The lamentable change is from the best;
The worst returns to laughter. Welcome then,
Thou unsubstantial air, that I embrace !

The wretch, that thou hast blown unto the worst,
Owes nothing to thy blasts.-But who comes here ?-
Enter GLOSTER, led by an old Man.

My father, poorly led ?—World, world, O world!
But that thy strange mutations makes us hate thee,
Life would not yield to age.

Old Man. O my good lord, I have been your tenant, and your father's tenant, these fourscore years.

Glo. Away, get thee away; good friend, be gone : Thy comforts can do me no good at all,

Thee they may hurt.

Old Man. Alack, sir, you cannot see your way.
Glo. I have no way, and therefore want no eyes;

I stumbled when I saw : Full oft 'tis seen,

Our mean secures us; and our mere defects
Prove our commodities.-Ah, dear son Edgar,
The food of thy abused father's wrath!

Might I but live to see thee in my touch,

I'd say, I had eyes again!

Old Man. How now? Who's there?

Edg. [Aside.] O gods! Who is't can say, I am at the worst ?

I am worse than e'er I was.

Old Man. 'Tis poor mad Tom.

Edg.[Aside.] And worse I may be yet: the worst is not, So long as we can say, This is the worst. Old Man. Fellow, where goest?

Glo. Is it a beggar-man?

Old Man. Madman and beggar too.

Glo. He has some reason, else he could not beg.

I'the last night's storm I such a fellow saw;

Which made me think a man a worm: My son

Came then into my mind; and yet my mind

Was then scarce friends with him: I have heard more since :

As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods;

Thy kill us for their sport.

Edg. How should this be?

63 Mean is here a substantive, and signifies a middle state. STEEVENS

Bad is the trade must play the fool to sorrow,
Ang'ring itself and others. [Aside.]-Bless thee, master!
Glo. Is that the naked fellow?

Old Man. Ay, my lord.

Glo. Then, pr'ythee, get thee gone: If, for my sake, Thou wilt o'ertake us, hence a mile or twain,

I'the way to Dover, do it for ancient love;

And bring some covering for this naked soul,
Whom I'll entreat to lead me.

Old Man. Alack, sir, he's mad.

Glo. 'Tis the time's plague, when madmen lead the

blind.

Do as I bid thee, or rather do thy pleasure :

Above the rest, be gone.

Old Man. I'll bring him the best 'parel that I have, Gome on't what will.

Glo. Sirrah, naked fellow.

[Exit. Edg. Poor Tom's a-cold.—I cannot daub it further.7

[Aside.

Glo. Come hither, fellow. Edg. [Aside.] And yet I must.-Bless thy sweet eyes, they bleed.

Glo. Know'st thou the way to Dover?

Edg. Both stile and gate, horse-way and foot-path. Poor Tom hath been scared out of his good wits: Bless the good man from the foul fiend! Five fiends have been in poor Tom at once; of lust, as Obidicut; Hobbididance, prince of dumbness; Mahu, of stealing; Modo, of murder ;and Flibbertigibbit, of mopping and mowing; who since possess chamber-maids and waiting-women. So bless thee, master!

[8] Shakspeare has made Edgar, in his feigned distraction, frequently allude to a vile imposture of some English jesuits, at that time much the subject of conversation; the history of it having been just then composed with great art and vigour of style and composition by Dr. S. Harsenet, afterwards archbishop of York, by order of the privy council, in a work intitled, "A Decla"ration of egregious Popish Impostures to withdraw her Majesty's Subjects "from their Allegiance, &c. practised by Edmunds, alias Weston, a Jesuit, "and divers Romish priests his wicked Associates"; printed 1603. The imposture was in substance this. While the Spaniards were preparing their armada against England, the jesuits were here busy at work to promote it by making converts: one method they employed was to dispossess pretended demoniacks, by which artifice they made several hundred converts among the common people. The principal scene of this farce was laid in the family of one Mr. Edmund Peckham, a Roman catholic, where Marwood, a servant of Anthony Babington (who was afterwards executed for treason), Trayford,an attendant upon Mr. Peckham, and Sarah and Priswood Williams, and Anne Smith, three chambermaids, in that family, came into the priest's hands for cure. But the discipline of the patients was so long and severe, and the priests so elate and careless with their success, that the plot was discover

Glo. Here, take this purse, thou whom the heaven's plagues

Have humbled to all strokes that I am wretched,
Makes thee the happier :-Heavens, deal so still!
Let the superfluous, and lust-dieted man,

That slaves your ordinance, 9 that will not see
Because he doth not feel, feel your power quickly :
So distribution should undo excess,

And each man have enough.-Dost thou know Dover ?
Edg. Ay, master.

Glo. There is a cliff, whose high and bending head Looks fearfully in the confined deep:

Bring me but to the very brim of it,

And I'll repair the misery thou dost bear,

With something rich about me: from that place

I shall no leading need.

Edg. Give me thy arm ;

Poor Tom shall lead thee.

SCENE II

[Exeunt.

Before the Duke of ALBANY's Palace. Enter GONERIL and EDMUND; Steward meeting them.

