With fuch a number; muft I come to you
With five and twenty? Regan, faid you fo?

Reg. And speak't again, my lord, no more with me. Lear. Thofe wicked creatures yet do look well-favour'd,

When others are more wicked: Not being worst,
Stands in fome rank of praise; I'll go with thee;
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 houfe, where twice fo many
Have a command to tend you?

Reg. What needs one?

Lear. O, reafon not the need: our baseft beggars

Are in the pooreft thing fuperfluous;

Allow not nature more than nature needs,

Man's life is cheap as beafts. Thou art a lady;
If only to go warm were gorgeous,

Why, nature needs not what thou gorgeous wear'ft,
Which scarcely keeps thee warm; but for true need,
You heav'ns, give me that patience which I need!
You fee me here, you Gods, a poor old man,
As full of grief as age; wretched in both!
If it be you, that stir thefe daughters hearts
Against their father, fool me not so much.
To bear it tamely; touch me with noble anger;

(23)

(23) touch me with noble Anger.] It would puzzle one at first, to find the Senfe, and Drift, and Coherence of this Petition. For if the Gods fent this Affliction for his Punishment, how could he expect that they would defeat their own Design, and affift him to revenge his Inju ries by touching him with noble Anger? This Question cannot well be anfwer'd, without going a little further than ordinary for the Solution. We may be affured then, that Shakespeare had here in his Mind those Opinions the antient Poets held of the Misfortunes of particular Families. They tell us, that when the Anger of the Gods (for any Act of Impiety) was rais'd against an offending Family, that their Method of Punishment was this: first, they inflamed the Breafts of the Children to unnatural Acts against their Parents; and then, of the Parents against their Children; that they might destroy one another: and that both thefe Outrages were the Acts of the Gods. To confider Lear as alluding to this, makes his Prayer exceeding pertinent and fine. Mr. Warburton.

O let not womens weapons, water-drops,
Stain my man's cheeks. No, you unnat❜ral hags,
I will have fuch revenges on you both, (24)
That all the world fhall I will do fuch things,
What they are, yet I know not; but they shall be
The terrors of the earth: you think, I'll weep:
No, I'll not weep. I have full caufe of weeping:
This heart fhall break into a thousand flaws,
Or ere I weep. O fool, I fhall go mad.

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

[Storm and tempeft.

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

Gon. 'Tis his own blame hath put himself from rest, 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 Glo'fter?

Enter Glo'fter.

Corn. Follow'd the old man forth; - he is return'd. Glo. The King is in high rage, and will I know not whither.

Corn.

(24) I will have fuch Revenges on you both, That all the World ball] This fine abrupt Breaking off, and Suppreffion of Paffion in its very height, (a Figure, which the Greek Rhetoricians have call'd, do'nσ) is very familiar with our Author, as with other good Writers, and always gives an Energy to the Subject. That, by Neptune in the firft Book of the Eneis, is always quoted as a celebrated Instance of this Figure :

Quas ego- Sed motos præftat componere fluctus.

What Lear immediately fubjoins here, I will do fuch Things, What they are, yet I know not feems to carry the vifible Marks of Imita

tion.

Corn. 'Tis beft to give him way, he leads himself. Gon. My lord, intreat him by no means to stay. Glo. Alack, the night comes on: and the high winds Do forely ruffle, for many miles about There's fcarce a bush.

Reg. O Sir, to wilful men,

The injuries, that they themselves procure,

Must be their school-mafters: fhut up your doors;
He is attended with a desp❜rate train;

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

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

My Regan counfels well: come out o'th' ftorm.

[Exeunt.

ACT III.

SCENE, A Heath.

A form is heard with thunder and lightning. Enter Kent, and a Gentleman, feverally.

W

KENT.

HO's there, befides foul weather?

Gent. One minded like the weather, most unquietly.

Kent. I know you, where's the King?

Gent. Contending with the fretful elements;

Bids the wind blow the earth into the fea;

Or fwell the curled waters 'bove the main,

That things might change, or ceafe: 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 t' outfcorn
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 furr dry; unbonnetted 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,

And dare, upon the warrant of my note,

Commend a dear thing to you.

There's divifion

(Although as yet the face of it is cover'd

With mutual cunning) 'twixt Albany and Cornwall:
Who have (as who have not, whom their great ftars (25)
Thron'd and fet high?) fervants, who feem no lefs;
Which are to France the fpies and speculations
Intelligent of our state. What hath been seen,
Either in fnuffs and packings of the Dukes;
Or the hard rein, which both of them have born
Against the old kind king; or fomething deeper,
(Whereof, perchance, thefe are but furnishings)
But true it is, from France there comes a power
Into this scatter'd kingdom; who already,
Wife in our negligence, have fecret fea
In fome of our beft ports, and are at point
To show their open banner-Now to you,
If on my credit you dare build fo far
To make your speed to Dover, you shall find
Some that will thank you, making juft report
Of how unnatural and bemadding forrow
The King hath cause to plain.

I am a gentleman of blood and breeding,
And from fome knowledge and affurance of you,
Offer this office.

Gent. I'll talk further with you.

(25) Who have, as who have not,-] The eight fubfequent Verses were degraded by Mr. Pope, as unintelligible, and to no purpose. For my part, I fee nothing in them but what is very eafie to be understood; and the Lines seem abfolutely neceffary to clear up the Motives, upon which France prepar'd his Invasion: nor without them is the Sense of the Context compleat.

Kent.

Kent. No, do not:

For confirmation that I am much more

Than my out-wall, open this purfe and take
What it contains. If you fhall fee Cordelia,
(As, fear not, but you fhall) fhew her that Ring,
And the will tell you who this fellow is,

That yet you do not know. Fie on this ftorm!
I will go feek the King.

Gent. Give me your hand, have you no more to say?
Kent. Few words, but, to effect, more than all yet;
That, when we have found the King, (in which
That way, I this :) he that firft lights on him,
Hollow the other.

you take

[Exeunt feverally.

Storm ftill. Enter Lear and Fool.

Lear. Blow winds, and crack your cheeks; rage, blow! You cataracts, and hurricanoes, spout

'Till you have drencht our fteeples, drown'd the cocks!
You fulph'rous and thought-executing fires,
Vaunt-couriers of oak-cleaving thunder-bolts,

Singe my white head. And thou all-fhaking thunder,
Strike flat the thick rotundity o'th' world;
Crack nature's mould, all germins fpill at once

(26) That

(26) Crack Nature's Mould, all Germains Spill at once.] Thus all the Editions have given us this Paffage, and Mr. Pope has explain'd Germains, to mean, relations, or kindred Elements. Then it must have been germanes (from the Latin Adjective, germanus ;) a Word more than once used by our Author, tho' always false spelt by his Editors. So, in Ham let;

The Phrafe would be more germane to the matter, if we could carry Cannon by our Sides:

And fo in Othello;

You'll have your Nephews neigh to you; You'll have Courfers for Coufins, and Gennets for Germanes.

But the Poet means here," Crack Nature's Mould, and spill all the "Seeds of Matter, that are hoarded within it." To retrieve which Sense, we muft write Germins; (a Subftantive deriv'd from Germen, woeg: as the old Gloffaries expound it ;) and fo we must again in Macbeth ;

Tho the Treafure

Of Nature's Germins tumble all together,

Ev'n till Deftruction ficken.

And