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Some that will thank you, making just report,
Of how unnatural and bemadding forrow

The King hath cause to plain.

I am a gentleman of blood and breeding,
And from fome knowledge and affurance of you,
Offer this Office.]

Gent. I'll talk further with you.

Kent. No, do not.

For confirmation that I am much more
Than my out-wall, open this purse and take
What it contains. If you shall see Cordelia,
As, fear not, but you shall, shew her that Ring,
And she will tell you who this fellow is,

That yet you do not know. Fy on this storm!
I will go feek the King.

Gent. Give me your hand, have you no more to say? Kent. Few words, but, to effect, more than all yet; That, when we have found the King, 5 for which you

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That way, I this, he that first lights on him,

Halloo the other.

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[Exeunt feverally.

Storm ftill. Enter Lear and Fool.

Lear. Blow winds, and crack your cheeks; rage,

blow!

"You cataracts, and hurricanoes, spout

'Till you have drencht our steeples, drown'd the cocks!

You fulph'rous and * thought-executing fires,
Vaunt couriers of oak-cleaving thunder-bolts,

Singe my white-head. And thou all-thaking thunder,

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Strike flat the thick rotundity o'th' world,
*Crack nature's mould, all germins spill at once
That make ingrateful man.

Fool. O nuncle, court-holy-water in a dry house is better than the rain-waters out o'door. Good nuncle, in and ask thy daughters blessing, here's a night that pities neither wife men nor fools.

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Lear. Rumble thy belly full, spit fire, fpout rain;
Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire, are my daughters.
I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness,
I never gave you kingdoms, call'd you children;
'You owe me no subscription; then let fall
Your horrible displeasure. * Here I stand, your flave,
A poor, infirm, weak, and despis'd old man.
But yet I call you servile ministers,

That have with two pernicious daughters join'd
Your high engender'd battles, 'gainst a head
So old and white as this. Oh! oh! * 'tis foul.

• Crack Nature's Mould, all Germains Spill at once] Thus all the Editions have given us this Passage, and Mr. Pope has explain'd Germains to mean relations, or kindred Elements. But the Poet means here, " Crack "Nature's Mould, and spill all "the Seeds of Matter, that are hoarded within it." To retrieve which Sense, we must write Germins, from Germen. Our Author not only uses the same Thought again, but the Word that ascertains my Explication. In Winter's Tale;

Let Nature crush the Sides d'th'
Earth together,
And marr the Seeds within.
THEOBALD.

7 You owe me no subscription.] Subscription, for obedience. WAR. $-bere I ftand your SLAVE;] But why so? It is true, he fays, that they owed him no fubfcripVOL. VI.

tion; yet sure he owed them none. We should read,

*

-bere I stand your BRAVE; i.e. I defy your worst rage, as he had faid just before. What led the editors into this blunder was what should have kept them out of it, namely the following line,

A poor, infirm, weak, and de
Spis'd old man!
And this was the wonder, that
such a one should brave them all.

WARBURTON.

The meaning is plain enough, The was not their flave by right or compact, but by neceffity and compulfion. Why should a paf fage be darkened for the fake of changing it? Besides, of Brave in that sense, I remember no example. *-'tis foul.] Shameful; dif honourable.

G

Fool.

1

Fool. He that has a house to put's head in, has a

good head-piece.

The codpiece that will house,

Before the head has any,

The head and he shall lowse;

* So beggars marry many.

That man that makes his toe,

What he his heart should make,

Shall of a corn cry woe,

And turn his fleep to wake.

For there was never yet fair woman, but the made

mouths in a glass.

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Lear. No, I will be the pattern of all patience,

I will fay nothing.

: Kent. Who's there?

Fool. Marry here's grace and a cod-piece, that's a wife man and a fool.

Kent. Alas, Sir, are you here? Things that love

night,

Love not fuch nights as these, the wrathful skies 9 Gallow the very wand'rers of the dark,

And make them keep their Caves. Since I was man, Such sheets of fire, such bursts of horrid thunder, Such groans of roaring wind and rain, I never

Remember to have heard. Man's nature cannot carry

Th' affliction, nor the 'fear.

Lear. Let the great Gods,

:

That keep this dreadful pother o'er our heads,

Find out their enemies now.

