Edg. How fhould this be? Bad is the trade, that must play the fool to forrow, 3 Ang'ring itself and others. [Afide.]-Blefs thee, mafter! Glo. Is that the naked fellow? Old Man. Ay, my lord. Glo. Then, pr'ythee, get thee gone: If, for my fake, Thou wilt o'ertake us, hence a mile or twain, I' the way to Dover, do it for ancient love; And bring fome covering for this naked foul, Whom I'll intreat to lead me. Old Man. Alack, fir, he is mad. Glo. 'Tis the times' plague, when madmen lead the blind: Do as I bid thee, or rather do thy pleasure ; Old Man. I'll bring him the best 'parrel that I have, Come on't what will. Glo. Sirrah, naked fellow. [Exit. Edg. Poor Tom's a-cold.-I cannot daub it further. Glo. Come hither, fellow. Edg. [Afide.] And yet I muft. -Blefs thy fweet eyes, they bleed. Glo. Know'st thou the way to Dover? [Afide Edg. Both ftile and gate, horfe-way and foot-path. Poor Tom hath been fcar'd out of his good wits: Bless thee, good man's fon, from the foul fiend! s of [Five fiends have been in poor Tom at once; luft, 3 Ang'fhing-] Oxford editor and Dr. Warburton.-Vulg. Ang'ring, rightly. JOHNSON. 4 -I cannot daub it] i. e. Difguife. WARBURTON. So, in King Richard III: "So fmooth he daub'd his vice with fhew of virtue." The quartos read, I cannot dance it further. STEEVENS. 5 Five fiends, &c.] The rest of this fpeech is omitted in the folio. In Harfenet's Book, already quoted, p. 278, we have an extract from the account published by the exorcifts themselves, luft, as Obidicut; Hobbididance, prince of dumbnefs: Mabu, of ftealing; Modo, of murder; and Flibbertigibbet, of mopping and mowing; who fince 7 poffeffes viz. "By commaundement of the exorcift... the devil in Ma, Mainy confeffed his name to be Modu, and that he had befides himself feaven other Spirits, and all of them captains, and of great fame."" Then Edmundes (the exorcift) began againe with great earnestness, and all the company cried out, &c. . . . fo as both that wicked prince Modu and his company, might be caft out." This paffage will account for five fiends having been in poor Tom at once. PERCY. 6 mopping and mowing ;] So in Beaumont and Fletcher's Pilgrim, Act IV. fc. ii. "The devil in a fool's coat, is he turn'd innocent? See Vol. I. p. 63. WHALLEY. 7 -poffefes chamber-maids and waiting-women. -] Shak fpeare has made Edgar, in his feigned diftraction, frequently allude to a vile impofture of fome English jefuits, at that time much the fubject of converfation; the hiftory of it having been juft then compofed with great art and vigour of ftile and compofition by Dr. S. Harfenet, afterwards archbishop of York, by order of the privy-council, in a work intitled, A Declaration of egregious Popish Impoftures to withdraw her Majefty's Subjects from their Allegiance, &c, practifed by Edmunds, alias Weston, a Jefuit, and divers Romish Priests his wicked Affociates: printed 1603. The impofture was in fubftance this. While the Spaniards were preparing their armado against England, the jesuits were here bufy at work to promote it, by making converts: one method they employed was to difpoffefs pretended demoniacs, by which artifice they made feveral hundred converts amongst the common people. The principal fcene of this farce was laid in the family of one Mr. Edmund Peckham, a Roman-catholic, where Marwood, a fervant of Anthony Babington's (who was afterwards executed for treafon) Trayford, an attendant upon Mr. Peckham, and Sarah and Frifwood Williams, and Anne Smith, three chambermaids in that family, came into the prieft's hands for cure. But the difcipline of the patients was fo long and fevere, and the priests fo elate and careless with their fuccefs, that the plot was difcovered on the confeffion of the parties concerned, and the contrivers of it defervedly punished. The five devils here mentioned, are the names of five of those who were made to act in this farce upon the chamber-maids and waitingwomen; and they were generally fo ridiculously nick-named, that Harfnet feffes chamber-maids and waiting-women. So, bless thee, mafter!] Glo. Here, take