Gon. Welcome, my lord: I marvel, our mild husband' Not met us on the way :-Now, where's your master? Stew. Madam, within; but never man so chang'd:

I told him of the army that was landed;

He smild at it: I told him, you were coming;
His answer was, The worse of Gloster's treachery,
And of the loyal service of his son,

When I inform'd him, then he call'd me sot;
And told me, I had turn'd the wrong side out :-
What most he should dislike, seems pleasant to him ;
What like, offensive.

Gon. Then shall you go no further.
It is the cowish terror of his spirit,

[TO EDMUND.

ed on the confession of the parties concerned, and the contrivers of it deservedly punished. The five devils here mentioned, are the names of five of those who were made to act in this farce upon the chamber-maids and waiting-women; and they were generally so ridiculously nick-named, that Harsnet has one chapter "on the strange names of their devils lest," said he, "meeting them otherwise by chance, you mistake them for the names of "tapsters or jugglers." WARBURTON.

[9] To slave an ordinance-is to treat it as a slave, to make it subject to us, instead of acting in obedience to it. STEEVENS.

[1] It must be remembered that Albany, the husband of Goneril, disliked in the end of the first act, the scheme of oppression and ingratitude. JOHNS

That dares not undertake: he'll not feel wrongs,
Which tie him to an answer: Our wishes, on the way,
May prove effects.2 Back, Edmund, to my brother;
Hasten his musters, and conduct his powers:

I must change arms at home, and give the distaff
Into my husband's hands. This trusty servant
Shall pass between us: ere long you are like to hear,
If you dare venture in your own behalf,

A mistress's command. Wear this; spare speech;
[Giving a favour.
Decline your head :3 this kiss, if it durst speak,
Would stretch thy spirits up into the air ;-
Conceive, and fare thee well.

Edm. Yours in the ranks of death.

Gon. My most dear Gloster !

[Exit EDMUND.

O, the difference of man, and man! To thee

A woman's services are due; my fool

Usurps my bed.

Stew. Madam, here comes my lord. [Exit Steward.

Enter ALBANY.

Gon. I have been worth the whistle.

Alb. O Goneril !

You are not worth the dust which the rude wind

Blows in your face.-I fear your disposition:

That nature, which contemns its origin,

Cannot be border'd certain in itself;

She that herself will sliver and disbranch
From her maternal sap, perforee must wither,
And come to deadly use."

4

Gon. No more; the text is foolish.

Alb. Wisdom and goodness to the vile seem vile : Filths savour but themselves. What have you done? Tigers, not daughters, what have you perform'd ? A father, and a gracious aged man,

Whose reverence the head-lugg'd bear would lick, Most barbarous, most degenerate! have you madded. Could my good brother suffer you to do it?

A man, a prince, by him so benefited?

[2] The wishes,which we expressed to each other on our way hither.may be completed, and prove effectual to the destruction of my husband. MAL. [3] She bids him decline his head, that she might give him a kiss (the steward being present) and that it might appear only to him as a whisper. STEE. [4] Alluding to the use that witches and inchanters are said to make of withered branches in their charms. A fine insinuation in the speaker, that she was ready for the most unnatural mischief, and a preparative of the poet to her plotting with the bastard against her husband's life. WARBURTON.

If that the heavens do not their visible spirits
Send quickly down to tame these vile offences,
'Twill come,

Humanity must perforce prey on itself,
Like monsters of the deep.5

Gon. Milk-liver'd man!

That bear'st a cheek for blows, a head for wrongs;
Who hast not in thy brows an eye discerning
Thine honour from thy suffering; that not know'st,
Fools do those villains pity, who are punish'd

Ere they have done their mischief. Where's thy drum?
France spreads his banners in our noiseless land;
With plumed helm thy slayer begins threats;
Whilst thou, a moral fool, sit'st still, and cry'st,
Alack! why does he so ?

Alb. See thyself, devil!

Proper deformity seems not in the fiend

So horrid, as in woman. 6

Gon. O vain fool!

Alb. Thou changed and self-cover'd thing, for shame, Be-monster not thy feature. Were it my fitness

To let these hands obey my blood,

They are apt enough to dislocate and tear

Thy flesh and bones :-Howe'er thou art a fiend,
A woman's shape doth shield thee.

Gon. Marry, your manhood now!

Enter a Messenger.

Alb. What news?

Mes. O, my good lord, the duke of Cornwall's dead; Slain by his servant, going to put out

The other eye of Gloster.

Alb. Gloster's eyes!

Mes. A servant that he bred, thrill'd with remorse, Oppos'd against the act, bending his sword

To his great master; who, thereat enrag'd,

Flew on him, and amongst them fell'd him dead :
But not without that harmful stroke, which since
Hath pluck'd him after.

Alb. This shows you are above,

You justicers, that these our nether crimes

So speedily can venge!-But, O poor Gloster !

[5] Fishes are the only animals that are known to prey upon their own` species. JOHNSON.

[6] Diabolic qualities appear not so horrid in the devil to whom they be. long, as in woman who unnaturally assumes them. WARBURTON.