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Lear. Made you my guardians, my depofitaries 3
But kept a refervation to be follow'd
With fuch a number: What, muft I come to you
With five and twenty, Regan? faid you fo?
Reg. And fpeak it again, my lord; no more
with me.

Lear. Thofe wicked creatures yet do look well-
favour'd,

When others are more wicked; not being the worst,
Stands in fome rank of praife:-I'll go with thee;
[To Goneril.
Thy fifty yet doth double five and twenty,
And thou art twice her love.

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 need one?

Lear. O, reafon not the need: our bafeft beggars Are in the pooreft thing füperfluous:

Allow not nature more than nature needs,

7 Those wicked creatures yet do look well-favour'd,

When others are more wicked,] Dr. Warburton would exchange the repeated epithet wicked into wrinkled in both places. The commentator's only objection to the lines as they now ftand, is the difcrepancy of the metaphor, the want of oppofition between wicked and well-favoured. But he might have remembered what he fays in his own preface concerning mixed modes. Shakspeare, whofe mind was more intent upon notions than words, had in his thoughts the pulchritude of virtue, and the deformity of wickedness; and though he had mentioned wickedness, made the correlative anfwer to deformity. JOHNSON A fimilar thought occurs in Cymbeline, Act V.

-it is I

That all the abhorred things o' the earth amend,
By being worfe than they. STEEVENS.

This paffage, I think, fhould be pointed thus:

Thofe wicked creatures yet do look well-favour'd,
When others are more wicked; not being the worst
Stands in fome rank of praife.-

That is, To be not the worst deferves fome praife. TYRWHITT.

Man's

1

Man's life is cheap as beaft's: thou art a lady;
If only to go warm were gorgeous,

Why, nature needs not what thou gorgeous wear'ft, Which fcarcely keeps thee warm.But, for true need,

You heavens, give me that patience, patience 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 unnatural hags,
I will have fuch revenges on you both,

That all the world fhall,-I will do fuch things'-'

-poor old man,] The quarto Kas, poor old fellow.

JOHNSON.

-touch me with noble anger !] It would puzzle one at first to find the fenfe, the drift, and the coherence of this petition. For if the gods fent this evil for his punishment, how could he expect that they should defeat their own defign, and affift him to revenge his injuries? The folutionis, that Shakspeare here makes his fpeaker allude to what the ancient poets, tell us of the misfortunes of particular families: namely, that when the anger of the gods, for an act of impiety, was raised against an offending houfe, their method of punishment was, firft to inflame the breafts of the children to unnatural acts against their parents; and then, of the parents against their children, in order to deftroy one another; and that both thefe outrages were the inftigation of the gods. To confider Lear as alluding to this divinity, makes his prayer exceeding pertinent and fine.

-I will do fuch things

WARBURTON.

What they are, yet I know not ;]
-magnum eft quodcunque paravi,

Quid fit, adhuc dubito.

Ovid. Met. lib. vi.

Sed grande quiddam eft.

Seneca Thyeftes.

haud quid fit fcio,

Let fuch as are unwilling to allow that copiers of nature muft accafionally use the fame thoughts and expreffions, remember, that of both these authors there were early translations.

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What they are, yet I know not; but they fhall be
The terrors of the earth. You think, I'll weep:
No, I'll not weep:-

I have full caufe of weeping; but this heart
Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws,
Or ere I'll weep:-O, fool, I fhall go mad!

[Exeunt Lear, Glofter, Kent, and Fool. Corn. Let us withdraw, 'twill be a storm.

[Storm and tempest heard. Reg. This houfe is little; the old man and his people Cannot be well beftow'd.

Gon. 'Tis his own blame; he hath put himself from reft,

And must needs tafte his folly.

Reg. For his particular, I'll receive him gladly, But not one follower.

Gon. So am I purpos'd.

Where is my lord of Glofter?

Re-enter Glofter.

Corn. Follow'd the old man forth :-he is return'd. Glo. The king is in high rage.

Corn. Whither is he going?

Glo. He calls to horfe; but will I know not
whither.

Corn. 'Tis beft to give him way; he leads himself.
Gon. My lord, entreat him by no means to stay.
Glo. Alack, the night comes on, and the bleak
winds

3 Do forely ruffle; for many miles about
There's fcarce a bufh.

• Whither is he going?

Glo. He calls to horfe ;] Omitted in the quartos.

Do forely ruffle,

STEEVENS.

Thus the folio. The quartos read,

Do forely ruffel, i. e. rufile. STEEVENS.

Ruffle is certainly the true reading. A ruffler, in our author's time, was a noify, boisterous, swaggerer. MALONE.

Reg.

Reg. O, fir, to wilful men,

The injuries, that they themselves procure,

Must be their school-mafters: Shut up your doors;
He is attended with a defperate train;

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

Corn. Shut up your doors, my lord; 'tis a wild

night;

My Regan counfels well; come out o' the ftorm..

[Exeunt.

ACT III, SCENE I.

A Heath.

Aftorm is beard, with thunder and lightning. Enter Kent, and a Gentleman, meeting.

Kent. Who's there, befide foul weather?
Gent. One minded like the weather, moft un-
quietly.

Kent. I know you; Where's the king?
Gent. Contending with the fretful element:
Bids the wind blow the earth into the fea,
Or fwell the curled waters 'bove the main,

That

4 Or fwell the curled waters 'bove the main,] The main seems to fignify here the main land, the continent. So, in Bacon's War with Spain: "In 1589, we turned challengers, and invaded the main of Spain."

This interpretation fets the two objects of Lear's defire in proper oppofition to each other. He wishes for the destruction of the world, either by the winds blowing the land into the waters, or raising the waters fo as to overwhelm the land. STEEVENS.

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That things might change, or cease: tears his white hair;

Which the impetuous blafts, with eyeless rage,
Catch in their fury, and make nothing of:
Strives in his little world of man to out-fcorn
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 fur dry, unbonneted he runs,
And bids what will take all.

Kent. But who is with him?

Gent. None but the fool; who labours to out-jeft His heart-ftruck injuries.

Kent. Sir, I do know you;

The old reading, and Mr. Steevens's explanation of it, are ftrongly confirmed by a paffage in Troilus and Cressida :

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The bounded waters

Should lift their bofoms higher than the fores, "And make a fop of all this folid globe."

The main is again ufed for the land, in Hamlet

5

"Goes it against the main of Poland, Sir?" MALONE. -tears his white hair;] The fix following verfes were omitted in all the late editions: I have replaced them from the firft, for they are certainly Shakspeare's. POPE.

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

young; For

• This night, wherein the cub-drawn bear would couch,] Cubdrawn has been explained to fignify drawn by nature to its whereas it means, whofe dugs are drawn dry by its young. no animals leave their dens by night but for prey. So that the meaning is," that even hunger, and the fupport of its young, would not force the bear to leave his den in such a night." WARBURTON Shakspeare has the fame image in As you Like It: A lionefs, with udders all drawn dry, "Lay couching".

Again, Ibidem:

"Food to the fuck'd and hungry lionefs." STEEVENS.

And

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