SCENE IV.

528. "In our sustaining corn.—A century ends forth."

"Sustaining," here, perhaps, is enduring, subject to assault or injury, as in the Tempest: "On their sustaining garments, not a blemish, "But fresher than before."

A slight transposition is necessary to the mea

sure:

"In our sustaining corn.-Send forth a century.” "Our sustaining corn," &c.

"Our sustaining corn" is the corn which sustains us; the corn which (according to the vulgar expression) is the staff of life.

LORD CHEDWORTH.

More corruption and disorder:

"And bring him to us.-What can wisdom do?" "There is a means, madam, that we will try."

All bless'd secrets,

"All you unpublish'd virtues of the earth,
Spring with my tears!"

i. e. Spring up in consequence of my tears.
'Therefore great France."

Further deficiency:

"To heal thy bleeding wrongs; therefore, great France."

529.

And our ag'd father's right."

"Soon may I hear and see him"

[Exeunt.

Is a weak and silly addition of the player's.

The metre has fallen into disorder-I would regulate it thus:

Reg. Stew.

Himself in person there?"
With much ado:

"Your sister, madam, is the better soldier." Reg. "Lord Edmund spake not with

at home?"

Stew. "No, madam."

your

lord

Reg. "What, I marvel, might import."
"My sister's letter to him ?"
I know not, lady."

Stew. "

Reg. "The strength and order of the enemy.'

531. "To noble Edmund; come, I know that

you
"Are of her bosom."

Stew. "

Reg.

"I speak

Madam! I!"

"In understanding; and you are-I know it."

532. "So, fare you well."

This fragment should be dismissed.

SCENE VI.

533. "Hark! do you hear the sea roar?" Glo. "

- Truly, no."

How fearful

"And dizzy 'tis, to cast one's eyes so low," &c.

Most readers, I believe, will concur with Addison in the general encomium he has pronounced on this speech, and the "poverty of that writer's wit," in the instance quoted by Dr. Johnson, would be almost overlooked, if it had not instigated the learned and acute editor to a false and disingenuous remark-had the Doctor (to use his own words on another occasion) been in quest of truth, he would plainly have perceived the difference between a real object of terror, and a fictitious one. The objection, perhaps, might stand if we could suppose the speaker really impressed with the terrors of the precipice which he is only artfully describing; but, as Edgar has made a plausible representation to deceive his father, the Doctor seems disposed to play a similar trick on his confiding readers.

535.

The deficient sight "Topple down headlong.

This is hardly a warrantable expression: "the deficient sight," for "the person defective of sight."

536. "

Fairies, and gods,

"Prosper it with thee!"

Fairies are sometimes invoked as auspicious, and sometimes deprecated as malignant.-In Cymbeline, Imogen prays thus:

Gods,

"From fairies and the tempters of the night, "Guard me, beseech you."

Why I do trifle thus with his despair, "Is done to cure it."

This would be very unskilful writing: the sense and spirit of the drama requires what one

of the quartos authorises, and what Theobald and Dr. Warburton adopted:

Why do I trifle thus with his despair? ""Tis done to cure it."

537. "Ho, you sir! friend! what are you?Hear you?-speak!"

538. "But have I fall'n, or no? beseech you mock not."

Do but look up."

Glo. "Look up! alack! I cannot, I have no

eyes."

Enter Lear.

There can be no reason, except corruption, for the first speeches of Lear, in this scene, being prose, when what follows is in measure: but the depravity is too rooted to admit of any attempt to obtain purity. 540. "

Gods, who make them honours

Of men's impossibilities."

Who acquire glory by performing miracles.

"The safer sense will ne'er accommodate "His master thus."

A man in his right mind would never make such an appearance as this: "the safer sense" is the unimpaired understanding, according to a mode of speech common enough-my better fortune; my better angel; my worser spirit, i. e. my evil genius.

543.

They flatter'd me like a dog."

As a dog flatters, by fawning: Hotspur uses the same comparison:

Why what a deal of candied courtesy "This fawning greyhound then did proffer me. K. Henry IV. First Part.

"To say ay, and no, to every thing I said!Ay and no too was no good divinity.”

I know not whether this means, contradictions cannot agree with true orthodoxy or divinity, or to say ay and no at the same time was no good omen or divination; it did not bode good to me. Mr. Tooke, in The Diversions of Purley, derives aye or yea from the imperative of a northern verb, signifying, have it, enjoy it, possess it. If this be admitted there is a peculiar force in these words of Lear, alluding to his kingly authority. 544. Adultery."

This word has been foolishly inserted, as if necessary to the sense, which is better without it: "I pardon that man's life: What was the cause?" The answer is made in the mind of the speaker, who proceeds:

"Thou shalt not die: Die for adultery! No: "The small gilded fly

"Does letcher in my sight. Let copulation "Go on and thrive, for Gloster's bastard son "Was kinder to his father, than my daughters, "Got 'tween the lawful sheets. To't luxury, "For I lack soldiers.-Mark yon' simpering dame, "Whose face, between her forks, presageth snow, "That minces virtue, and with feign'd distaste, "Does shake the head to hear of pleasure's name "Not the fitchew, nor the soiled horse, goes to't "With a more riotous appětite; from the waist; "Down, they are céntaŭrs, though women all above."