Some that will thank you, making just report, I am a gentleman of blood and breeding, Gent. I'll talk further with Kent. No, do not. you." For confirmation that I am much more Than my out-wall, open this purfe and take That yet you do not know. Fy on this storm! Gent. Give me your hand, have you no more to say? Kent. Few words, but, to effect, more than all yet; That, when we have found the King, for which you take That way, I this, he that firft lights on him, Halloo the other. SCENE [Exeunt feverally II. Storm fill. Enter Lear and Fool. Lear. Blow winds, and crack your cheeks; rage, blow! You cataracts, and hurricanoes, fpout. 'Till you have drencht our steeples, drown'd the cocks! You fulph'rous and thought-executing fires, * Vaunt couriers of oak-cleaving thunder-bolts, Singe my white-head. And thou all-fhaking thunder, Strike flat the thick rotundity o'th' world, Fool. O nuncle, court-holy-water in a dry house is better than the rain-waters out o'door. Good nuncle, in and ask thy daughters bleffing, here's a night that pi ties neither wife men nor fools. 8 Lear. Rumble thy belly full, fpit fire, spout rain; Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire, are my daughters. I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness, children; I never gave you kingdoms, call'd you "You owe me no fublcription; then let fall Your horrible displeasure. Here I stand, your flave, A poor, infirm, weak, and defpis'd old man. But yet I call you fervile ministers, That have with two pernicious daughters join'd Your high engender'd battles, 'gainst a head So old and white as this. Oh! oh! 'tis foul, • Crack Nature's Mould, all Germains pill at once] Thus, all the Editions have given us this Paffage, and Mr. Pope has explain'd Germains to mean relations, or kindred Elements. But the Poct means here," Crack "Nature's Mould, and fpill all "the Seeds of Matter, that are hoarded within it." To retrieve which Senfe, we muft write Germins, from Germen. Our Author not only uses the fame Thought again, but the Word that afcertains my Explication. In Winter's Tale; Let Nature crush the Sides o't Earth together, And marr the Seeds within. THEOBALD. 7 You owe me no fubfcription.] Subfcription, for obedience. WAR. bere I ftand your SLAVE ;] But why for It is true, he fays, that they owed bm no fubfcripVOL. VI. tion; yet fure he owed them none. We fhould read, here I ft and your BRAVE; A poor. infirm, weak, and de- And this was the wonder, that The meaning is plain enough, he was not their flave by right or compact, but by neceffity and compulfion. Why should a paf fage be darkened for the fake of changing it? Befides, of Brave in that fenfe I remember no example. -'tis foul.] Shameful; dis honourable. Fool. He that has a houfe to put's head in, has a good head-piece. The codpiece that will house, The head and he fhall lowfe; * So beggars marry many. That man that makes his toe, Shall of a corn cry woe, And turn his fleep to wake. For there was never yet fair woman, but he made mouths in a glass. Lear. No, I will be the pattern of all patience, I will fay nothing. Kent. Who's there? Fool. Marry here's grace and a cod-piece, that's a wife man and a fool. Kent. Alas, Sir, are you here? Things that love night, Love not fuch nights as thefe, the wrathful fkies • Gallow the very wand'rers of the dark, And make them keep their Caves. Since I was man, Such sheets of fire, fuch bursts of horrid thunder, Such groans of roaring wind and rain, I never Remember to have heard. Man's nature cannot carry Th' affliction, nor the 'fear. Lear. Let the great Gods, That keep this dreadful pother o'er our heads, • So beggars marry many.] That is, a beggar marries a wife and ji e. 2 Gallow the very wanderers of the dark, Gallow, a Tremble, thou wretch, weft-country word, fignifies to fcar or frighten. WARBURTON. So the folio, the later edi-nd tions read, with the quarto, forca for fear, lefs elegantly. That That haft within thee undivulged crimes, Unwhipt of juftice. Thou Perjure, and Hide thee, thou bloody hand, thou Simular of virtue, That art incestuous. Caitiff, thake to pieces, Thefe dreadful fummoners grace. — I am a man, Kent. Ala k, bare-headed? Gracious my Lord, hard by here is a hovel, Lear. My wits begin to turn. Come on, my boy. How doft, my boy? art cold? 2 -thou Simular of virtue,] Shakespear has here kept exactly to the Latin propriety of the term. I will only obferve, that our author feems to have imitated Skelton in making a substantive of Simular, as the other did of Diffimular, With other foure of theyr affy nyte, Dydayne, rjotte, Diffymuler, fubtylte. The bouge of Courte. WARBURTON. 3 That under COVERT AND convenient feming,] This may be right. And if fo, con venient is used for commodious or friendly. But I rather think the poet wrote, .e. under cover of a frank, opens focial converfation. This raifes the fenfe, which the poet expreffes more at large in Timon of Abens, where he says, - -The fellow ibat Sits next him now, parts bread. Is th' read.eft man to kill him.→→ Convenient needs not be understood in any other than its u fual and proper sense; accommo date to the prefent purpose ; fuitable to a design. Convenient feeming is appearance fuch as may promote his purpofe to destroy. Aconcealing continents-Con That under COVER OF convivial tinent ftands for that which con I'm cold myself. Where is the ftraw, my fellow? The art of our neceffities is ftrange, That can make vile things precious. Come, your Poor fool and knave, I've one part in my heart, 6 Fool. He that has an a little tyny wit, With beigh bo, the wind and the rain; Lear. True, my good boy. Come, bring us to this hovel. Fool. 'Tis a brave night to cool a curtezan. ? I'll speak a prophecy ere I go.. -one part in my heart,] Some editions read, thing in my heart, from which Hanmer, aud Dr. Warburton after him, have made fring, very unneceffarily; both the copies have part.. He that has but a little tyny wit,] I fancy that the fecond line of this ftanza had once a termination that rhymed with the fourth; but I can only fancy it; for both the copies agree. It was once perhaps written, With beigh bo, the wind and the rain in his way. The meaning feems likewife to require this infertion. He that has wit, however small, and finds wind and rain in his away, muft content himfelf by thinking, that fomewhere or other it raineth every day, and others are therefore fuffering like bimself. I'll speak a prophecy or ere I go; When priefts are more in words than matter; When brewers marr their malt with water; I [Exit, When When nobles are their tailors tutors; No hereticks burn'd, but wenches When flanders do not live in And cut-purfes come not to throngs; When ufurers tell their gold i'th field, And barvds, and whores, do Then fhall the realm of Albion That Going fhall be us'd with feet.] The judicious reader will obferve through this heap of nonfenfe and confufion, that this is not one, but two prophecies. The first, a fatyrical defcription of the prefent manners as future: And the fecond, a fatyrical defcription of future manners, which the corruption of the |