376. "I have cast off for ever."

The disorder, here, might be removed in this way:

"I have cast off for ever. Ay, thou shalt, "I warrant thee."

Gon."

Do you mark that, my lord ?"

Alb. "I I cannot be so partial, Goneril, "To the great love I bear".

Gon."

Pray you content.

"What Oswald, ho! You, sir, more knave than fool,

"After your master.”

To let him keep

At point, a hundred knights. Yes, that on every dream.”

We might read smoothly:

"At point a hundred knights, that on each dream."

377. "When I have show'd the unfitness,—how now, Oswald ?”

The latter part of this line is manifest interpolation; the speaker had but the moment before called Oswald to her, and could not, therefore, be surprised at his approach:

"When I have shew'd th' unfitness.

"Shew'd" for "shewn."

378. "Than prais'd for harmless mildness."

Something is wanting; perhaps :

By those who judge, than prais'd for harmless mildness.'

Gon. "Nay then, believe me, sir.'

Alb. "

Well, well, th' event."

ACT II. SCENE I.

According to Mr. Eccles's arrangement, which appears very judicious, this Act begins with Edmund's soliloquy.

383. "The duke be here to night? the better! best!"

There is, in the quarto, no note of admiration between "better" and "best," and I cannot but consider it erroneous: the sense of the passage seems to be, my projects, which have been ripening, are now mature; what had thriven and improved, seems now to be perfect.

384.

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- Have you nothing said Upon his party 'gainst the duke?" Upon the subject of his party; have you made no disclosure of his purpose.

385."(Draw:) seem to defend yourself: now quit you well."

"Draw" is of no use but to encumber the

verse.

"Do more than this in sport: O father, father!"

Without this supplement of the apostrophe O, we have a line only in syllables.

387. "He that conceals him death."

The want of concord, in this hemistic, will suggest the means of repairing the measure: "He that conceals him shall abide the death."

Hemistics, without any cause from the interruptions of passion, are, generally, perhaps always, the marks of mutilation or corruption: that which closes Gloster's speech might thus be corrected:

"All ports I'll bar-where'er the villain is "He shall not scape; the duke must grant me that;

"Besides, his picture I'll send far and near, "That all the kingdom may have note of him, "And of my land, loyal and natural boy, "I'll work the means to make thee capable." 392. "Your graces are right welcome."

"To my poor house your graces are right wel

395.

come.

SCENE II.

A base, proud, shallow, beggarly, threesuited, hundred pound, filthy, worstedstocking knace," &c.

i. e. A fellow made up of inconsistencies; as well in his exterior habiliments as in the composition of his mind,-he is, at once, proud and beggarly, and even the cloaths he wears are not adapted to each other, but are rather a suit made out of three suits; he is insolent and mean; and, while his vanity displays a silken doublet, his avarice betrays itself in hose of worsted.

398.

You neat slave.”

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Mr. Steevens, when he says, neat slave means no more than finical rascal, an assemblage of foppery and poverty," ascribes to the expression much more than, I believe, belongs to it; and I don't suppose any one will admit his definition. Dr. Johnson's, I think, is the true explanation, a mere knave; a pure, unmixed one; and this appears to be the sense in the quoted passage from Ben Jonson :

"By thy leave, my neat scoundrel."

Weapons! arms! outrage! What's the matter here?”

Corn. "What tumult's this? Keep peace upon your lives."

Some such words as the Italics here supply seem to have been lost: but the whole dialogue is corrupted.

"Nature disclaims in thee."

This phrase occurs in Jonson's Volpone:
My heart

"Abhors his knowledge: I disclaim in him."

400. "Who wears no honesty.”

Again the measure wants reformation :

"Who wears no honesty-such smiling rogues "As these, like rats, oft bite the cords atwain, "Too intrinsicate t' unloose, smooth every passion."

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Holy" I consider, with Mr. Malone, an interpolation. "Inloose" is the reading of the quarto, which leads to the correct word, "enloose." To" unloose" should be " to make fast."

403. Glos. "Say that."

Why should Gloster say that? the question, "How fell ye out?" was enough for the sense as well as the metre.

Why dost thou call him," &c. This will not form the measure:

Kent. "Than I and such a knave."

Corn. "

Why call'st him knave?

"What's his offence?"

Kent. "His countenance likes me not

404.

405.

Corn.

"That stretch their manners with their duties nicely".

"But Ajax is their fool."

Fetch forth the stocks, ho!"

"Ho" is interpolated, or the ejaculation of some actor without an ear.

Mr. Steevens's former explanation appears to be much nearer to the truth than that which he has adopted from Mr. M. Mason. If Kent's meaning had been according to the notion of the latter gentleman, he would have said at once,

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Ajax is a fool to them."

The sense of which could never be mistaken; but there is a material difference between being their fool, and a fool to them, i. e. in comparison with them; and we cannot admit the latter interpretation either with a view to the character of Ajax, or the drift of the sentence: what Mr. Malone has adduced on the same side, is not, I