Lear. Then let them anatomize Regan, see what breeds about her heart: Is there any cause in nature, that makes these hard hearts ?—You, sir, I entertain you for one of my hundred: only I do not like the fashion of your garments: you will say, they are Persian attire! but let them be changed. [TO EDGAR.

Kent. Now, good my lord, lie here, and rest awhile16.

Lear. Make no noise, make no noise; draw the curtains: So, so, so: We'll go to supper i'the morning: So, so, so.

(Fool. And I'll go to bed at noon.

Re-enter GLOSTER.

Glo. Come hither, friend: Where is the king my master?

Kent. Here, sir; but trouble him not, his wits

are gone.

Glo. Good friend, I pr'ythee take him in thy arms; I have o'erheard a plot of death upon him: There is a litter ready; lay him in't,

And drive towards Dover, friend, where thou shalt

meet

Both welcome and protection. Take up thy master:
If thou should'st dally half an hour, his life,
With thine, and all that offer to defend him,
Stand in assured loss: Take up, take up17;
And follow me, that will to some provision
Give thee quick conduct., come away. Fol.)

of the character he assumes, to supplicate that it may be filled with drink. See A Pleasant Dispute between a Coach and a Sedan, 4to. 1636-'I have observed when a coach is appendant but two or three hundred pounds a yeere, marke it, the dogges are as leane as rakes; you may tell all their ribbes lying be the fire; and Tom a Bedlam may sooner eate his horne than get it filled with small drinke, and for his old almes of bacon there is no hope in the world.

16 i. e. on the cushions to which he points.

17 One of the quartos reads, Take up the king; the other, 'Take up to keep,' &c.

[Kent.

Oppress'd nature sleeps18:

This rest might yet have balm'd thy broken senses,
Which, if convenience will not allow,

Stand in hard cure. - Come, help to bear thy master;
Thou must not stay behind.

Glo.

[To the Fool. Come, come, away.

[Exeunt KENT, GLOSTER, and the Fool, bearing
off the King.

Edg. When we our betters see bearing our woes,
We scarcely think our miseries our foes.
Who alone suffers, suffers most i'the mind;
Leaving free things, and happy shows, behind:
But then the mind much sufferance doth o'erskip,
When grief hath mates, and bearing fellowship.
How light and portable my pain seems now,
When that, which makes me bend, makes the king bow;
He childed, as I father'd!-Tom, away:
Mark the high noises19 and thyself bewray20,
When false opinion, whose wrong thought defiles thee,
In thy just proof, repeals, and reconciles thee.
What will hap more to-night, safe scape the king!
Lurk, lurk.}

[Exit.

SCENE VII. A Room in Gloster's Castle. Enter CORNWALL, Regan, GonERIL, EDMUND, and Servants.

Corn. Post speedily to my lord your husband; show him this letter:-the army of France is landMed-Seek out the villain Gloster.

[Exeunt some of the Servants.

18These two concluding speeches, by Kent and Edgar, are restored from the quarto. The soliloquy of Edgar is extremely fine; and the sentiments of it are drawn equally from nature and the subject. Besides, with regard to the stage, it is absolutely necessary for as Edgar is not designed, in the constitution of the play, to attend the king to Dover, how absurd would it look for a character of his importance to quit the scene without one word said, or the least intimation what we are to expect from him.'Theobald.

19 The great events that are approaching, the loud tumult of ap proaching war.

20 Betray, discover.

Reg. Hang him instantly.
Gon. Pluck out his eyes.

Corn. Leave him to my displeasure.-Edmund, keep you our sister company; the revenges we are bound to take upon your traitorous father, are not fit for your beholding. Advise the duke, where you are going, to a most festinate preparation; we are bound to the like. Our post shall be swift, and intelligent betwixt us. Farewell, dear sister;farewell, my lord of Gloster1.

Enter Steward.

How now? Where's the king?

Stew. My lord of Gloster hath convey'd him hence:

Some five or six and thirty of his knights,
Hot questrists2 after him, met him at gate;
Who with some other of the lord's dependants,
Are gone with him towards Dover; where they boast
To have well armed friends.

Corn.
Get horses for your mistress.
Gon. Farewell, sweet lord, and sister.

[Exeunt GONERIL and EDMUND.

Corn. Edmund, farewell.-Go, seek the traitor

Gloster,

Pinion him like a thief, bring him before us.

