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EDM. How, my lord, I may be censured, that nature thus gives way to loyalty, something fears me to think of.

CORN. I now perceive, it was not altogether your brother's evil disposition made him seek his death; but a provoking merit," set a-work by a reproveable badness in himself.

EDM. How malicious is my fortune, that I must repent to be just! This is the letter he spoke of, which approves him an intelligent party to the advantages of France. O heavens! that this treason were not, or not I the detector!

CORN. Go with me to the duchess.

EDM. If the matter of this paper be certain, you have mighty business in hand.

CORN. True, or false, it hath made thee earl of Gloster. Seek out where thy father is, that he may be ready for our apprehension.

not as old as Shakspeare's time, may have been compiled from something that was so. They are uttered by a giant:

"Fee, faw, fum,

"I smell the blood of an Englishman;

"Be he alive, or be he dead,

"I'll grind his bones to make me bread."

English is here judiciously changed to British, because the characters are Britons, and the scene is laid long before the English had any thing to do with this country. Our author is not so attentive to propriety on every occasion. RITSON.

7-but a provoking merit,] Provoking, here means stimulating; a merit he felt in himself, which irritated him against a father that had none. M. MASON.

Cornwall, I suppose, means the merit of Edmund, which, being noticed by Gloster, provoked or instigated Edgar to seek his father's death. Dr. Warburton conceived that the merit spoken of was that of Edgar. But how is this consistent with the rest of the sentence? MALONE.

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EDM. [Aside.] If I find him comforting the king, it will stuff his suspicion more fully.-I will persevere in my course of loyalty, though the conflict be sore between that and my blood.

CORN. I will lay trust upon thee; and thou shalt find a dearer father in my love. [Exeunt.

SCENE VI.

A Chamber in a Farm-House, adjoining the Castle.

Enter GLOSTER, Lear, Kent, Fool, and EDGar.

GLO. Here is better than the open air; take it thankfully: I will piece out the comfort with what addition I can: I will not be long from you.

KENT. All the power of his wits has given way to his impatience:-The gods reward your kind[Exit GLOSTER.

ness!

EDG. Frateretto calls me; and tells me, Nero is an angler9 in the lake of darkness. Pray, innocent,' and beware the foul fiend.

—comforting-] He uses the word in the juridical sense for supporting, helping, according to its derivation; salvia confortat nervos.— -Schol. Sal. JOHNSON.

Johnson refines too much on this passage; comforting means merely giving comfort or assistance. So Gloster says, in the beginning of the next scene: I will piece out the comfort with what addition I can." M. MASON.

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9 Frateretto calls me; and tells me, Nero is an angler &c.] See p. 471, n. 1.

Mr. Upton observes that Rabelais, B. II. c. xxx. says that Nero was a fidler in hell, and Trajan an angler.

Nero is introduced in the present play above 800 years before he was born. MALONE.

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FOOL. Pr'ythee, nuncle, tell me, whether a madman be a gentleman, or a yeoman?

LEAR. A king, a king!

FOOL.3 No; he's a yeoman, that has a gentleman to his son for he's a mad yeoman, that sees his son a gentleman before him.

LEAR. To have a thousand with red burning spits

Come hizzing in upon them :

EDG. The foul fiend bites my back.

FOOL. He's mad, that trusts in the tameness of a

The History of Gargantua had appeared in English before 1575, being mentioned in Langham's Letter, printed in that year. RITSON.

1

Pray, innocent,] Perhaps he is here addressing the Fool. Fools were anciently called Innocents. So, in All's well that ends well: 66 the Sheriff's Fool-a dumb innocent, that could not say him nay." See Vol. VIII. p. 357, n. 6. Again, in The Whipper of the Satyre his Pennance in a white Sheete, &c. 1601:

"A gentleman that had a wayward foole,

"To passe the time, would needs at push-pin play;
"And playing false, doth stirre the wav'ring stoole:
"The innocent had spi'd him, and cri'd stay," &c.
STEEVENS.

