Lear, Nothing can come of nothing; speak again. My heart into my mouth. I love your Majesty Lear. How, how, Cordelia ? mend your speech a little, Lest you may mar your fortunes. You have begot me, bred me, lov'd me. I That Lord, whose hand must take my plight, shall carry Half my love with him, half my care and duty. To love my father all. Lear. But goes thy heart with this? Lear. So young, and so untender? Cor. So young, my Lord, and true. Lear. Let it be so, thy truth then be thy dower : For by the facred radiance of the fun, From whom we do exist, and cease to be, And as a stranger to my heart and me Hold thee, from this, for ever. The barb'rous Scy thian, Or he, that makes his generation messes To gorge his appetite, shall to my bosom 6 To love my father all.-) These words restored from the first edition, without which the sense was not compleat. POPE. Be Be as well neighbour'd, pitied, and reliev'd, Lear. Peace, Kent! Come not between the dragon and his wrath. [To Cor. So be my grave my peace, as here I give With my two daughters' dowers digeft the third. Execution of the reft] I do not see any great difficulty in the words, execution of the rest, which are in both the old copies. The execution of the rest is, I suppose, all the other business. Dr. Warburton's own explanation of his amendment confutes it; if best be a regal command, they were, by the grant of Lear, to have rather the best than the execution. [Giving the Crown. This Coronet part between you. Whom I have ever honour'd as my King, Lear. The bow is bent and drawn, make from the shaft. Kent. Let it fall rather, though the fork invade The region of my heart; be Kent unmannerly, When Lear is mad. What wouldst thou do, old man? * Think'st thou, that duty shall have dread to speak, When pow'r to flatt'ry bows? To plainness honour's bound, When Majesty falls to folly. Reserve thy state, This hideous rashness; answer my life my judgment, Lear. Kent, on thy life no more. Kent. My life I never held but as a pawn * Think'ft thou, that duty shall bave dread to Speak,]: have given this passage according to the old folio, from which the modern editions have filently departed, for the fake of better numbers, with a degree of infincerity, which, if not fometimes detected and censured, mult impair the credit of antient books. One of the editors, and perhaps only one, knew how much mischief may be done by fuch clandeftine alterations. The quarto agrees with the folio, except that for referve thy flare, it gives, reve se thy dom, and ha Hoops instead of falls to felly. The meaning of ans ver my lift my judgment is, Let my life be arswerable for my judgment, or Iwi Ipake ny life on my opirin. I he reading which, without any right, has poffefsed all the modern copies is this, - 10 plainness Honour Is bound, when Majesty to folly Referve thy state; with better I am inclined to think that reverse thy doom was Shakespeare's first reading, as more appofite to the present o cafion, and that he changed it afterwards to referve thy hate, which conduces more to the progress of the action. To To wage against thine enemies, nor fear to lose it, Lear. Out of my fight! Kent. See better, Lear, and let me still remain [Laying his hand on bis fword. Alb. Corn. Dear Sir, forbear. Kent. Kill thy physician, and thy fee beftow Upon the foul disease; revoke thy doom, Lear. Hear me, recreant! Since thou haft fought to make us break our vow, Which we durft never yet; and with ' strain'd pride, * To come betwixt our sentence and our power; Which nor our nature, nor our place, can bear; Our to it, my power could not " make good, or excuse." Which, in the first line, referring to both attempts: But the ambiguity of it, as it might refer only to the latter, has occafioned all the obscurity of the passage. WARBURTON. 3 Which nor our nature, nor our place can bear, Our potency make good;] Mr. Theobald, by putting the first line into a parenthesis and altering make to made in the second line, had destroyed the tense of the whole; which, as it WARBURTΟΝ. Theobald only inserted the parenthesis; he found made good in the best copy of 1623. Dr. WarWarbu ton has very acutely explained and defended the read ing that he has chosen, but I am not certain that he has chosen right. If we take the reading of the folio, our potency made good, the fenfe will be less profound indeed, but less intricate, and equally commodious. As thou hast come with unreasonable pride between the sentence which I had paffed, and the power by which 1 jhall execute it, take thy reward in another Sentence which fhall make good, shall establish, shall maintain, that power. Our potency made good, take thy reward. Kent. Fare thee well, King; sith thus thou wilt [To Cordelia. That justly think'st, and hast most rightly said. [To Reg. and Gon. That good effects may spring from words of love. Thus Kent, O Princes, bids you all adieu; He'll shape his old course in a country new. (Exit. If Dr. Warburton's explanation be chofen, and every reader will wish to choose it, we may better read, Which nor our nature, nor cur Mr. Davies thinks, that our potency made good relates only to our place. Which our nature cannot bear, nor our place, without departure from the potency of that place. This is easy and clear. Lear, who is characterized as hot, heady and violent, is, with very just observation of life, made to entangle himself with vows, upon any sudden provocation to vow revenge, and then to plead the obligation of a vow in defence of implacability. + By Jupiter.)] Shakespeare makes his Lear too much a mythologist: he had Hecate and Apollo before. 5 He'd shape his old course-] He will follow his old maxims; he will continue to act upon the fame principles. SCENE |