make a great gap in your own honour, and shake in pawn down pieces the heart of his obedience. I dare my 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

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 hira out; wind me into him, I pray you; frame the business after your own wifdom. I would unftate my felf, to be in a due refolution.

Edm. I will feek him, Sir, prefently convey the bufinefs as I fhall find means, and acquaint you

withal. Gla. Thefe late eclipfes in the fun and moon portend no good to us; tho' the wisdom of nature can reafon it thus and thus, yet nature finds it felf fcourg'd by the fequent effects. Lave cools, friendship falls off, brothers divide. In cities, mutinies; in countries, discord; 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 bíafs of nature, there's father against child. We have feen the best of our time. Machinations, hollowness, treachery, and all ruinous disorders follow us difquietly to our graves! Find out this villain, Edmund; it fhall lofe thee nothing, do it carefully—and the noble and true-hearted Kent banish'd! his offence, Honesty. 'Tis Strange. [Exit.

Manet Edmund.

Edm. This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are fick in fortune, (often the surfeits of our own behaviour) we make guilty of our difafters, the fun, the moon and ftars; as if we were villains on neceffity;

foals,

fools, by heavenly compulfion; knaves, thieves, and treacherous, by fpherical predominance; drunkards, lyars, and adulterers, by an inforc'd obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on. An admirable evasion of whoremafter Man, to lay his goatifh difpofition on the charge of a star! my father compounded with my mother under the Dragon's tail, and my nativity was under Urfa major; fo that it follows, I am rough and lecherous. I fhould have been what I am, had the maidenliest star in the firmament twinkled on my bastardizing.

To him, Enter Edgar.

Pat! he comes, like the Catastrophe of the old comedy; my cue is villainous Melancholy, with a figh like Tom o Bedlam O, thefe eclipfes portend thefe divifions! fa, fol, la, me

Edg. How now, brother Edmund, what ferious contemplation are you in?

Edm. I am thinking, brother, of a prediction I read this other day, what should follow thefe eclipfes. Edg. Do you bufie your felf with that?

Edm. I promife you, the effects, he writes of, fuc ceed unhappily. When faw you my father last ? Edg. The night gone by.

Edm. Spake you with him?

Edg. Ay, two hours together.

Edm. Parted you in good terms, found you no dif. pleasure in him, by word or countenance ?

Edg. None at all.

Edm. Bethink your self, wherein you have offended him and, at my intreaty, forbear his prefence, until fome little time hath qualified the heat of his difpleafure; which at this inftant fo rageth in him, that with the mischief of your person it would scarcely allay.

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,

1

you, go, there's my key: if you do stir abroad, go arm'd

Edg. Arm'd, brother!

Edm. Brother, I advise you to the best; I am no honeft man, if there be any good meaning toward you: I have told you what I have feen and heard, but faintly; nothing like the image and horror of it: pray you,

away.

Edg. Shall I hear from
you anon?
Edm. I do ferve you in this business:
A credulous father, and a brother noble,
Whofe nature is so far from doing harms,
That he fufpects none; on whofe foolish honefty
My practices ride eafie: I fee the business.
Let me, if not by birth, have lands by wit;
All with me's meet, that I can fashion fit.

Gon.

[Exi

[Exità

SCENE, the Duke of Albany's Palace.
Enter Gonerill and Steward.

DID my father frike my gentleman for chid-
ing of his fool?

Stew. Ay, madam.

Gon. By day and night, he wrongs me; every hour He flashes into one grofs crime or other,

That fets us all at odds; I'll not endure it:

His Knights grow riotous, and himself upbraids us
On ev'ry trifle. When he returns from hunting,
I will not speak with him; fay, I am fick.
If you come flack of former services,

You shall do well; the fault of it I'll answer.
Stew. He's coming, Madam, I hear him.
Gon. Put on what weary negligence you please,
You and your fellows: I'd have it come to question.
If he diftafte it, let him to my fifter,

Whofe mind and mine, I know, in that are one,
Not to be over-rul'd: Idle old Man, (4)

That

(4) Idle old Man,] The following Lines, as they are fine in themselves, and very much in Character for Gonerill, I have re

fter'd

That still would manage those Authorities,

That he hath giv'n away! Now, by my Life,
Old Fools are Babes again; and must be used
With Checks, like Flatt'rers when they're feen
t'abuse us.

Remember, what I have faid.
Stew. Very well, Madam.

Gon. And let his Knights have colder looks among
you: what grows of it, no matter; advise fellows
your
fo: I'll write ftrait to my fifter to hold my courfe: pre-
pare for dinner.
[Exeunt.

SCENE changes to an open Place before the Palace.

Kent.

Enter Kent difguis'd.

F but as well I other accents borrow,
And can my fpeech diffufe, my good intent

May carry thro' it felf to that full iffue,
For which I raz'd my likeness.

Now, banish'd Kent,
"If thou can'ft ferve where thou doft ftand condemn'd,
So may it come, thy mafter, whom thou lov'ft,
Shall find thee full of labours.

Horns within. Enter Lear, Knights and Attendants.

Lear. Let me not stay a jot for dinner, go, get it ready: How now, what art thou? [To Kent.

Kent. A man, Sir.

Lear. What doft thou profefs? what would't thou with us?

Kent. I do profefs to be no lefs than I feem; to ferve him truly, that will put me in truft; to love him that is honeft; to converfe with him that is wife and fays little; to fear judgment; to fight when I cannot chufe,

and to eat no fish.

Lear. What art thou?

ftor'd from the Old Quarto. The laft Verfe, which I have ventur'd to amend, is there printed thus:

With Checks, like Flatt'ries when they are seen abus'd.

2

*

Kent

Kent. A very honeft-hearted fellow, and as poor as the King.

Lear. If thou beeft as poor for a fubject, as he is for a King, thou art poor enough. What would'st thou? Kent. Service.

Lear. Whom would't thou ferve?

Kent. You.

Lear. Doft thou know me, fellow?

Kent. No, Sir, but you have that in your countenance, 5 which I would fain call Mafter.

Lear. What's that?

Kent. Authority.

Lear. What fervices canft thou do?

Kent. I can keep honest counsels, ride, run, marr a curious tale in telling it, and deliver a plain meffage bluntly that which ordinary men are fit for, I am qualify'd in and the best of me is diligence.

Lear. How old art thou ?

Kent. Not fo young, Sir, to love a woman for finging; nor fo old, to doat on her for any thing. I have years on my back forty eight.

Lear. Follow me, thou shalt ferve me; if I like thee no worse after dinner, I will not part from thee yet. Dinner, ho, dinner-where's my knave? my fool? go you, and call my fool hither. You, you, firrah, where's my daughter?

Enter Steward.

Stew. So please you

[Exit.

Lear. What fays the fellow there? call the clotpole back: where's my fool, ho?

I think, the world's

afleep how now? where's that mungrel ?

Knight. He fays, my lord, your daughter is not well. Lear. Why came not the flave back to me when I call'd him!

Knight. Sir, he answer'd me in the roundest manner, he would not.

Lear. He would not?

Knight. My lord, I know not what the matter is; but, to my Judgment, your Highness is not entertain'd with

that