Fool. Pr'ythee, nuncle, tell me,] And before, in the same Act, sc. iii:"Cry to it, nuncle." Why does the Fool call the old King, nuncle? But we have the same appellation in The Pilgrim, by Fletcher:

"Farewell, nuncle," Act IV. sc. i. And in the next scene, alluding to Shakspeare:

"What mops and mowes it makes."

WHALLEY.

See Mr. Vaillant's very decisive remark on this appellation, p. 358, n. 6. STEEVENS.

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Fool.] This speech is omitted in the quartos. STEEVENS. Edg.] This and the next thirteen speeches (which Dr. Johnson had enclosed in crotchets) are only in the quartos.

STEEVENS.

wolf, a horse's health,5 a boy's love, or a whore's oath.

LEAR. It shall be done, I will arraign them

straight:

Come, sit thou here, most learned justicer; 6

[To EDGAR. Thou, sapient sir, sit here. [To the Fool.]-Now, you she foxes!

EDG. Look, where he stands and glares!Wantest thou eyes" at trial, madam ?8

5 a horse's health,] Without doubt we should readheels, i. e. to stand behind him. WARBURTON.

Shakspeare is here speaking not of things maliciously treacherous, but of things uncertain and not durable. A horse is above all other animals subject to diseases. JOHNSON.

Heels is certainly right. "Trust not a horse's heel, nor a dog's tooth," is a proverb in Ray's Collection; as ancient at least as the time of our Edward II:

Et ideo Babio in comoediis insinuat, dicens;

"In fide, dente, pede, mulieris, equi, canis, est fraus. "Hoc sic vulgariter est dici:"

"Till horsis fote thou never traist,

"Till hondis toth, no woman's faith.”

Forduni Scotichronicon, L. XIV. c. xxxii. That in the text is probably from the Italian. RITSON.

most learned justicer;] The old copies read-justice. The correction was made by Mr. Theobald. MALONE.

7 Wantest &c.] I am not confident that I understand the meaning of this desultory speech. When Edgar says, Look where he stands and glares! he seems to be speaking in the character of a mad man, who thinks he sees the fiend. Wantest thou eyes at trial, madam? is a question which appears to be addressed to the visionary Goneril, or some other abandon'd female, and may signify, Do you want to attract admiration, even while you stand at the bar of justice? Mr. Seward proposes to read, wanton'st instead of wantest. STEEVENS.

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at trial, madam?] It may be observed that Edgar, being supposed to be found by chance, and therefore to have no

Come o'er the bourn, Bessy, to me:9—

Fool. Her boat hath a leak,

And she must not speak

Why she dares not come over to thee.

knowledge of the rest, connects not his ideas with those of Lear, but pursues his own train of delirious or fantastick thought. To these words, At trial, madam? I think therefore that the name of Lear should be put. The process of the dialogue will support this conjecture. JOHNSON.

9 Come o'er the bourn, Bessy, to me:] Both the quartos and the folio have-o'er the broome. The correction was made by Mr. Steevens. MALONE.

As there is no relation between broom and a boat, we may better read:

Come o'er the brook Bessy, to me. JOHNSON.

At the beginning of A very mery and pythie Commedie, called, The longer thou livest, the more Foole thou art, &c. Imprinted at London by Wyllyam How, &c. black letter, no date, "Entreth Moros, counterfaiting a vain gesture and foolish countenance, synging the foote of many songs, as fooles were wont;" and among them is this passage, which Dr. Johnson has very justly suspected of corruption:

"Com over the boorne Bessé,

"My little pretie Bessé,

"Com over the boorne, Bessé, to me."

This song was entered on the books of the Stationers' Company in the year 1564.

A bourn in the north signifies a rivulet or brook. Hence the names of many of our villages terminate in burn, as Milburn, Sherburn, &c. The former quotation, together with the following instances, at once confirm the justness of Dr. Johnson's remark, and support the reading.

So, in Drayton's Polyolbion, Song 1:

"The bourns, the brooks, the becks, the rills, the rivulets." Again, in Spenser's Fairy Queen, B. II. c. vi:

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My little boat can safely passe this perilous bourne.” Shakspeare himself, in The Tempest, appears to have discriminated bourn from bound of land in general:

"Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none."

Again, in The Vision of Pierce Plowman, line 8:

"Under a brode banke by bourne syde."

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