-

-Hum

Jeep, till I wak'd him, you should enjoy half his revenue for ever, and live the beloved of your brother Edgar. -Confpiracy!-fleep, 'till I wake him-you fhould enjoy half his revenue-My fon Edgar! had he a hand to write this! a heart and brain to breed it in! When came this to you? who brought it?

Edm. It was not brought me, my lord; there's the cunning of it. I found it thrown in at the casement of my closet.

Glo. You know the character to be your brother's? Edm. If the matter were good, my lord, I durft fwear, it were his; but in refpect of that, I would fain think, it were not.

Glo. It is his.

Edm. It is his hand, my lord; I hope, his heart is not in the contents.

Glo. Has he never before founded you in this business? Edm. Never, my lord. But I have heard him oft maintain it to be fit, that fons at perfect age, and fathers - declining, the father should be as a ward to the son, and the fon manage his revenue.

Glo. O villain, villain! his very opinion in the letter. Abhorred villain! unnatural, detefted, brutish villain! worse than brutish! Go, firrah, seek him; I'll apprehend him. Abominable villain! where is he?

Edm. I do not well know, my lord; if it fhall please you to fufpend your indignation against my brother, 'till you can derive from him better teftimony of his intent, you should run a certain courfe; where, if you violently proceed against him, mistaking his purpose, it would make a great gap in your own honour, and fhake in pieces the heart of his obedience. I dare pawn down my life for him, that he hath writ this to feel my affection to your Honour, and to no other pretence of danger.

Glo. Think you fo?

Edm. If your Honour judge it meet, I will place you where you fhall hear us confer of this, and by an auricular affurance have your fatisfaction: and that, without any further delay than this very evening.

Glo.

Glo. He cannot be fuch a monster.

Edm. Nor is not, fure.

Glo. To his Father, that fo tenderly and entirely loves him- -Heav'n and Earth! Edmund, feek him out; wind me into him, I pray you; frame the bufinefs after your own wifdom. I would unftate myself, to be in a due refolution.

Edm. I will feek him, Sir, presently: convey the bu finefs as I fhall find means, and acquaint you withal.

Glo. These late eclipfes in the fun and moon portend no good to us; tho' the wifdom of nature can reafon it thus and thus, yet nature finds itfelf fcourg'd by the frequent effects. Love cools, friendship falls off, trothers divide. In cities, mutinies; in countries, difcord; in Palaces, treafon; and the bond crack'd 'twixt fon and father. This villain of mine comes under the prediction, there's fon against father; the King falls from bias of nature, there's father against child. We have feen the best of our time. Machinations, hollownefs, treachery, and all ruinous diforders follow us difquietly to our graves! Find out this villain, Edmund; it shall lofe thee nothing, do it carefully-and the noble and true-hearted Kent banish'd! his offence, Honefty. 'Tis ftrange. [Exit.

Manet Edmund.

Edm. This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are fick in fortune, (often the furfeits of our own behaviour) we make guilty of our disasters, the fun, the moon and stars (7); as if we were villains on neceffity; fools, by heavenly compulfion; knaves,

(7) We make guilty of our difafters, the fun, the moon, and ftars:] It was the opinion of judicial afirologers, that whatfoever good difpofitions the infant, unborn, might be endow'd with, either from nature or traductively from its parents; yet if, at the hour of birth, its delivery was by any cafual accident fo accelerated, or retarded, that it fell in with the predominancy of a malignant conftellation; that momentary influence would entirely change its nature, and bias it to all the contrary ill qualities.This was fo wretched and monftrous an opinion, that it well deferved and was well fitted for the lafh of fatire. Mr. Warburton. thieves,

thieves, and treacherous, by fpherical predominance; drunkards, lyars, and adulterers, by an inforc'd obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on. An admirable evafion of whore-mafter Man, to lay his goatifh difpofition on the charge of a ftar! my father compounded with my mother under the Dragon's tail, and my nativity was under Urfa major; fo that it follows, I am rough and lecherous. I should have been what I am, had the maidenlieft ftar in the firmament twinkled on my baftardizing.

To him, Enter Edgar.

Pat! he comes, like the Catastrophe of the old comedy; my cue is villanous Melancholy, with a figh like Tom o' Bedlam-Q, thefe eclipfes portend thefe divifions! fa, fol, la, me

Edg. How now, brother Edmund, what ferious contemplation are you in?

