Thou'dst meet the bear i' the mouth. When the mind's free, The body's delicate: the tempest in my mind all, O, that way madness lies; let me shun that; ΚΕΝΤ. Good my lord, enter here. LEAR. Pr'ythee, go in thyself; seek thine own ease; This tempest will not give me leave to ponder On things would hurt me more.—But I'll go in : to be the elder of the two quartos. The other, with the folio, reads,-roaring sea. STEEVENS. Quartos A and B read raging; quarto C, roring. BOSWELL. In such a night 2 To shut me out!-Pour on; I will endure:] Omitted in the quartos. STEEVENS. Your old kind father, whose frank heart gave you all,] I have already observed that the words, father, brother, rather, and many of a similar sound, were sometimes used by Shakspeare as monosyllables. The editor of the folio, supposing the metre to be defective, omitted the word you, which is found in the quartos. MALONE. That our author's versification, to modern ears, (I mean to such as have been tuned by the melody of an exact writer like Mr. Pope) may occasionally appear overloaded with syllables, I cannot deny; but when I am told that he used the words-father, brother, and rather, as monosyllables, I must withhold my assent in the most decided manner. STEEVENS. See the Essay on Shakspeare's Versification for a full answer to Mr. Steevens's objections to Mr. Malone's notion on this subject. BOSWELL. In, boy; go first.-[To the Fool.] You houseless poverty, Nay, get thee in. I'll pray, and then I'll sleep. [Fool goes in. Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are, * Quartos, night. • In, boy; go first, &c.] These two lines were added in the author's revision, and are only in the folio. They are very judiciously intended to represent that humility, or tenderness, or neglect of forms, which affliction forces on the mind. JOHNSON. s-loop'd and WINDOW'D raggedness,] So, in The Amorous War, 1648: 66 spare me a doublet which "Hath linings in't, and no glass windows." This allusion is as old as the time of Plautus, in one of whose plays it is found. Again, in the comedy already quoted: this jerkin Is wholly made of doors." STEevens. Loop'd is full of small apertures, such as were made in ancient castles, for firing ordnance, or spying the enemy. These were wider without than within, and were called loops or loop-holes : which Coles, in his Latin Dictionary, 1679, renders by the word fencstella. MALONE. Loops, as Mr. Henley observes, particularly in castles and towers, were often designed "for the admission of light, where windows would have been incommodious." Shakspeare, he adds, "in Othello, and other places, has alluded to them." To discharge ordnance, however, from loop-holes, according to Mr. Malone's supposition, was, I believe, never attempted, because almost impossible; although such outlets were sufficiently adapted to the use of arrows. Many also of these loops, still existing, were contrived before fire arms had been introduced. STEEVENS. Mr. Warton, in his excellent edition of Milton's Juvenile Poems, (p. 511,) quotes the foregoing line as explanatory of a passage in that poet's verses In Quintum Novembris: Tarda fenestratis figens vestigia calceis. Talis, uti fama est, vasta Franciscus eremo But, from the succeeding, in Buchanan's Franciscanus et From seasons such as these? O, I have ta'en EDG. [Within.] Fathom and half, fathom and half! Poor Tom! [The Fool runs out from the Hovel. FOOL. Come not in here, nuncle, here's a spirit. Help me, help me! KENT. Give me thy hand.-Who's there? FOOL. A spirit, a spirit; he says his name's poor Tom. KENT. What art thou that dost grumble there i' the straw? Come forth. Enter EDGAR, disguised as a Madman. EDG. Away! the foul fiend follows me !Through the sharp hawthorn blows the cold Fratres, these shoes or buskins with windows on them appear to have composed a part of the habit of the Franciscan order: Atque fenestratum soleas captare cothurnum. The Parish Clerk, in Chaucer, (Canterbury Tales, v. 3318, edit. 1775,) has “ Poulis windows corven on his shoos." 6 -Take physick, pomp; Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel; HOLT WHITE. That thou may'st shake the superflux to them, And show the heavens more just.] A kindred thought occurs in Pericles, Prince of Tyre: "O let those cities that of plenty's cup "And her prosperities so largely taste, "With their superfluous riots,-hear these tears; "The misery of Tharsus may be theirs." MALONE. 