Most readers, I believe, will concur with Addison in the general encomium he has pronounced on this speech, and the "poverty of that writer's wit;" in the instance quoted by Dr. Johnson, would be almost overlooked, if it had not instigated the learned and acute editor to a false and disingenuous remark-had the Doctor (to use his own words on another occasion) been in quest of truth, he would plainly have perceived the difference between a real object of terror, and a fictitious one. The objection, perhaps, might stand if we could suppose the speaker really impressed with the terrors of the precipice which he is only artfully describing; but, as Edgar has made a plausible representation to deceive his father, the Doctor seems disposed to play a similar trick on his confiding readers.

535.

66

The deficient sight
Topple down headlong."

This is hardly a warrantable expression: "the deficient sight," for "the person defective of sight."

536. "

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Fairies, and gods,

Prosper it with thee !"

Fairies are sometimes invoked as auspicious, and sometimes deprecated as malignant.-In Cymbeline, Imogen prays thus:

Gods,

"From fairies and the tempters of the night, “Guard me, beseech you.'

66

"

Why I do trifle thus with his despair, "Is done to cure it."

This would be very unskilful writing: the sense and spirit of the drama requires what one

of the quartos authorises, and what Theobald and Dr. Warburton adopted:

Why do I trifle thus with his despair? "Tis done to cure it."

537. Ho, you sir! friend! what are you?Hear you?-speak!"

538. "But have I fall'n, or no? beseech you mock not."

Do but look up."

Glo. "Look up! alack! I cannot, I have no

eyes.'

Enter Lear.

There can be no reason, except corruption, for the first speeches of Lear, in this scene, being prose, when what follows is in measure: but the depravity is too rooted to admit of any attempt to obtain purity.

540.

Gods, who make them honours

Of men's impossibilities."

Who acquire glory by performing miracles.

"The safer sense will ne'er accommodate "His master thus."

A man in his right mind would never make such an appearance as this: "the safer sense" is the unimpaired understanding, according to a mode of speech common enough-my better fortune; my better angel; my worser spirit, i. e. my evil genius.

543. "

They flatter'd me like a dog."

As a dog flatters, by fawning: Hotspur uses the same comparison:

7

Why what a deal of candied courtesy "This fawning greyhound then did proffer me." K. Henry IV. First Part.

"To say ay, and no, to every thing I said!Ay and no too was no good divinity.”

I know not whether this means, contradictions cannot agree with true orthodoxy or divinity, or to say ay and no at the same time was no good omen or divination; it did not bode good to me. Mr. Tooke, in The Diversions of Purley, derives aye or yea from the imperative of a northern verb, signifying, have it, enjoy it, possess it. If this be admitted there is a peculiar force in these words of Lear, alluding to his kingly authority. 544. "Adultery."

This word has been foolishly inserted, as if necessary to the sense, which is better without it: "I pardon that man's life: What was the cause?" The answer is made in the mind of the speaker, who proceeds:

"Thou shalt not die: Die for adultery! No: The small gilded fly

"Does letcher in my sight. Let copulation "Go on and thrive, for Gloster's bastard son "Was kinder to his father, than my daughters, "Got 'tween the lawful sheets. To't luxury, "For I lack soldiers.-Mark yon' simpering dame, "Whose face, between her forks, presageth snow, "That minces virtue, and with feign'd distaste, "Does shake the head to hear of pleasure's name "Not the fitchew, nor the soiled horse, goes to't "With a more riotous appětite; from the waist; Down, they are céntaŭrs, though women all above."

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Or, perhaps, better:

"With a more riotous appetite; though women "Above, down from the waist they are céntaurs áll.

"There is the sulphurous pit, there burning,

scalding,

Consumption, give me

stench;-fie! fie! fie! pah!

"An ounce of civet, good apothecary,
"To sweeten my imagination-there
"Is money for thee."

Glo. O, let me kiss that hand!"

Lear. "Let me wipe it first; it smells of mortality."

It is not easy to utter this as an harmonious line:

"Let me wipe't first; for it smells of mortality." "I do remember well enough thine eyes:

What, dost thou squinny at me? No, no, do Thy worst, blind Cupid, I'll not love, read thou

"This challenge, mark you but the penning of it."

I believe Lear now alludes to the eyeless head of Gloster, to which succeeds the idea of the hat and felt.

552." Thou hast one daughter,

"Who redeems nature from the general

curse

"Which twain have brought her to."

This thought, not so widely extended, Mr.

Pope has introduced into his Elegy on the Death of an Unfortunate Lady:

"Nor left one virtue to redeem her race."

sorrows,

"Am pregnant to good pity."

This is incorrectly expressed; the art of known and feeling sorrows, for the art or habit acquired by knowing and feeling sorrows. Mr. Gray has adopted the sentiment in his Ode to Adversity: "What sorrow was thou bad'st her know, "And from her own, she learn'd to melt at others woe."

i. e. My evil genius; an expression consonant to" the safer sense," i. e. the same, or the sound sense, line 429.

The words may admit of this construction, "who, by the effect of acknowledged and deepfelt sorrows," &c. B. STRUTT.

I am doubtful whether this means, "O, incomprehensible extent of woman's desires !" or that it is a reflection on the fickleness and uncertainty, the varium et mutabile semper of woman's appetite; Dr. Warburton gives the latter interpretation, and that may receive support from some words that Posthumus utters on the subject: