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Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land,
Our father's love is to the bastard Edmund,
As to th' legitimate; fine word—legitimate.
Well, my legitimate, if this letter speed,
And my invention thrive, Edmund the bafe
Shall be th' legitimate. I grow, I profper;
Now, Gods, ftand up for baftards!

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Glo. Kent banish'd thus! and France in choler parted! And the King gone to-night! fubfcrib'd his pow'r! Confin'd to exhibition! 3 all this done

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Upon the gad!-Edmund, how now? what news?

8 Shail be th' legitimate. Here the Oxford Editor would fhow us that he is as good at coining phrafes as his Author, and fo alters the text thus,

Shall toe th' legitimate. i.e. fays he, ftand on even ground with him, as he would do with his author. WARBURTON. Hanmer's emendation will appear very plaufible to him that fhall confult the original reading. Butler's quarto reads,

--Edmund the bafe Shail tooth' legitimate. The folio,-Edmund the base Shall to' th' legitimate. Hanmer, therefore, could hardly be charged with coining a word, though his explanation may be doubted. To toe him, is perhaps, to kick him out, a phrafe yet in vulgar ufe; or, to toe, may be literally to jupplant. The word be has no authority.

9 Now. Gods, ftand up for boards!] For what rea

fon? He does not tell us; but the poet alludes to the debaucheries of the Pagan Gods, who made heroes of all their baftards.

WARBURTON. I fubfcrib'd his pow'r!] Subfcrib'd, for transferred, alienated. WARBURTON.

To fubfcribe, is to transfer by figning or subscribing a writing of teftimony. We now use the term, He fubfcribed forty pounds to the new building.

2 Exhibition is allowance. The term is yet used in the univerfities.

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all this done

Upon the gad!] So the old copies: the later editions read, -all is gone

Upon the gad! which, befides that it is unauthorised, is lefs proper. To do upon the gad, is, to act by the fudden ftimulation of caprice, as cattle run madding when they are ftung by the gad-fly.

Edm.

Edm. So please your lordship, none.

[Putting up the letter. Glo, Why fo earnestly feek you to put up that letter? Edm. I know no news, my Lord.

Glo. What paper were you reading?
Edm. Nothing, my Lord.

Glo. No! what needeth then that terrible dispatch of it into your pocket? the quality of nothing hath not fuch need to hide itfelf. Let's fee; come. If it be

nothing, I fhall not need fpectacles.

Edm. I befeech you, Sir, pardon me, it is a letter from my brother, that I have not all o'er read; and for fo much as I have perus'd, I find it not fit for your over-looking.

Glo. Give me the letter, Sir.

Edm. I fhall offend, either to detain, or give it. The contents as in part I understand them, are to blame.

Glo. Let's fee, let's fee.

Edm. I hope, for my brother's juftification, he wrote this but as an effay, or 4 taste of my virtue.

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Glo. reads.] This policy and reverence of age makes the world bitter to the best of our times; keeps our fortunes from us, till our oldness cannot relish them. I begin to find an idle and fond bondage in the oppreffion of aged tyranny; which fways, not as it hath power, but

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4 tafte of my virtue.] Though tafte may stand in this place, yet I believe we should read, affay or teft of my virtue: they are both metallurgical terms, and properly joined. So in Hamlet,

Bring me to the test.

5 This policy and reverence of ages] Ages fignifies former times. So the fenfe of the words is this, what between the policy of fome, and the fuperftitious reverence of

others to old cuftoms, it is now become an established rule, that fathers fhall keep all they have till they die. WARBURTON.

All this may be fpared. Age, not ages, is the reading of both the copies of authority. Butler's quarto has, this policy of age; the folio, this policy and reverence of age.

6 idle and fond] Weak and foolish.

as it is fuffered. Come to me, that of this I may speak more. If our father would fleep, till I wak'd him, you Should enjoy half his revenue for ever, and live the beloved of your brother Edgar.-Hum-Confpiracy !— fleep, till I wake him-you fhould enjoy half hisr evenue-My fon Edgar! had he a hand to write this! a heart and brain to breed it in! when came this to you? who brought it?

Edm. It was not brought me, my Lord; there's the cunning of it. I found it thrown in at the cafement of my closet.

Glo. You know the character to be your brother's? Edm. If the matter were good, my Lord, I durft fwear, it were his; but in refpect of that, I would fain think it were not.

Glo, It is his.

Edm. It is his hand, my Lord, I hope his heart is not in the contents.

Glo. Has he never before founded you in this bufinefs?