7 Fathom, &c.] This speech of Edgar is omitted in the quartos, He gives the sign used by those who are sounding the depth at sea. STEEVENS. Humph! go to thy cold bed, and warm thee. LEAR. Hast thou given all to thy two daughters?? And art thou come to this? EDG. Who gives any thing to poor Tom? whom the foul fiend hath led through fire and through flame, through ford and whirlpool, over bog and quagmire; that hath laid knives under his pillow', * Quarto omits through flame. Humph! go to thy cold bed, &c.] So, in the introduction to The Taming of the Shrew, Sly says, "go to thy cold bed and warm thee." A ridicule, I suppose, on some passage in a play as absurd as The Spanish Tragedy. STEEVENS. This line is a sneer on the following one spoken by Hieronimo in The Spanish Tragedy, Act II.: "What outcries pluck me from my naked bed." WHALLEY, "Humph! go to thy cold bed, and warm thee." Thus the quartos. The editor of the folio 1623, I suppose, thinking the passage nonsense, omitted the word cold. This is not the only instance of unwarrantable alterations made even in that valuable copy. That the quartos are right, appears from the Induction to The Taming of the Shrew, where the same words occur. See vol. v. p. 359. MALONE. 9 Hast thou given all to thy two daughters?] Thus the quartos. The folio reads, "Didst thou give all to thy two daugh ters?" STEEVENS. led through fire and through flame,] Alluding to the ignis fatuus, supposed to be lights kindled by mischievous beings to lead travellers into destruction. JOHNSON. 2-laid knives under his pillow,] He recounts the temptations by which he was prompted to suicide; the opportunities of destroying himself, which often occurred to him in his melancholy moods. JOHNSON. Shakspeare found this charge against the fiend, with many others of the same nature, in Harsnet's Declaration, and has used the very words of it. The book was printed in 1603. See Dr., Warburton's note, Act IV. Sc. I. Infernal spirits are always represented as urging the wretched to self-destruction. So, in Dr. Faustus, 1604: "Swords, poisons, halters, and envenom'd steel, "Are laid before me to dispatch myself." STEEVENS. The passage in Harsenet's book which Shakspeare had in view, is this: "This Exam'. further sayth, that one Alexander, an apothe and halters in his pew; set ratsbane by his porridge; made him proud of heart, to ride on a bay trotting-horse over four-inched bridges, to course his own shadow for a traitor:-Bless thy five wits"! carie, having brought with him from London to Denham on a time a new halter, and two blades of knives, did leave the same upon the gallerie floore, in her maisters house.-A great search was made in the house to know how the said halter and knifeblades came thither, till Ma. Mainy in his next fit said, it was reported that the devil layd them in the gallerie, that some of those that were possessed, might either hang themselves with the haller, or kill themselves with the blades." The kind of temptation which the fiend is described as holding out to the unfortunate, might also have been suggested by the story of Cordila, in The Mirrour for Magistrates, 1575, where Despaire visits her in prison, and shows her various instruments by which she may rid herself of life: 3 "And there withall she spred her garments lap assyde, "With bloud, and poysons prest, which she could well de- Bless thy five wits!] So the five senses were called by our old writers. Thus in the very ancient interlude of The Five Elements, one of the characters is Sensual Appetite, who with great simplicity thus introduces himself to the audience: Sig. B. iij. 66 I am callyd sensual apetyte, "All creatures in me delyte, "I comforte the wyttys five; PERCY. So again, in Every Man, a Morality: 66 Every man, thou art made, thou hast thy wyttes five." Again, in Hycke Scorner : "I have spent amys my v wittes." Again, in The Interlude of the Four Elements, by John Rastell, 1519: "Brute bestis have memory and their wyttes five." Again, in the first book of Gower, De Confessione Amantis : "As touchende of my wittes five." STEEVENS. Shakspeare, however, in his 141st Sonnet, seems to have considered the five wits, as distinct from the senses: |