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life for him, that he hath writ this to feel my affection to your honour, and to no other pretence of danger'. Glo. Think you so?

Edm. If your honour judge it meet, I will place you where you shall 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 such a monster.

Edm. Nor is not, fure.

Glo. To his father, that fo tenderly and entirely loves him.-Heaven and earth!-Edmund, feek him out; wind me into him3, I pray you: frame the business after your own wisdom: I would unstate myself, to be in a due refolution +.

Edm.

9to your honour,] It has been already obferved that this was the ufual mode of address to a lord in Shakspeare's time. See also Vol. X. p. 2, n. 2. MALONE.

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-pretence-] Pretence is defign, purpose. So, afterwards in this play:

Pretence and purpose of unkindness. JOHNSON.

2 Edm.] From Nor is, to beaven and earth! are words omitted in the folio. STEEVENS.

3

-wind me into bim,] I once thought it should be read-you into him; but, perhaps, it is a familiar phrafe, like do me this. JOHNSON.

So, in Twelfth-Night: "—challenge me the duke's youth to fight with him." Instances of this phrafeology occur in the Merchant of Venice, King Henry IV. Part I. and in Othello. STEEVENS.

4-I would unstate myself to be in a due refolution.] I take the meaning to be this, Do you frame the bufinefs, who can act with lefs emotion; I would unftate myself; it 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. JOHNSON.

The fame word occurs in Antony and Cleopatra:

"Yes, like enough, high-battled Cæfar will
"Unftare his happiness, and be ftag'd to fhew
"Against a fworder."-

To unftate, in both thefe inftances, feems to have the fame meaning. Edgar has been represented as wishing to poffefs his father's fortune, i. e. to urftate him; and therefore his father fays he would unftate himself to be fufficiently refolved to punish him.

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Edm. I will feek him, fir, presently; convey the bufinefs as I fhall find means, and acquaint you withal.

Glo. These late eclipfes in the fun and moon portend no good to us: Though the wifdom of nature can reafon it thus and thus, yet nature finds itself fcourged by the fequent effects: love cools, friendship falls off, brothers divide in cities, mutinies; in countries, difcord; in palaces, treafon; and the bond crack'd between fon and

To enftate is to confer a fortune. So, in Measure for Measure: 66 his poffeffions

"We do enftate and widow you withal." STEEVENS. It seems to me, that I would unflate myself in this paffage means fimply, I would give my eftate (including rank as well as fortune.) TYRWHITT.

Glofter cannot bring himself thoroughly to believe what Edmund has told him of Edgar. He fays, "Can he be fuch a monfter ?" He afterwards defires Edmund to found his intentions, and then says, he would give all he poffeffed to be certain of the truth; for that is the meaning of the words, to be in a due refolution. So, in Othello: To be once in doubt,

"Is-once to be refolv’d.”

Here refolved means, to be certain of the fact. Again, in the Maid's Tragedy:

'tis not his crown

Shall buy me to thy bed, now I refolve "He has dishonour'd thee." MASON.

Though to refolve in Shakspeare's time certainly fometimes meant to fatisfy, declare, or inform, I have never found the fubftantive refolution used in that fenfe: and even had the word ever borne that fenfe, the authour could not have written-to be in a due refolution, but muft have written, "to attain a due refolution." Who ever wish'd "to be in due information" on any point? MALONE.

5-convey the business-] To convey is to carry through; in this place it is to manage artfully we fay of a juggler, that he has a clean Conveyance. JOHNSON.

So, in Mother Bombie, by Lilly, 1599: "Two, they fay, may keep counfel if one be away; but to convey knavery, two are too few, and four are too many." STEEVENS.

So, in lord Sterline's Julius Cæfar:

"A circumstance, or an indifferent thing,

"Doth oft mar all when not with care convey'd." MALONE. • —the wisdom of nature-] That is, though natural philofophy can give account of eclipfes, yet we feel their confequences. JOHNSON.

father,

father. This villain of mine comes under the predic. tion; there's fon against father: the king falls from bias of nature; there's father against child. We have seen the beft of our time; Machinations, hollownefs, treachery, and all ruinous diforders, follow us difquietly to our graves! Find out this villain, Edmund; it shall lofe thee nothing; do it carefully :-And the noble and truehearted Kent banish'd! his offence, honefty!- Strange! Strange! [Exit.

Edm. This is the excellent foppery of the world! that, when we are fick in fortune, (often the furfeit of our own behaviour,) we make guilty of our difafters, the fun, the moon, and the ftars: as if we were villains by neceffity; fools, by heavenly compulfion; knaves, thieves, and treachers, by fpherical predominance; drunkards, lyars, and adulterers, by an enforced obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrufting on: An admirable evafion of whore-mafter man, to lay his goatifh difpofition to the charge of a ftar! My father compounded with my mother under the dragon's tail; and my nativity was under ursa major; fo that it follows, I am rough and lecherous.Tut, I fhould have been that I am, had the maidenlieft ftar in the firmament twinkled on my baftardizing. Edgar.

