"Old fools are babes again; and must be us'd "With checks, as flatteries,-when they are seen abus'd." I believe the meaning is this:-Old men must be treated like children, and should be rebuked or caressed according to their wayward tempers. Abused, here, is to be deceived or mistaking. 351. "What grows of it, no matter: advise your fellows so. "So" is an unnecessary hypermeter. "I would breed from hence occasions, and I shall." "From should be ejected. SCENE IV, 352. "For which I raz'd my likeness.-Now, banish'd Kent.” "Now" could be spared, to accommodate the verse. 358. "Thou'lt catch cold." "Catch cold," I believe, is no more than a cant phrase for meeting with disaster; it is still current in this sense. 359. "Ride more than thou goest." 66 66 To go," seems here, by a strange licence, to signify walking," in contradistinction to "riding." 363, "How now, daughter? What makes that frontlet on ?" The metre requires a transposition: Daughter, how now! What makes that frontlet on ?" What makes that frontlet on ?" "Frontlet," I believe, means neither " a part of a woman's dress," as Mr. Steevens supposes, nor of her " undress," as Mr. Malone explains it; but merely, countenance-aspect:-Why put you on that imperious look? The wrinkles on the lady's forehead would seem ill-expressed by the name of the bandage which was used to prevent 'or smooth those wrinkles. 365. "In rank and not-to-be-endured riots. Sir." "That you protect this course, and put it on By your allowance; which if you should, the fault "Would not 'scape censure, nor the redresses. sleep; "Which, in the tender," &c. This is obscure. We might read: "That you protect this course, and put it on By your allowance; which did you not, the fault "Would not 'scape censure," &c. Yet it appears, in the conclusion, that the censure or the punishment is not in the king's hands. I do not understand it. Perhaps, we should read "Which if you should, the fault 366. " Come, sir," &c. It is, perhaps, impossible to obtain purity by any labour upon some of those passages that have been corrupted, and stand, among regular verses, degraded into prose :-but let us try what can be done. 66 Come, sir, I would you would employ that wisdom "Whereof I know that you are fraught, and put Away these dispositions which of late "Transform you so from what you rightly are." "Does any here know me ?" I am inclined to think this dialogue was metrical, and afterwards corrupted into prose. Perhaps, we might regulate it in this way: "Does any here know me ?-This is not Lear: "Does Lear walk thus? speak thus? Where are his eyes? "Either his notion weakens; his discernings "Are lethargied-Ha! sleeping! waking! Sure "It is not so, or if.-Who is it now "Can tell me who I am?-Lear's shadow? I "Would fain learn that; for by the marks I have "Of sovereignty, of knowledge, and of reason, "I should be false persuaded I had daughters." "Your name, fair gentlewoman?" sir." Gon. "O, come, sir. 367. "His notion weakens, his discernings His understanding declines, his discernings VOL. II. Η are, &c. The quarto reads, "his notion is weakness, or his discernings are lethargy." 369. "As you are old and reverend, you should be wise." We might read, within compass, "Being old and reverend, you should be wise." Or else, with Theobald, "You, as you're old and reverend, should be wise." 370. "Shows like a riotous inn.". "Riotous," as Mr. Steevens has suggested, might certainly be omitted, and with advantage to the sense, as it hurts the climax of " tavern and brothel." "Shows like an inn: epicurism and lust "Yet have I left a daughter." Something seems to have been omitted here: "Yet have I left a daughter.-Ho! my horses!" What follows is corrupt-perhaps we might supply a word or two: Gon. "You strike my peaceful people; and your rude "Disordered rabble make servants of their betters." "Than the sea-monster !” Alb. " Pray, you, sir, be patient." Some words appear to have been lost. Perhaps Albany added, Lear. "Detested kite! thou liest." 373. That it may live, "And be a thwart disnatur'd torment to her." The sense, I think, would be strengthened by reading to, instead of “and.” "With_cadent tears fret channels in her cheeks." "Cadent tears" has, certainly, a very clear and obvious meaning; and the thought has been adopted by Mr. Mason, in Verses Addressed to a Young Gentleman: "Whose cheeks, bestrew'd with roses, know "No channel for the tide of tears." But this is a sense that appears too mild for the present occasion, and ill suited to the vehemence and acrimony of Lear's passion; I therefore think that "candent," as suggested by Dr. Warburton, is the true word. The quarto reads "accent tears," which may have been formed from accendere, and have the same meaning as candent. 374. "That dotage gives it." Something seems to have been lost; perhaps like this: "That fretfulness, and wayward dotage gives it." 375. "The untented woundings" This, I am afraid, is an incurable sore, which the critical chirurgeon will probe and torture in vain ; for wounds are then most severely painful when they are exposed to the tent. "Untender," as one of the quartos has it, may, perhaps, be the true word, implying pitiless. |