Perfuade me rather to be flave, 4 and fumpter,

To this detefted groom. [Looking on the Steward,

Gon. At your choice, Sir.

Lear. I pr'ythee, daughter, do not make me mad;
I will not trouble thee, my child; farewell:
We'll no more meet, no more fee one another :-
But yet thou art my flesh, my blood, my daughter;
Or, rather, a difeafe that's in my flesh,
Which I muft needs call mine: thou art a bile,
A plague-fore, an 5 emboffed carbuncle

In my corrupted blood. But I'll not chide thee:
Let fhame come when it will, I do not call it :
I do not bid the thunder-bearer shoot,

Nor tell tales of thee to high-judging Jove.
Mend when thou canft; be better at thy leifure,
I can be patient; I can stay with Regan;
I, and my hundred knights.

Reg. Not altogether fo, Sir;

I look'd not for you yet, nor am provided
For your fit welcome: give ear, Sir, to my fifter
For thofe that mingle reafon with your paffion,
Must be content to think you old, and fo-
But he knows what fhe does.

Lear. Is this well spoken?

Reg. I dare avouch it, Sir. What, fifty followers? Is it not well? What fhould you need of more? Yea, or fo many? fith that both charge and danger Speak 'gainft fo great a number? How, in one house Should many people, under two commands, Hold amity? 'Tis hard; almoft impoffible.

Gon. Why might not you, my lord, receive attendance From thofe that fhe calls fervants, or from mine?

and fumpter,] Sumpter is a horfe that carries neceffaries on a journey, though fometimes used for the cafe to carry them in.-Vide Two Noble Gentlemen, note 35. and Cupid's Revenge, I'll have a horse to leap thee,

5

"And thy base iffue fhall carry Jumpters." STEEV. embefed carbuncle] Embofed is jwelling, protuż berant. JOHNSON,

Reg.

Reg. Why not, my lord? If then they chanc'd

to flack you,

We could controul them. If you'll come to me,
(For now I fpy a danger) I intreat you

To bring but five-and-twenty; to no more
Will I give place or notice.

Lear. I gave you all

Reg. And in good time you gave it.

Lear. Made you my guardians, my depofitaries; But kept a reservation to be follow'd

With fuch a number: what muft I come to you
With five-and-twenty? Regan? faid you fo?

Reg. And speak it again, my lord, no more with me. Lear. Thofe wicked creatures yet do look wellfavour'd:

When others are more wicked, not being worst,
Stands in fome rank of praife.-I'll go with thee;

[To Gonerill.

Thy fifty yet doth double five-and-twenty;
And thou art twice her love.

Gon. Hear me, my lord;

What need you five-and-twenty, ten, or five,
To follow in a houfe, where twice fo many
Have a command to tend you?

Reg. What need one?

Lear. O, reafon not the need: our bafeft beggars Are in the pooreft thing fuperfluous.

Thofe WICKED creatures yet do look well-favour'd:

When others are more WICKED,-] Dr. Warburton would exchange the repeated epithet wicked into wrinkled in both places. The commentator's only objection to the lines as they now ftand, is the difcrepancy of the metaphor, the want of oppofition between wicked and well-favoured. But he might have remembered what he fays in his own preface concerning mixed modes. Shakespeare, whofe mind was more intent upon notions than words, had in his thoughts the pulchritude of virtue, and the deformity of wickednefs; and though he had mentioned wickedness, made the correlative anfwer to deformity. JOHNSON.

Allow not nature more than nature needs,
Man's life is cheap as beafts'. Thou art a lady;
If only to go warm were gorgeous,

Why, nature needs not what thou gorgeous wear'st,
Which scarcely keeps thee warm. But for true need,
You heavens, give me that patience, patience I need!
You see me here, you gods, a 7 poor old man,
As full of grief as age: wretched in both!
If it be you that stir thefe daughters' hearts
Against their father, fool me not fo much
To bear it tamely; touch me with noble anger!
O, let not womens' weapons, water-drops,

8

Stain my man's cheeks! No, you unnatural hags,
I will have fuch revenges on you both,

That all the world fhall-I will do fuch things,
What they are, yet I know not; but they fhall be
The terrors of the earth. You think, I'll weep:
No, I'll not weep. I have full cause of weeping:
But this heart fhall break into a thousand flaws,
Or ere I'll weep.-O fool, I fhall

go mad! [Exeunt Lear, Glo'fter, Kent, and Fool. Corn, Let us withdraw, 'twill be a storm.