7 This villain-] All from asterisk to askerisk is omitted in the quartos. STEEVENS.

8 — and treachers,-] The modern editors read treacherous; but the reading of the firft copies, which I have restored to the text, may be fupported from most of the old contemporary writers. So, in Doctor Dedypoll, a comedy, 1600:

"How fmooth the cunning treacher look'd upon it !" Again, in Robert Earl of Huntingdon, 1601:

Hence, trecber as thou art!"

Chaucer, in his Romaunt of the Rofe, mentions" the false treacher," and Spenfer often uses the fame word. STEEVENS.

of a ftar.] Both the quartos read-to the charge of ftars.

STEEVENS.

Enter

Enter EDGAR.

and pat he comes, like the catastrophe of the old comedy: My cue is villainous melancholy, with a figh like Tom o' Bedlam.-O, these eclipses do portend these divifions! fa, fol, la, mi3.

Edg. How now, brother Edmund? What serious contemplation are you in?

Edm. I am thinking, brother, of a prediction I read this other day, what fhould follow these eclipfes. Edg. Do you bufy yourself with that?

I

Edm. I promife you, the effects he writes of, fuc

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2-like the catastrophe of the old comedy:] I think this passage was intended to ridicule the very aukward conclufions of our old comedies, where the perfons of the scene make their entry inartificially, and just when the poet wants them on the ftage. WARNER.

30, thefe eclipfes do portend thefe divifions! fa, fol, la, mi.] The commentators, not being muficians, have regarded this paffage, perhaps as unintelligible nonfenfe, and therefore left it as they found it, without beftowing a fingle conjecture on its meaning and import. Shakspeare however fhews by the context that he was well acquainted with the property of thefe fyllables in folmifation, which imply a feries of founds fo unnatural, that ancient musicians prohibited their use. The monkish writers on mufick say, mi contra fa eft diabolus: the interval fa mi, including a tritonus, or sharp 4th, confifting of three tones without the intervention of a femi-tone, expressed in the modern fcale by the letters F G A B, would form a musical phrase extremely disagreeable to the ear. Edmund, speaking of eclipfes as portents and prodigies, compares the dislocation of events, the times being out of joint, to the unatural and offenfive founds, fa fol la mi. BURNEY.

#

The words fa, fol, &c. are not in the quarto. The folio, and all the modern editions, read corruptly me instead of mi. Shakspeare has again introduced the gamut in The Taming of the Shrew, Vol. III. P. 297. MALONE.

4 I promise you, &c.] The folio edition commonly differs from the first quarto, by augmentations or infertions, but in this place it varies by omiffion, and by the omiffion of fomething which naturally introduces the following dialogue. It is eafy to remark, that in this fpeech, which ought, I think, to be inferted as it is in the text, Edmund, with the common craft of fortune-tellers, mingles the paft and future, and tells of the future only what he already foreknows by confederacy, or can attain by probable conjecture. JOHNSON. LI

VOL. VIII,

ceed

ceed unhappily; as of unnaturalnefs between the child and the parent; death, dearth, diffolutions of ancient amities; divifions in ftate, menaces and maledictions against king and nobles; needlefs diffidences, banishment of friends, diffipation of cohorts, nuptial breaches, and I know not what.

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Edg. How long have you? been a fectary aftronomical?

Edm. Come, come*; when faw you my father laft ?

Edg. Why, the night gone by.

Edm. Spake you with him?

Edg. Ay, two hours together.

Edm. Parted you in good terms? Found you no difpleasure in him, by word, or countenance ? Edg. None at all.

Edm. Bethink yourself, wherein you may have offended him and at my entreaty, forbear his prefence, till fome little time hath qualified the heat of his difpleafure; which at this inftant fo rageth in him, that with the mifchief of your perfon it would scarcely allay.

8

Edg. Some villain hath done me wrong.

Edm. That's my fear. I pray you, have a continent forbearance, till the fpeed of his rage goes flower; and, as I fay, retire with me to my lodging, from whence I will fitly bring you to hear my lord fpeak: Pray you, go; there's my key:-If you do ftir abroad, go arm'd.

5-as of] All from this afterisk to the next, is omitted in the folio. STEEVENS.

6-diffipation of cohorts,-] Thus the old copy. Dr. Johnfon of courts. STEEVENS.

reads

7 How long have you] This line I have restored from the two eldeft quartos, and have regulated the following fpeech according to the fame copies. STEEVENS.

8that with the mifchief of your perfon-] This reading is in both copies; yet I believe the authour gave it, that but with the mifchief of your perfon it would fcarce allay. JOHNSON.

I do not fee any need of alteration. He could not exprefs the violence of his father's displeasure in ftronger terms than by faying it was fo great that it would fearely be appeafed by the destruction of his fon. MALONE.

9 That's my fear.] All between this and the next afterisk, is omitted in the quartos. STEEVENS.

Edg.

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