Gon. Hear me, my Lord; What need you five and twenty, ten, or five, 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; 6 Man's life is cheap as beasts'. No, I'll not weep. I have full caufe of weeping. [Exeunt Lear, Glo'fter, Kent, and Fool. 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 Reg. O Sir, to wilful men, The injuries, that they themselves procure, And what they may incense him to, being apt 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? Bids the wind blow the earth into the fea; hair 8 Which the impetuous blasts with eyeless rage This night, wherein the cub-drawn bear would couch, 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 Kent. Sir, I do know you, [ But true it is, * from France there comes a power In some of our best ports} --SCAPHED kingdom, 1 Into this scatter'd kingdom; who already, And fo he frequently uses seath 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 |