[Storm and tempeft.

- poor old man,] The quarto has, poor old fellow. JOHNS. touch me with noble anger!] It would puzzle one at first to find the fenfe, the drift, and the coherence of this petition. For if the gods fent this evil for his punishment, how could he expect that they fhould defeat their own defign, and affift him to revenge his injuries? The folution is, that Shakespeare here makes his fpeaker allude to what the ancient poets tell us of the misfortunes of particular families: namely, that when the anger of the gods, for an act of impiety, was raifed against an offending houfe, their method of punishment was, first to inflame the breafts of the children to unnatural acts against their parents; and then, of the parents against their children, in order to destroy one another; and that both these outrages were the inftigation of the gods. To confider Lear as alluding to this divinity, makes his prayer exceeding pertinent and fine. WARBURTON.

Reg

Reg. This houfe is little; the old man and his people Cannot be well beftow'd.

Gon. 'Tis his own blame hath put himself from rest, And must needs taste his folly.

Reg. For his particular, I'll receive him gladly; But not one follower.

Gon. So am I purpos'd.

Where is my lord of Glo'fter?

Enter Glofter.

Corn. Follow'd the old man forth.-He is return'd. Glo. The king is in high rage.

Corn. Whither is he going?

Glo. He calls to horse, but will I know not whither.

Corn. 'Tis best to give him way; he leads himself. Gon. My lord, intreat him by no means to ftay. Glo. Alack, the night comes on, and the bleak winds

Do forely ruffle, for many miles about There's scarce a bush.

Reg. O, Sir, to wilful men,

The injuries that they themselves procure

Must be their school-mafters. Shut up your doors; He is attended with a desperate train ;

;

And what they may incenfe him to, being apt

To have his ear abus'd, wisdom bids fear.

Corn. Shut up your doors, my lord; 'tis a wild

night.

My Regan counfels well: come out o' the storm.

[Exeunt.

9 Do forely ruffle,] Thus the folio. The quartos read, Do forely ruffel, i, e. ruftle. STEEVENŞ.

ACT III.

SCENE I.

A Heath.

A form is heard, with thunder and lightning. Enter Kent and a Gentleman, meeting.

KENT.

HAT's here, befide foul weather?

WH

Gent. One minded like the weather, moft unquietly.

Kent. I know you: where's the king?

Gent. Contending with the fretful elements: Bids the wind blow the earth into the fea;

Or fwell the curled waters 'bove the main,

That things might change, or ceafe: tears his white hair,

Which the impetuous blafts with eyelefs rage
Catch in their fury, and make nothing of:
Strives in his little world of man to outfcorn
The to-and-fro-conflicting wind and rain.

2 This night, wherein the cub-drawn bear would couch, The lion and the belly-pinched wolf

Keep their fur dry, unbonneted he runs,

And bids what will take all.

Kent. But who is with him?

tears his white hair,] The fix following verfes were omitted in all the late editions: I have replaced them from the first, for they are certainly Shakespeare's. POPE.

The firft folio ends the fpeech at change, or ceafe, and begins again with Kent's queftion, But who is with him? The whole fpeech is forcible, but too long for the occafion, and properly retrenched. JOHNSON.

2 This night, wherein the cub-drawn bear would couch,] Cubdrawn has been explained to fignify drawn by nature to its young; whereas it means, whofe dugs are drawn dry by its young. For no animals leave their dens by night but for prey. So that the meaning is, "that even hunger, and the fupport of its "young, would not force the bear to leave his den in fuch a night." WARBURTON,

Gent.