Edm. Never, my Lord.

But I have heard him oft maintain it to be fit, that fons at perfect age, and fathers declining, the fathers fhould be as a ward to the fon, and the fon imanage his revenue.

Glo. O villain! villain! his very opinion in the letter. Abhorred villain! unnatural, detefted, brutish villain! worse than brutish! Go, firrah, feek him; I'll apprehend him, Abominable villain! where is he?

Edm. I do not well know, my Lord. If it fhall please you to fufpend your indignation against my brother, 'till you can derive from him better teftimony of his intent, you should run a certain courfe; where, if you violently proceed against him, mistaking his purpofe, it would make a great gap in your own honour, and shake in pieces the heart of his obedience. I dare pawn down my life for him, that he hath writ this to

feel

feel my affection to your honour, and to no other 7 pretence of danger.

Glo. Think you fo?

Edm. If your honour judge it meet, I will place you where you fhall hear us confer of this, and by an auricular affurance have your fatisfaction, and that without any further delay than this very evening, Glo. He cannot be fuch a monster.

Edm. Nor is not, fure.

Glo. To his Father, that fo tenderly and entirely loves him-Heav'n and Earth! Edmund, feek him out; wind me into him, I pray you. Frame the bu finess after your own wifdom; I would unftate myfelf, to be in a due refolution,

Edm. I will seek him, Sir, presently, 'convey the business as I shall find means, and acquaint you withal.

Glo. These late eclipfes in the fun and moon portend no good to us; tho' the wifdom of nature can reafon it thus and thus, yet nature finds itself fcourg'd

7 Pretence is defign, purpofe. So afterwards in this play. Pretence and purpofe of unkindnefs.

* <wind me into him] I once thought it fhould be read, you into him; but, perhaps, it is a familiar phrafe like, do me this.

9 I would unftate myself, to be in a due refolution.] . e. I will throw afide all confideration of my relation to him, that I may act as justice requires.

WARBURTON. Such is this learned man's explanation. I take the meaning to be rather this, Do you frame the bufinefs, who can act with lefs emotion; I would unftate myself; i would in me be a departure from the paternal character, to

be in a due refolution, to be fettled and compofed on fuch an occafion.

The words would and should are in old language often confounded,

convey the business] Convey, for introduce: but compey is a fine word, as alluding to the practice of clandeftine conveying goods fo as not to be found upon the felon. WARBURTON,

To convey is rather to carry through than to introduce; in this place it is to manage artfully; we fay of a juggler, that he has a clean conveyance.

the wisdom of nature] That is, though natural philofophy can give account of eclipfes, yet we feel their confequences.

by the fequent effects. Love cools, friendfhip falls off, brothers divide. In cities mutinies; in countries, difcord; in palaces, treafon; and the bond crack'd 'twixt fon and father. This villain of mine comes under the prediction, there's fon against father; the King falls from biafs of nature, there's father against child. We have feen the best of our time. Machinations, hol lownefs, treachery, and all ruinous diforders follow us difquietly to our graves!-Find out this villain, Edmund, it fhall lofe thee nothing, do it carefullyand the noble and true-heated Kent banifh'd! his of fence, Honefty. 'Tis ftrange.

[Exit.

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Edm. This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are fick in fortune, (often the furfeits

3. This is the excellent foppery of the world, &c.] In ShakeSpear's beft plays, befides the vices that arife from the fubject, there is generally fome peculiar prevailing folly, principally ridiculed, that runs thro' the whole piece. Thus, in the Tempeft, the lying difpofition of travellers, and in As you like it, the fantaftick humour of courtiers, is expofed and fatirized with infinite pleafantry. In like manner, in this play of Lear, the dotages of judicial aftrology are feverely ridiculed. I fancy, was the date of its first performance well confi dered, it would be found that fomething or other happened at that time which gave a more than ordinary run to this deceit, asi these words seem to intimate, I am thinking, brother, of a predic

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tion I read this other day, what fhould follow thefe eclipfes. However this be, an impious cheat, which had fo little foundation in nature or reafon, fo deteftable an original, and fuch fatal.confequences on the manners of the people, who were at that time ftrangely befotted with it, certainly deferved the fevereft lafh of fatire. It was a fundamental in this noble fcience, that whatever feeds of good difpofitions the infant unborn might be endowed with, either from nature, or traductively from its parents, yet if, at the time of its birth, the delivery was by any cafualty fo accelerated or retarded, as to fall in with the predominancy of a malignant conftellation, that momentary influence would entirely change its nature, and

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