I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness, That have with two pernicious daughters join'd The cod-piece that will boufe, The You owe me no fubfcription;-] Subfcription for obedience. WARBURTON. So in Rowley's Search for Money, 1609, p. 17. I tell yee. befides this he is an obftinat wilfull fellow, for fince this "idolatrous adoration given to him here by men, he has kept "the fcepter in his owne hand and commands every man: "which rebellious man now feeing (or rather indeed to obedi"ent too him) inclines to all his hefts, peelds no subscription, nor "will he be commanded by any other power, &c." EDITOR. -Here I ftand, your flave,] But why fo? It is true, he fays, that they owed him no fubfcription; yet fure he owed them none. We should read; 4 -Here I ftand 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 defpis'd old man. And this was the wonder, that such a one should brave them all. WARBURTON. The meaning is plain enough, he was not their flave by right or compact, but by neceffity and compulfion. Why fhould a paffage be darkened for the fake of changing it? Befides, of brave in that fenfe I remember no example. JOHNSON. 5tis foul.] Shameful; difhonourable. JOHNSON. • So beggars marry many.] i, e. A beggar marries a wife and lice. JOHNSON. That The 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 she made mouths in a glass, Enter Kent. 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. 9 Kent. Alas, fir, are you here? things that love night, Love not fuch nights as thefe; the wrathful skies * Gallow the very wanderers of the dark, And make them keep their caves: Since I was man, Such fheets of fire, such bursts of horrid thunder, Such groans of roaring wind and rain, I never That is," So many beggars marry" meaning, that they marry in the manner he has defcribed, before they have houses to put their heads in. MONCK MASON. No, I will be the pattern of all patience, I will fay nothing.] So Perillus, in the old anonymous play, fpeaking of Leir: "But he, the myrrour of mild patience, "Puts up all wrongs, and never gives reply." STEEVENS. and a cod-piece, that's a wife man and a fool.] Alluding perhaps to the faying of a contemporary wit; that there is n difcretion below the girdle. STEEVENS. --are you here?] The quartos readfit you here ? STEEVENS. * Gallow the very wanderers of the dark,] Gallow, a west. country word, fignifies to fcare or frighten. WARBURTON, So, the Somerfetshire proverb: The dunder do gally the beans." Beans are vulgarly supposed to shoot up falter after thunder-ftorms. STEEVENS. Remember to have heard: man's nature cannot carry 2 Lear. Let the great gods, That keep this dreadful pother o'er our heads, Unwhipt of juftice: Hide thee, thou bloody hand; 6 More -fear.] So the folio: the later editions fead, with the quarto, force for fear, lefs elegantly. JOHNSON. 3 this dreadful pother] Thus one of the quartos and the folio. The other quarto reads thund'ring. The reading in the text, however, is an expreffion common to others. So, in the Scornful Lady of Beaumont and Fletcher: faln out with their meat, and kept a pudder.” STEEVENS. ← That under covert and convenient seeming,] Convenient needs not be understood in any other than its ufual and proper sense; accommodate to the prefent purpofe; faitable to a defign. Convenient seeming is appearance such as may promote his purpose to deftroy. JOHNSON. 5 concealing continents,] Continent ftands for that which contains or inclofes. JOHNSON. Thus in Antony and Cleopatra: Heart, once he ftronger than thy continent! Again, in Chapman's translation of the XIIth Book of Homer's "I told our pilot that past other men "He moft must bear firm fpirits, fince he fway'd The quartos read, concealed centers: STEEVENS. 6 -and cry Thefe dreadful fummoners grace.] Summoners are here the officers that fummon offenders before a proper tribunal. STEEVENS. "I am a man,] Oedipus, in Sophocles, reprefents himself in the fame light. Oedip. Colon. v. 258. More finn'd againft, than finning. Kent. Alack, bare-headed! Gracious, my lord, hard by here is a hovel; Lear. My wits begin to turn. Come on, my boy: How doft, my boy? Art cold? I am cold myself.-Where is this straw, my fellow? The art of our neceffities is ftrange, That can make vile things precious. hovel.-- Poor fool and knave, I have one part 8 That's forry yet for thee. Fool. He that has a little tiny wit, Come, your in my heart With heigh, bo, the wind and the rain τα έργα με Πεπονθότ ̓ εσι μαλλον η δεδρακοτα. TYRWHITT. -one part in my heart, &c.] Some editions read, thing in my heart; from which Hanmer, and Dr. Warburton after him, have made firing, very unneceffarily; but the copies have part. The old quartos read, That forrows yet for thee. STEEVENS. JOHNSON. He that has a little tiny wit, I fancy that the fecond line of this ftanza 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, " He With heigh ho, the wind and the rain in his way. The meaning feems likewife to require this infertion. that has wit, however small, and finds wind and rain in his way, must content himself by thinking, that fomewhere or other it raineth every day, and others are therefore fuffering like himfelf." Yet I am afraid that all this is chimerical, for the burthen appears again in the fong at the end of Twelfth Night, and feems to have been an arbitrary fupplement, without any reference to the fenfe of the fong. JOHNSON Muft Must make content with his fortunes fit ; Lear. True, my good boy.Come, bring us to this hovel. [Exit. When Fool. This is a brave night to cool a courtezan. 'I'll speak a prophecy ere I go: • I'll speak a prophecy ere I go? When priefts are more in words than matter; No heretics burn'd, but wenches' fuitors ; Then comes the time, who lives to fee't, That going fhall be us'd with feet.] The judicious reader will obferve through this heap of nonfenfe and confufion, that this is not one but two prophecies. The firft, a fatyrical defcription of the prefent manners as future: and the second, a fatyrical description of future manners, which the corruption of the prefent would prevent from ever happening. Each of thefe prophecies has its proper inference or deduction: yet, by an unaccountable ftupidity, the first editors took the whole to be all one prophecy, and fo jumbled the two contrary inferences together. The whole then fhould be read as follows, only premiling that the first line is corrupted by the lofs of a word-of are I go, is not English, and thould be helped thus: 1. I'll speak a prophecy or two ere I go : When priests are more in words than matter; No heretics burnt, but wenches' fuitors ; That going fhall be us'd with feet... Now: 2. When every cafe in law is right; No fquire in debt, and no poor knight; When |