fiend rages, eats cow-dung for sallets; swallows the old rat, and the ditch-dog; drinks the green mantle of the standing pool; who is whipped from tything to tything, and stocked, punished, and imprisoned; who hath had three suits to his back, six shirts to his body, horse to ride, and weapon to wear, 7 But mice, and rats, and such small deer, Beware my follower:-Peace, Smolkin; peace, thou fiend! GLO. What, hath your grace no better company? This was the phraseology of Shakspeare's time. "He was a wise man and a merry," was the common language. So Falstaff says to Shallow, "he is your serving-man, and your husband," e. husband-man. MALONE. i. 6 -whipped from tything to tything,] A tything is a division of a place, a district; the same in the country, as a ward in the city. In the Saxon times every hundred was divided into tythings. Edgar alludes to the acts of Queen Elizabeth and James I. against rogues, vagabonds, &c. In the Stat. 39 Eliz. ch. 4, it is enacted, that every vagabond, &c. shall be publickly whipped and sent from parish to parish. STEEVENS. ” — and stocked, punished, and imprisoned;] So the folio. The quartos read, perhaps rightly-and stock-punished, and imprisoned. MALONE. 8 But mice, and rats, and such small deer, Have been Tom's food for seven long year.] This distich is part of a description given in the old metrical romance of Sir Bevis, of the hardships suffered by Bevis, when confined for seven years in a dungeon: "Rattes and myce and such smal dere "Was his meate that seven yere." Sig. F. iij. PERCY. 9-Peace, Smolkin; peace,] "The names of other punie spirits cast out of Trayford were these: Hilco, Smolkin, Hillio," &c. Harsnet, p. 49. PERCY. EDG. The prince of darkness is a gentleman;' Modo he's call'd, and Mahu.2 GLO. Our flesh and blood, my lord, is grown so vile, That it doth hate what gets it. EDG. Poor Tom's a-cold. GLO. Go in with me; my duty cannot suffer To obey in all your daughters' hard commands: Though their injunction be to bar my doors, And let this tyrannous night take hold upon you; Yet have I ventur'd to come seek you out, And bring you where both fire and food is ready. LEAR. First let me talk with this philosopher:What is the cause of thunder? The prince of darkness is a gentleman;] This is spoken in resentment of what Gloster had just said—" Has your grace no better company ?" STEEVENS. The prince of darkness is a gentleman; Modo he's call'd, and Mahu.] So, in Harsnet's Declaration, Maho was the chief devil that had possession of Sarah Williams; but another of the possessed, named Richard Mainy, was molested by a still more considerable fiend called Modu. See the book already mentioned, p. 268, where the said Richard Mainy deposes: "Furthermore it is pretended,... that there remaineth still in mee the prince of all other devils, whose name should be Modu." He is elsewhere called, "the prince Modu." So, p. 269: "When the said priests had dispatched theire business at Hackney (where they had been exorcising Sarah Williams) they then returned towards mee, uppon pretence to cast the great prince Modu... out mee." STEEVENS. In The Goblins, by Sir John Suckling, a catch is introduced which concludes with these two lines: "The prince of darkness is a gentleman: "Mahu, Mahu is his name." I am inclined to think this catch not to be the production of Suckling, but the original referred to by Edgar's speech. REED. cannot suffer-] i. e. My duty will not suffer me, &c. M. MASON. KENT. Good my lord, take his offer; Go into the house. LEAR. I'll talk a word with this same learned Theban: What is your study? EDG. How to prevent the fiend, and to kill vermin. LEAR. Let me ask you one word in private. KENT. Impórtune him once more to go, my lord, His wits begin to unsettle.5 GLO. Can'st thou blame him? His daughters seek his death :-Ah, that good Kent! He said it would be thus:-Poor banish'd man! Thou say'st, the king grows mad; I'll tell thee, friend, I am almost mad myself: I had a son, Now outlaw'd from my blood; he sought my life, -learned Theban :] Ben Jonson in his Masque of Pan's Anniversary, has introduced a Tinker whom he calls a learned Theban, perhaps in ridicule of this passage. STEevens. His wits begin to unsettle.] On this occasion, I cannot prevail on myself to omit the following excellent remark of Mr. Horace Walpole, [now Lord Orford] inserted in the postscript to his Mysterious Mother. He observes, that when " Belvidera talks of "Lutes, laurels, seas of milk, and ships of Amber,she is not mad, but light-headed. When madness has taken possession of a person, such character ceases to be fit for the stage, or at least should appear there but for a short time; it being the business of the theatre to exhibit passions, not distempers. The finest picture ever drawn, of a head discomposed by misfortune, is that of King Lear. His thoughts dwell on the ingratitude of his daughters, and every sentence that falls from his wildness excites reflection and pity. Had frenzy entirely seized him, our compassion would abate: we should conclude that he no longer felt unhappiness. Shakspeare wrote as a philosopher, Otway as a poet." STEEVENS. But lately, very late; I lov'd him, friend,- [Storm continues. The grief hath craz'd my wits. What a night's this! I do beseech your grace,— LEAR. O, cry you mercy, Noble philosopher, your company. EDG. Tom's a-cold. GLO. In, fellow, there, to the hovel: keep thee warm. LEAR. Come, let's in all. KENT. LEAR. This way, my lord. With him; I will keep still with my philosopher. KENT. Good my lord, sooth him; let him take the fellow. GLO. Take him you on. KENT. Sirrah, come on; go along with us. LEAR. Come, good Athenian. GLO. Hush. No words, no words: EDG. Child Rowland to the dark tower came,' I smell the blood of a British man. [Exeunt. Child Rowland to the dark tower came,] The word child (however it came to have this sense) is often applied to Knights, &c. in old historical songs and romances; of this, innumerable instances occur in The Reliques of ancient English Poetry. See particularly in Vol. I. s. iv. v. 97, where, in a description of a battle between two knights, we find these lines: SCENE V. A Room in Gloster's Castle. Enter CORNWALL and EDMUND. CORN. I will have my revenge, ere I depart his house. "The Eldridge knighte, he prick'd his steed; "Then either shook his trusty spear, "And the timber these two children bare "So soon in sunder slode." See in the same volumes the ballads concerning the child of Elle, child Waters, child Maurice, (Vol. III. s. xx.) &c. The same idiom occurs in Spenser's Fairy Queen, where the famous knight sir Tristram is frequently called Child Tristram. See B. V. c. ii. st. 8. 13. B. VI. c. ii. st. 36. ibid. c. viii. st. 15. PERCY. Beaumont and Fletcher, in The Woman's Prize, refer also to this: 66 a mere hobby-horse "She made the Child Rowland." In Have with you to Saffron Walden, or Gabriel Harvey's Hunt is up, 1598, part of these lines repeated by Edgar is quoted: a pedant, who will find matter inough to dilate a whole daye of the first invention of 66 "Fy, fa, fum, "I smell the blood of an Englishman." Both the quartos read: -to the dark town come. STEEVENS. Child is a common term in our old metrical romances and ballads; and is generally, if not always, applied to the hero or principal personage, who is sometimes a knight, and sometimes a thief. Syr Tryamoure is repeatedly so called both before and after his knighthood. I think, however, that this line is part of a translation of some Spanish, or perhaps French ballad. But the two following lines evidently belong to a different subject: I find them in the Second part of Jack and the Giants, which, if |