Hyfterica paffio! down, thou climbing forrow, [Exit. Gent. Made you no more offence than what you fpeak of. Kent. None. How chance the king comes with fo finall a train? Fool. An thou hadft been fet i' the stocks for that question, thou hadst well deferv'd it. Kent. Why, fool? Fool. We'll fet thee to fchool to an ant, to teach thee there's no labouring in the winter. All that fol low night that he came to Denham, the feat of Mr. Peckham, where these impoftures were managed, he was fomewhat evill at ease, and he grew worfe and worfe with an old disease that he had, and which the priests perfuaded him was from the poffeffion of the devil, viz. "The disease, I fpake of was a fpice of the Mother, wherewith I had bene troubled... before my going into Fraunce: whether I doe rightly term it the Mother or no, I knowe not... When I was ficke of this difeafe in Fraunce, a Scottish doctor of phyfick then in Paris, called it, as I remember, Vertiginem Capitis. It rifeth.... of a winde in the bottome of the belly, and proceeding with a great fwelling, causeth a very painfull collicke in the ftomack, and an extraordinary giddines in the head." It is at leaft very probable, that Shakspeare would not have thought of making Lear affect to have the Hyfterick Paffion, or Mother, if this paffage in Harfnet's pamplet had not fuggefted it to him, when he was felecting the other particulars from it, in order to furnish out his character of Tom of Bedlam, to whom this demoniacal gibberish is admirably adapted. PERCY. All that follow their noses are led by their eyes, but blind men ; and there's not a nose among twenty, but can smell, &c.1 There is in this fentence no clear feries of thought. If he that follows his nofe is led or guided by his eyes, he wants no information from his nofe. I perfuade myself, but know not whether I can perfuade others, that our author wrote thus:-" All men are led "by their eyes, but blind men, and they follow their nofes: "and there's not a nofe among twenty but can smell him that's "ftinking."-Here is a fucceffion of reafoning. You ask, why the king has no more in his train? why, because men who low their noses are led by their eyes, but blind men; and there's not a nofe among twenty, but can finell him that's ftinking. Let go thy hold, when a great wheel runs down a hill, left it break thy neck with following it; but the great one that goes up the hill, let him draw thee after. When a wife man gives thee better counfel, give me mine again: I would have none but knaves follow it, fince a fool gives it. That, fir, which ferves and feeks for gain, And follows but for form, Will pack, when it begins to rain, And leave thee in the ftorm. 7 But I will tarry; the fool will stay, The knave turns fool, that runs away; Kent. are led by their eyes fee that he is ruined; and if there were any blind among them, who, for want of eyes, followed their nofes, they might by their nofes discover that it was no longer fit to follow the king. JOHNSON. The word twenty refers to the noses of the blind men, and not to the men in general. The paffage, thus confidered, bears clearly the very fenfe which the above note endeavours to establish by alteration. STEEVENS. Mr. Monck Mafon fuppofes we fhould read finking. What the Fool fays he wants to defcribe is, the fagacity of mankind, in finding out the man whofe fortunes are declining. EDITOR. -When a wife man gives thee, &c.] One cannot too much commend the caution which our moral poet ufes, on all occafions, to prevent his fentiment from being perversely taken. So here, having given an ironical precept in commendation of perfidy and base desertion of the unfortunate, for fear it should be understood feriously, though delivered by his buffoon or jefter, he has the precaution to add this beautiful corrective, full of fine fenfe:"I would have none but knaves follow it, fince a fool gives it." WARBURTON. 