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. 8 Kent. Alas, Sir, are you here? night, Things that love Love not fuch nights as thefe; the wrathful skies And make them keep their caves. Such groans of roaring wind and rain, I never Lear. Let the great gods, 2 That keep this dreadful pother o'er our heads, Find out their enemies now. Tremble, thou wretch, That haft within thee undivulged crimes, Unwhipt of juftice. Hide thee, thou bloody hand; Thou perjur'd, and 3 thou fimular man of virtue, Caitiff, in pieces shake That art incestuous. 7 No, I will be the pattern of all patience, That I will fay nothing.] So Perillus, in the old anonymous. play, fpeaking of Leir, 8 But he, the myrrour of mild patience, "Puts up all wrongs, and never gives reply." STEEV. are you here?-] The quarto reads,-fit you here? STEEVENS. 9 Gallow the very wanderers of the dark,] Gallow, a westcountry word, fignifies to scare or frighten. WARBURTON. So the Somerfetfhire proverb, "The dunder do gally the "beans." Beans are supposed to shoot up fafter after thunderftorms. STEEVENS. -fear.] So the folio: the later editions read, with the quarto, ferce for fear, lefs elegantly. JOHNSON. 2 this dreadful pother] Thus one of the quartos and the folio. The other quarto reads thund'ring. STEEVENS. - thou fimular man of virtue,] Shakespeare has here kept exactly to the Latin propriety of the term. I will only obferve, 3 - that 3 That under covert and convenient feeming, 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 the ftraw, my fellow ? The art of our neceffities is ftrange, That can make vile things precious. hovel. Come, your Poor fool and knave, I have 6 one part That's forry yet for thee. that our author feems to have imitated Skelton in making a fubftantive of fimular, as the other did of diffimular, "With other foure of theyr affynyte, Dyfdayne, ryotte, disfymuler, fubtylte.”—The Bouge of Courte. WARBURTON. 3 That under covert and convenient feeming,] Convenient needs not be understood in any other than its ufual and proper fenfe; accommodate to the prefent purpofe; fuitable to a defign. Convenient feming is appearance fuch as may promote his purpose to deftroy. JOHNSON. 4 concealing continents, Continent ftands for that which contains or inclojes. JOHNSON. and afk Thefe dreadful fummoners grace.-] Summoners is here the fame as jompners, apparitors, officers that fummon offenders before a proper tribunal. STEEVENS. 6 one part in my heart;] Some editions read, from which Hanmer, and Dr. Warburton after him, have made firing, very unneceffarily; both the copies have part. JOHNS. The old quarto reads, That forrows yet for thee. STEEVENS. VOL. IX. Cc Fool. Fool. 7 He that has a little tiny wit,- Lear. True, my good boy. Come, bring us to this hovel. [Exit. Fool. This is a brave night to cool a courtezan. When priefts are more in word than matter; When 7 He that has but a little tiny wit,-] I fancy that the second 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, "He With heigh ho, the wind and the rain in his way. The meaning feems likewife to require this infertion. "that has wit, however finall, and finds wind and rain in his "way, muft content himself by thinking, that somewhere or "other it raineth every day, and others are therefore fuffering "like himself." 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. 3 I'll speak a prophesy or ere I go: When priefts are more in words than matter ; No heretics burn'd, but wenches' fuitors; When every cafe in law is right; When ufarers tell their gold i' the field, Then fhall the realm of Albion Come to great confufion. 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 fecond, a fatyrical defcription of future manners, which the corruption of the prefent would prevent from ever happening. Each of theie prophecies • When nobles are their tailors' tutors; Come to great confufion. 【 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 should be read as follows, only premifing that the firft line is corrupted by the lofs of a word-or ere I go, is not English, and fhould be helped thus: 1. I'll fpeak a prophecy or two ere I go: When nobles are their tailors' tutors; No heretics burnt, but wenches' suitors; That going fhall be us'd with feet.-i. e. Now. 2. When every cafe in law is right; No fquire in debt, and no poor knight; And cut-purfes come not to throngs; Then fhall the realm of Albion Come to great confufion.-i. e. Never. WARBURTON. The fagacity and acuteness of Dr. Warburton are very confpicuous in this note. He has difentangled the confufion of the paffage, and I have inferted his emendation in the text. Or e'er is proved by Mr. Upton to be good English, but the controverfy was not neceffary, for or is not in the old copies. JOHNSON. 9 When nobles are their tailors' tutors ;] i. e. Invent fashions for them. WARBURTON. No heretics burnt, but wenches' fuitors;] The difeafe to which wenches fuitors are particularly expofed, was called in Shakespeare's time the brenning or burning. JOHNSON. Cc 2 This This prophecy Merlin fhall make, for I live before his time. SCENE III. An apartment in Glo'fter's castle. Enter Glofter and Edmund. [Exit. Glo. Alack, alack, Edmund, I like not this unnatural dealing: when I defir'd their leave that I might pity him, they took from me the ufe of mine own houfe, charg'd me, on pain of perpetual difpleasure, neither to fpeak of him, entreat for him, nor any way sustain him. Edm. Moft favage and unnatural! Glo. Go to; fay you nothing. There is divifion between the dukes; and a worse matter than that. I have receiv'd a letter this night. 'Tis dangerous to be fpoken. I have lock'd the letter in my clofet. Thefe injuries, the king now bears, will be revenged home; there is part of a power already footed: we must incline to the king. I will feek him, and privily relieve him; go you, and maintain talk with the duke, that my charity be not of him perceiv'd. If he afk for me, I am ill, and gone to bed. If I die for it, as no less is threaten'd me, the king my old mafter must be reliev'd. There is fome ftrange thing toward, Edmund; pray you be careful. [Exit. Edm. This courtefy, forbid thee, fhall the duke Inftantly know; and of that letter too. This prophecy-] This prophecy is not to be found in any copy of King Lear published in the author's life-time. Then fhall the realm of Allion Come to great confufion.] Thefe two lines are taken from Chaucer. Puttenham, in his Art of Poetry, 1589, quotes them as follows: "When faith fails in prieftes faws, "And lords hefts are holden for laws, "And letchery for folace, "Then shall the realm of Albion "Be brought to great confufion." STEEVENS. |