this purse, thou whom the heaven's plagues Have humbled to all strokes: that I am wretched, Makes thee the happier :-Heavens, deal so still! Let the fuperfluous, and luft-dieted man, 9 That flaves your ordinance, that will not fee Because he doth not feel, feel your power quickly; So diftribution should undo excess, Harfnet has one chapter on the ftrange names of their devils; left, fays he, meeting them otherwife by chance, you mistake them for the names of tapfters or jugglers. WARBURTON. The paffage in crotchets is omitted in the folio, because I fuppofe as the ftory was forgotten, the jeft was lost. JOHNSON. Let the fuperfluous, Lear has before uttered the fame fentiment, which indeed cannot be too strongly impressed, though it may be too often repeated. JOHNSON. • That flaves your ordinance,] Superfluous is here used for one living in abundance. But the next line is corrupt. The only fenfe I know of, in which flaves your ordinance can be understood, is when men employ the form or femblance of religion to compafs their ill defigns. But this will not do here. Glofter is fpeaking of fuch who by an uninterrupted course of profperity are grown wanton, and callous to the misfortunes of others; fuch as those who fearing no reverse, flight and neglect, and therefore may be faid to brave the ordinance of heaven: which is certainly the right reading. And this is the second time in which flaves has, in this play, been read for braves. WARBURTON. The emendation is plaufible, yet I doubt whether it be right. The language of Shakspeare is very licentious, and his words have often meanings remote from the proper and original us❤. To flave or beflave another is to treat him with terms of indignity in a kindred fenfe, to flave the ordinance, may be, to flight or ridicule it. JOHNSON. To flave an ordinance, is to treat it as a flave, to make it subject to us, inftead of acting in obedience to it. So, in Heywood's Brazen Age, 1613: "Could flave him like the Lydian Omphale." Again, in A New Way to pay old Debts, by Maflinger: -that flaves me to his will." STEEVENS. And And each man have enough.-Doft thou know Dover? Edg. Ay, mafter. Glo. There is a cliff, whose high and bending head Looks fearfully on the confined deep: Bring me but to the very brim of it, And I'll repair the mifery thou dost bear, I fhall no leading need. Edg. Give me thy arm; Poor Tom fhall lead thee. SCENE II, The duke of Albany's palace. Enter Goneril, and Edmund. [Exeunt, Gon. Welcome, my lord: I marvel, our mild husband Not met us on the way:-Now, where's your mafter? Enter Steward, Stew. Madam, within; but never man so chang'd; I told him of the army that was landed; He fmil'd at it: I told him, you were coming; When I inform'd him, then he call'd me fot; R our mild bufband] It must be remembered that Albany, the hufband of Goneril, difliked, in the end of the first act, the fcheme of oppreffion and ingratitude. JOHNSON. Gon Gon. Then shall you go no further. [To Edmund. It is the cowifh terror of his fpirit, That dares not undertake: he'll not feel wrongs, Edm. Yours in the ranks of death. O, the difference of man, and man s 2 -our wishes, on the way, May prove effects. [Exit Edmund. I believe the meaning of the paffage to be this: "What we wifh, before our march is at an end, may be brought to happen," i. e. the murder or difpatch of her husband.-On the way, however, may be equivalent to the expreffion we now use, viz. By the way, or By the by, i. e. en pasant. STEEVENS. The wishes we have formed and communicated to each other, on our journey may be carried into effect. MONCK MASON. -I must change arms, &c.] Thus the quartos. The folio reads-change names. STEEVENS. 3 4 Decline your head: this kifs, if it durft fpeak, She bids him decline his head, that the might give him a kifs (the steward being prefent) and that it might appear only to him as a whifper. STEEVENS. O, the difference of man and man!] Omitted in the quartos. STEEVENS. My fool ufurps my body.] One of the quartos reads: My foot ufurps my head; the other, Stew. |