Tremble, thou wretch, west-country word, fignifies to scar or frighten. WARBURTON. So the folio, the later editions read, with the quarto, force for fear, less elegantly.

* So beggars marrymany.] That is, a beggar marries a wife and ie, I

9 Gallow the very wand'rers of the dark, Gallow, a

That

: !

That haft within thee undivulged crimes,
Unwhipt of justice. Hide thee, thou bloody hand,
Thou Perjure, and thou Simular of virtue,
That art incestuous. Caitiff, shake to pieces,
3 That under covert and convenient seeming,
Haft practis'd on man's life!-Close pent-up guilts,
Rive your + concealing continents and afk
These dreadful fummoners grace.-I am a man,
More finti'd againft, than sinning.

Kent. Alack, bare-headed?

:

Gracious my Lord, hard by here is a hovel,
Some friendship will it lend you 'gainst the tempeft;
Repose you there, while I to this hard house;
More hard than is the stone whereof 'tis rais'd,
Which ev'n but now, demanding after you,
Deny'd me to come in, return, and force.
Their scanted courtesy.

Lear. My wits begin to turn.

Come on, my boy. How dost, my boy? art cold?

2-thou Simular of virtue,] Shakespear has here kept exactly to the Latin propriety of the term. I will only observe, that our authorseems to have imitated Skelton in making a substantive of Simular, as the other did of Diffimular,

With other frure of theyr affy-
nyte,
Dyjdayne, ryotte, Dissymuler,
Jubtylte.

The bouge of Courte.
WARBURTON.

3 That under COVERT AND convenient fieming,] This may be right. And if so, convenient is used for commodious or friendly. But I rather think the poet wrote,

That under COVER OF convivial
Seeming,

i.e. under cover of a frank, open,
social conversation. This raifes
the fenfe, which the poet ex-
presses more at large in Timon of
Athens, where he says,
-The fellow that

Sits next him now, parts bread
with him, and pledges
The breath of him in a divided
draught;

Is th' readiest man to kill him.
WARBURTON.

Convenient needs not be understood in any other than its usual and proper sense; accommodate to the present purpose; fuitable to a design. Convenient seeming is appearance fuch as may promote his purpose to destroy. 4-concealing continents] Continent stands for that which conzains or incloses.

I'm cold myself. Where is the straw, my fellow ?
The art of our necessities is strange,

That can make vile things precious. Come, your

hovel.

Poor fool and knave, I've s one part in my heart,
That's forry yet for thee.

Fool. He that has an a little tyny wit,

With heigh bo, the wind and the rain;
Must make content with his fortunes fit,
Though the rain it raineth every day.

Lear. True, my good boy. Come, bring us to this

hovel.

Fool. 'Tis a brave night to cool a curtezan. ? I'll speak a prophecy ere I go.

s-one part in my heart,] Some editions read,

-thing in my heart, from which Hanmer, and Dr. Warburton after him, have made Aring, very unnecessarily; both the copies have part.

• He that has but a little tyny wit,] I fancy that the fecond line of this stanza had once a termination that rhymed with the fourth; but I can only fancy it; for both the copies agree. It was once perhaps written,

With beigh bo, the wind and the rain in his way.

The meaning feems likewife to require this insertion. He that has wit, however small, and finds wind and rain in bis way, must content himself by thinking, that fomewhere or other it raineth every day, and others are therefore fuffering like himself. 7 I'll speak a prophecy ar ere I go; When priests are more in words than matter;

When brewers marr their malt with water;

I

[Exit.

When

When nobles are their tailors' tutors;

No hereticks burn'd, but wenches
fuitors;
When ev'ry cafe in lawis right,
No'Squire in debt, nor no poor
Knight;

When flanders do not live in

tongues, And cut-purses come not ta throngs; When ufurers tell their goldi'th field, And bareds, and whores, do churches build:

Then shall the realm of Albion
Come to great confusion;
Then comes the time, who lives
to fee't,

That Going shall be us'd with

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feer.] The judicious reader will obferve through this heap of nonsense and confufion, that this is not one, but two prophe cies. The first, fatyrical fcription of the present manners as future: And the second, a satyrical description of fature manners, which the corruption of the

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