] Cubdrawn has been explained to fignify drawn by nature to its young = whereas it means, whose dugs are drawn dry by its young. For no animals leave their dens by night but for prey. So that the meaning is, " that even hunger, and "the support of its young, "would not force the bear to

" leave his den in such a night." WARBURTON. Gent.

Gent. None but the Fool, who labours to out-jet
His heart-ftruck injuries.

Kent. Sir, I do know you,
And dare, upon the warrant of my note,
Commend a dear thing to you. There's division,
Although as yet the face of it is cover'd
With mutual cunning, 'twixt Albany and Cornwall,
* Who have, (as who have not, whom their great stars
Throne and fet bigh?) fervants, who seem no less
Which are to France the spies and speculations
Intelligent of our state. What hath been seen,
Either in snuffs and packings of the Dukes;
Or the hard rein, which both of them have borne
Against the old kind king; or something deeper,
Whereof, perchance, these are but furnishings.

[ But true it is, * from France there comes a power
Into

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In some of our best ports}
Scatter'd kingdom, if it have any
fenfe, gives us the idea of a king-
dom failen into an anarchy: But
that was not the case. It fub-
mitted quietly to the government
of Lear's two fons-in-law. It.
was divided, indeed, by this.
means, and to hurt, and weaks
en'd. And this was what Shake
Spear meant to say, who, with
out doubt, wrote,

--SCAPHED kingdom,
i. e. hurt, wounded, impaired,
And

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Into this scatter'd kingdom; who already,
Wife in our negligence, have fecret fee
In fome of our best ports, and are at point
To shew their open banner-Now to you,
If on my credit you dare build fo far
To make your speed to Dover, you shall find

And fo he frequently uses seath
for hurt or damage. Again,
what a strange phrase is, having
Sea in a port, to fignify a fleet's
lying at anchor? which is all
it can fignify. And what is
stranger till, afecret sea, that is,
lying incognito, like the army at
Knight's-bridge in the Rehearsal.
Without doubt the poet wrote,
-have fecret SEIZE

In some of our best portsi. e. they are secretly secure of fome of the best ports, by having a party in the garrifon ready to second any attempt of their friends, &c.. The exactness of the expreffion is remarkable; he fays, fecret jeize in fome, not of Jome. For the first implies a conspiracy ready to seize a place on warning, the other, a place already feized. WARBURTON. The true state of this speech cannot from all these notes be discovered. As it now stands it is collected from two editions: thelines which I have diftinguished by Italicks are found in the folio, not in the quarto; the following lines inclosed in crotchets are in the quarto, not in the folio. So that if the fpeech be read with omiffions of the Ira licks, it will stand according to the first edition; and if the Italicks are read, and the lines that follow them omitted, it will then stand according to the second. The speech is now tedious, be

cause it is formed by a coalition of both. The second edition is generally best, and was probably nearest to Shakespeare's laft copy, but in this passage the first is preferable; for in the folio, the messenger is fent, he knows not why, he knows not whither. I suppose Shakejprare thought his plot opened rather too early, and made the alteration to veil the event from the audience; but trusting too much to himself, and full of a single purpose, he did not accommodate his new lines to the rest of the scene.

The learned critick's emendations are now to be examined. Scattered he has changed to feathed; for Scattered, he says, gives the idea of an anarchy, which was not the cafe. It may be replied that shaided gives the idea of ruin, waste, and defolation, which was not the cafe. It is unworthy a lover of truth, in questions of great or little moment, to aggravate or extenuate for mere convenience, or for vanity yet less than convenience. Scattered naturally means divided, unsettled, difunited.

Next is offered with great pomp a change of fea to feize; but in the first edition the word is fee, for hire, in the fenfe of having any one in fe, that is, at devotion for money. Fee is in the second quarto changed to fee, from which one made Jea and another feize. Some

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