ACT III. SCENE I. The disorder of the verse here might thus be corrected: 444. "Who's here, besides foul weather?" "E'en like the weather, most unquietly." Kent. "O sir, I know you now; Where is the king?" Dr. Young seems to have borrowed this thought in The Revenge: "Rage on ye winds, burst clouds, and waters roar; "Ye bear a just resemblance to my fortune, "And suit the gloomy habit of my soul." A similar thought occurs in K. John, Act IV. In the body of this fleshly land, "This kingdom, this confine of blood and breath." And again in Julius Cæsar: The state of man, "Like to a little kingdom," &c. 446. " The warrant of my art." The efficacy of this art is denied by Duncan, in Macbeth, who remarks: There is no art "To find the mind's construction in the face." 449. "The king hath cause to plain.” Something here seems wanting. Perhaps, 66 Sir, you may trust me; "I am a gentleman," &c. Again the metre is interrupted. I would pro Kent. " We'll talk further." No. "For confirmation," &c. "I will go seek the king," &c. We might regulate thus: "I will go seek the king." Gent. " Kent. " Give me your hand: "Have you no more to say?" A few words only, "But more than all to effect; when we have found "The king, (in which your pain that way; I'll this :) "He that first lights on him, holla the other." Rowe, in his Jane Shore, has made Dumont propose the same measure to Belmour : "Who first shall find her, hither let him bring "Her fainting steps, and here we'll meet together." SCENE II. 450. "Blow, wind, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow !" I am persuaded that this line has been corrupted, as well as mutilated; there is a false climax in rage, blow. A word has been lost. Perhaps, the line ran thus : "Blow, wind, and crack your cheeks! storm! bellow! rage!" 451. "Strike flat.". Smite flat, as the quarto has it, appears to be the preferable reading. "That make ingrateful man!" I cannot resist the persuasion, that the hemistics which we so frequently find, as well as most of the other disorders in the metre, are merely the effect of mutilation or corruption; it is in vain to attempt recalling the genuine words that have been lost, yet something may be offered :-" All germins spill at once, crush and confound, that make ingrateful man.” 452. "You owe me no subscription; (why) then let fall." "Why" should this word be here? 453. "I will be the pattern of all patience, "I will say nothing." Silence adds great sublimity to distress :-this Dryden knew, when, describing the sorrow of the Duke of York, at the death of his royal brother, he said 66 Horror, in all its pomp, was there "Mute and magnificent, without a tear.' "I will say nothing." [Enter Kent. How now?-Who is there?" 66 454. "Such groans of roaring wind and rain, I never "Did hear before: man's nature cannot carry "The affliction," &c. Unwhipp'd of justice: Hide thee, thou bloody hand; "Thou perjur'd, and thou simular man of virtue." The words "thou," in the first, and "man," in the second of these lines, overload the verse, and would be better omitted. 456. " Force "Their scanted courtesy." Force means, here, draw from them by vehement importunity. We might obtain measure, by reading: "Their court'sy scant." 66 My wits begin to turn." "That's sorry yet for thee.” I know not why the reading of the quarto, "that sorrows yet for thee," should be rejected. This is a lawful hemistic, as Lear is naturally interrupted in his tender reflections by the good natured levity of the fool. 457. "This prophecy Merlin shall make ; for I live before his time." I suppose, before the time described in Merlin's prophecy. SCENE IV. 459. "Thou think'st 'tis much, that this contentious storm "Invades us to the skin," &c. This is altered from the quarto, which exhibits crulentious. It is in vain, perhaps, now to seek for the true word; but I cannot approve of "contentious." Is it improbable that the poet coined a word, and wrote crudelious, from crudelis? "Where the greater malady is fix'd, "The lesser is scarce felt.". This sentiment occurs in The Fairy Queen : "The lesser pangs can bear, who have endur'd the chief." 460. When the mind's free, "The body's delicate.". "Free," here, is unembarrassed-free from inquietude. "The body's delicate: the tempest in my mind." "In my mind," seems improperly to have crept in here, instead of some one word of the same import, which would have made the line complete 463. " "The body's delicate: the tempest here." Go to thy cold bed, and warm thee." Go and take such comfort as thy cold and miserable bed will afford thee. 465. " The pendulous air." Hamlet points at "this brave o'erhanging firmament." SCENE V. 480. "O heavens! that this treason were not, or not I the detector !" Hamlet utters, with sincerity, a similar senti ment : I 4 |