Edm. I am thinking, brother, of a prediction I read this other day, what fhould follow thefe eclipfes. Edg. Do you bufy your felf with that?

Edm. I promife you, the effects, he writes of, fucceed unhappily. When faw you my father laft? Edg. The night gone by.

Edm. Spake you with him?

Edg. Ay, two hours together.

Edm. Parted you in good terms, found you no difpleasure in him, by word or countenance? Edg. None at all.

Edm. Bethink yourself, wherein you have offended him: and, at my intreaty, forbear his prefence, until fome little time hath qualified the heat of his difpleafure; which at this inftant fo rageth in him, that with the mischief of your perfon it would fcarcely allay.

Edg. Some villain hath done me wrong.

Edm. That's my fear; I pray you, have a continent forbearance 'till the fpeed of his rage goes flower: and as I fay, retire with me to my lodging, from whence I will fitly bring you to hear my lord fpeak: pray you,

go

go, there's my key: if you do ftir abroad, go arm'd. Edg. Arm'd, brother !

Edm. Brother, I advise you to the best; I am no honest man, if there be any good meaning toward you: I have told you what I have feen and heard, but faintly; nothing like the image and horror of it; pray you,

away.

Edg. Shall I hear from you anon?

Edm. I do ferve you in this business.
A credulous father, and a brother noble,
Whofe nature is fo far from doing harms,
That he fufpects none; on whofe foolish honefty
My practices ride eafy: I fee the bufinefs.
Let me, if not by birth, have lands by wit;
All with me's meet, that I can fashion fit.

[Exit.

[Exit.

SCENE, the Duke of Albany's Palace.

Enter Gonerill, and Steward.

ID my father ftrike my gentleman for chiding

of his fool?

Stew. Ay, madam.

Gon. By day and night, he wrongs me; every hour He flashes into one grofs crime or other,

That fets us all at odds; I'll not endure it:

His Knights grow riotous, and himfelf upbraids us
On ev'ry trifle. When he returns from hunting,
I will not speak with him; fay, I am fick.

If you come flack of former services,

You shall do well; the fault of it I'll answer.
Stew. He's coming, madam, I hear him.

Gon. Put on what weary negligence you pleafe. You and your fellows: I'd have it come to queftion. If he diftafte it, let him to my fifter,

Whofe mind and mine, I know, in that are one,
Not to be over-rul'd: Idle old Man, (8)

That

(8) Idle old Man,] The following lines, as they are fine in themfelves, and very much in character for Gonerill, I have reftor'd from

the

That ftill would manage thofe Authorities,
That he hath giv'n away!-Now, by my Life,
Old Fools are Babes again; and must be used

With checks, like flatt'rers when they're seen t'abuse us. Remember, what I have faid.

Stew. Very well, madam.

Gon. And let his Knights have colder looks among you: what grows of it, no matter; advise your fellows fo: I'll write ftrait to my fifter to hold my courfe: prepare for dinner. [Exeunt. SCENE changes to an open Place before the Palace.

Kent.

I

Enter Kent difguis'd.

F but as well I other accents borrow,

And can my speech diffufe, my good intent (9) May carry thro' itself to that full iffue,

For which I raz'd my likeness. Now, banifh'd Kent,
If thou can't ferve where thou doft stand condemn'd,
So may it come, thy mafter, whom thou lov't,
Shall find thee full of labours.

the old 4to. The last verse, which I have ventur'd to amend, is there printed thus;

With Checks, like Flatt'ries when they are seen abus'd.

(9) And can my speech difufe,] This reading we deriv'd firft from Mr. Rowe's edition; and from thence it has taken poffeffion in the two impreffions given us by Mr. Pofe. But the poet's word was certainly, diffufe: And Kent would fay, "If I can but fo fpread out my (de telle forte efpandre, as the French term it ;)" vary my 68 tone, and utterance, fo widely from what it used to be as to difguife "it; &c." And diffused in this fenfe of obfolete, disguised, our poet has more than once employ'd.

"accents,

Let them from forth a faw-pit rush at once,
With fome diffused fong:-

Merry Wives of Windfor.

To swearing, and stern looks, diffus'd attire,

Vouchfafe, diffus'd infection of a man,

King Henry Vth.

King Richard IId.

Horns