7 But I will tarry; the fool will stay, And let, &c.] I think this paffage erroneous, though both the copies concur. The fenfe will be mended if we read: But Re-enter Lear, with Glofter. Lear. Deny to speak with me? They are fick? They have travell'd hard to-night? Mere fetches; Glo. My dear lord, You know the fiery quality of the duke; In his own course. Lear. Vengeance! plague! death! confufion!Fiery? what quality? Why, Glofter, Glofter, I'd fpeak with the duke of Cornwall, and his wife. Glo. Well, my good lord, I have inform'd 8 them fo. Lear. Inform'd them! Doft thou understand me, man? Glo. Ay, my good lord. Lear. The king would speak with Cornwall; the . dear father Would with his daughter fpeak, commands her fervice: Are they inform'd of this?-My breath and blood!Fiery? the fiery duke ?-Tell the hot duke, that But I will tarry; the fool will stay, And let the wife man fly; The fool turns knave, that runs away; The knave no fool, That I ftay with the king is a proof that I am a fool, the wife men are deferting him. There is knavery in this defertion, but there is no folly. JOHNSON. 8 Glo.] This, with the following fpeech, is omitted in the quartos. STEEVENS. 9-Tell the hot duke, that-] The quartos read-Tell the hot duke, that Lear STEEVENS. No, but not yet:-may be, he is not well: Whereto our health is bound; we are not ourselves, And am fallen out with my more headier will, For the found man.-Death on my ftate! wherefore That this remotion of the duke and her 'Is practice only. Give me my servant forth : [Exit. Glo. I would have all well betwixt you. down. Fool. Cry to it, nuncle, as the cockney did to the Is practice only. -] Practice is in Shakspeare, and other old writers, ufed commonly in an ill sense for unlawful artifice. JOHNSON. 2 -the cockney] It is not eafy to determine the exact power of this term of contempt, which, as the editor of the Canterbury Tales of Chaucer obferves, might have been originally borrowed from the kitchen. From the ancient ballad of the Turnament of Tottenham, published by Dr. Percy in his second volume of Ancient Poetry, p. 24, it should seem to fignify a cook "At that feaft were they ferved in rich array; "Every five and five had a cokenay.” .e. a cook, or fcullion, to attend them. Shakspeare, however, in Twelfth Night, makes his Clown fay, "I am afraid this great lubber the world, will prove a cockney. In this place it seems to have a fignification not unlike that which it bears at prefent; and, indeed, Chaucer in his Reve's Tale, ver. 4205, appears to employ it with such a meaning: "And when this jape is tald another day, Meres 3 the eels, when the put them i' the paste alive; fhe rapt 'em o' the coxcombs with a stick, and cry'd, Down, wantons, down: 'Twas her brother, that, in pure kindness to his horse, butter'd his hay. Enter Cornwall, Regan, Glofter, and Servants: Lear. Good morrow to you both. Corn. Hail to your grace! [Kent is fet at liberty. Reg. I am glad to fee your highness. Lear. Regan, I think you are; I know what reason I have to think fo: if thou fhould'ft not be glad, I would divorce me from thy mother's tomb, Sepulch'ring an adultress *.-O, are you free? [To Kent. Some other time for that.-Beloved Regan, Meres likewife in the fecond part of his Wit's Commonwealth, 1598, obferves, that “ many cockney and wanton women are often fick, but in faith they cannot tell where." Decker, alfo, in his Newes from Hell, &c. 1606, has the following paffage, 'Tis not their fault, but our mother's, our cockering "mothers, who for their labour made us to be called cockneys." See the notes on the Canterbury Tales of Chaucer, Vol. IV. p. 253. where the reader will meet with more information on this fubject. STEEVENS. Dr. Percy imagines it fignifies a cook, in the ballad of the Turnament of Tottenham : Every five and five had a cokeney. Certainly it cannot be a cook or fcullion, but is fome difh which I cannot afcertain. My authority is the following epigram from Davies: He that comes every day, fhall have a cocknay, And he that comes but now and then, fhall have a fat hen. $ the eels, when she put them i' the paste-] Hinting that the eel and Lear are in the fame danger. JOHNSON. +fepulchring, &c.] This word is accented in the fame manner by Fairfax and Milton: As if his work fhould his fepulcher be," C. i. ft. 25. "And fo fepulcher'd in fuch pomp doe lie." Milton on Shakspeare, line xv. Hh 4 STEEVENS. Thy |