[Exeunt other Servants.

Though well we may not pass upon his life
Without the form of justice; yet our power
Shall do a courtesy to our wrath, which men
May blame, but not control. Who's there? The
traitor?

1 Meaning Edmund invested with his father's titles. The Steward, speaking immediately after, mentions the old earl by the same title. 2 A questrist is one who goes in quest or search of another. 3Do a courtesy to our wrath,' simply means bend to our wrath, as a courtesy is made by bending the body. To pass on any one may be traced from Magna Charta :- Neque super eum ibimus, nisi per legale judicuum parium suorum.' It is common to most of our early writers- A jury of devils impanneled and deeply sworne to pass on all villains in hell.'-If this be not a Good Play the Devil is in it. 1612.

Re-enter Servants, with GLOSTER.

Reg. Ingrateful fox! 'tis he.

Corn. Bind fast his corky arms.

Glo. What mean your graces ?——Good my friends, consider

You are my guests: do me no foul play, friends. Corn. Bind him, I say.

Reg.

[Servants bind him. Hard, hard:-O filthy traitor. Glo. Unmerciful lady as you are, I am none. Corn. To this chair bind him:-Villain, thou [REGAN plucks his Beard. Glo. By the kind gods, 'tis most ignobly done, To pluck me by the beard.

shalt find

Reg. So white, and such a traitor!

Glo. Naughty lady, These hairs, which thou dost ravish from my chin, Will quickens, and accuse thee: I am your host; With robbers' hands, my hospitable favours You should not ruffle thus. What will you do? Corn. Come, sir, what letters had you late from France?

Reg. Be simple answer'd, for we know the truth. Corn. And what confederacy have you with the

traitors

Late footed in the kingdom?

Reg. To whose hands have you sent the lunatic king?

Speak.

Glo. I have a letter guessingly set down,

Which came from one that's of a neutral heart,
And not from one oppos'd.

Corn. Reg.

Cunning.

And false.

4 i. e. dry wither'd husky arms. This epithet was perhaps borrowed from Harsenet :-It would pose all the cunning exorcists that are this day to be found, to teach an old corkie woman to writhe, tumble, curvet, and fetch her morice gambols as Martha Bressier did. 5 i. e. quicken into life.

6 Favours mean the same as features; that is, the different parts of which a face is composed.

Corn. Where hast thou sent the king?

Glo. Reg

To Dover.
Wherefore

To Dover? Wast thou not charg'd at peril-

Corn. Wherefore to Dover? Let him first answer that.
Glo. I am tied to the stake, and I must stand the

course.

Reg. Wherefore to Dover?

Glo. Because I would not see thy cruel nails Pluck out his poor old eyes; nor thy fierce sister In his anointed flesh sticks boarish fangs.

The sea, with such a storm as his bare head

In hell-black night endur'd, would have buoy'd up,
And quench'd the stelled fires: yet, poor old heart,
He holp the heavens to rain.

If wolves had at thy gate howl'd that stern10 time,
Thou should'st have said, Good porter, turn the key;
All cruels else subscrib'd11:-But I shall see (Aubscribe)
The winged vengeance overtake such children.
Corn. See it shalt thou never:-Fellows, hold
the chair:

Upon these eyes of thine I'll set my foot12.

[GLOSTER is held down in his Chair, while
CORNWALL plucks out one of his Eyes, and
sets his Foot on it.

So in Macbeth :

They have chain'd me to a stake; I cannot fly,
But, bear-like, I must fight the course.'

8 The quarto reads, 'rash boarish fangs. To rash is the old hunting term for the stroke made by a wild boar with his fangs.

9 Starred.

10 Thus the folio. The quartos read, that dearn time.' Dearn is dreary. The reading in the text is countenanced by Chapman's version of the 24th Iliad :

6

in this so sterne a time

Of night and danger.'

11 i. e. yielded, submitted to the necessity of the occasion.

12 This horrible exhibition is not more sanguinary than that of some contemporary dramas. In Selimus, Emperor of the Turks, one of the sons of Bajazet, pulls out the eyes of an Aga on the stage, and says:

'Yes, thou shalt live, but never see that day,
Wanting the tapers that should give thee light.

[Pulls out his eyes.' Immediately after his hands are cut off on the stage. In Marston's Antonio's Revenge, 1602, Piero's tongue is torn out on the stage.