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Well may you profper!

France. Come, my fair Cordelia.

[Exeunt France, and Cordelia. Gon. Sifter, it is not a little I have to fay, of what moft nearly appertains to us both. I think, our father will hence to-night.

Reg. That's most certain, and with you; next month with us.

Gon. You fee how full of changes his age is; the obfervation we have made of it hath not been little: he always lov'd our fifter moft; and with what poor judgment he hath now caft her off, appears too grofsly.

Reg. 'Tis the infirmity of his age: yet he hath ever but flenderly known himself.

Gon. The best and foundest of his time hath been but rash; then must we look to receive from his age, not alone the imperfections of long engrafted condition, but, therewithal, the unruly waywardness that infirm and cholerick years bring with them.

Reg. Such unconftant starts are we like to have from him, as this of Kent's banishment.

Gon. There is further compliment of leave-taking between France and him. Pray you, let us hit together: If our father carry authority with fuch

This I have replaced. The former editors read with the folio: Who covers faults at laft with fhame derides. STEEVENS.

Mr. Monck Mafon believes the folio, with the alteration of a letter, to be the right reading:

Time fhall unfold what plaited cunning hides,

Who covert faults at laft with fhame derides.

The word who referring to time.

In the third Act, Lear fays:

Caitiff fhake to pieces,

That under covert, and convenient feeming,
Hath practifed on man's life. EDITOR.

-of long engrafted condition,] i. e. qualities of mind confirmed by long habit. MALONE.

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let us hit] So the old quarto. The folio, let us fit. JOHNSON.

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difpofitions as he bears, this last surrender of his will but offend us.

Reg. We fhall further think of it.

Gon. We must do fomething, and 'i' the heat.

SCENE II.

[Exeunt.

A caftle belonging to the Earl of Glofter.

Enter Edmund, with a letter.

Edm. 7 Thou, nature, art my goddess; to thy law

My services are bound: Wherefore should I

8

Stand in the plague of cuftom: and permit

-let us hit

] i. e. agree. STEEVENS.

-i' the heat] i. e. We must ftrike while the iron's hot.

STEEVENS. -] He makes his baftard

1 Thou, nature, art my goddefs; an atheist. Italian atheism had much infected the English court, as we learn from the beft writers of that time. But this was the general title thofe atheists in their works gave to nature thus Vanini calls one of his books, De admirandis Naturæ Regine deæque mortalium Arcanis. So that the title here is emphatical. WARBURTON.

Dr. Warburton fays that Shakspeare has made his baftard an atheift; when it is very plain that Edmund only speaks of nature in oppofition to custom, and not (as he fuppofes) to the existence of a God. Edmund means only, as he came not into the world as cuftom or law had prefcribed, fo he had nothing to do but to follow nature and her laws, which make no difference between legitimacy and illegitimacy, between the eldest and the youngest. To contradict Dr. Warburton's affertion yet more strongly, Edmund concludes this very speech by an invocation to heaven. "Now gods stand up for bastards!" STEEVENS.

8

Stand in the plague of cuftom,-] The word plague is in all the old copies: I can fcarcely think it right, nor can I yet reconcile myself to plage, the emendation propofed by Dr. Warburton, though I have nothing better to offer." JOHNSON.

The meaning is plain, though oddly expreffed. Wherefore fhould I acquiefce, fubmit tamely to the plagues and injustice of cuftom?

The

The curiofity of nations' to deprive me, For that I am fome twelve or fourteen moon-fhines Lag of a brother? Why baftard? Wherefore base?

When

Shakspeare feems to mean by the plague of cuftom, Wherefore fhould I remain in a fituation where I fhall be plagued and tormented only in confequence of the contempt with which custom regards those who are not the issue of a lawful bed? Dr. Warburton defines plage to be the place, the country, the boundary of cuftom; a word to be found only in Chaucer. STEEVENS. The courtesy of nations-] Mr. Pope reads nicety. copies give the curiofity of nations ;but our author's word was, curtesy. In our laws fome lands are held by the curtesy of England. THEOBALD.

The

Curiofity, in the time of Shakspeare, was a word that fignified an over-nice fcrupuloufness in manners, drefs, &c. In this fenfe it is ufed in Timon. When thou waft (fays Apemantus) in thy gilt and thy perfume, they mock'd thee for too much curiofity.' Barrett in his Alvearie, or Quadruple Dictionary, 1580, interprets it, piked diligence: fomething too curious, or too much affectated and again in this play of K. Lear, Shakspeare feems to ufe it in the fame fenfe, which I have rather blamed as my own jealous curiofity." Curiofity is the old reading, which Mr. Theobald changed into courtesy, though the former is ufed by Beaumont and Fletcher, with the meaning for which I contend.

It is true, that Orlando, in As You Like It, fays: "The courtesy of nations allows you my better;" but Orlando is not there inveighing against the law of primogeniture, but only against the unkind advantage his brother takes of it, and courtesy is a word that fully fuits the occafion. Edmund, on the contrary, is turning this law into ridicule; and for fuch a purpose, the curiofity of nations, (i. e. the idle, nice diftinctions of the world) is a phrafe of contempt much more natural in his mouth, than the fofter expreffion of-courtesy of nations. STEEVENS. -to deprive me,] To deprive was, in our author's time, fynonymous to difinherit. The old dictionary renders exheredo by this word: and Holinfhed fpeaks of the line of Henry before deprived.

1

Again, in Warner's Albion's England, 1602, B. III. ch. xvi.
To you, if whom ye have depriv'd ye fhall reftore again."
Again, Ibid:

2

The one restored, for his late depriving nothing mov'd."
STEEVENS.

Lag of a brother?] Edmund inveighs against the tyranny of custom, in two inftances, with refpect to younger brothers,

and

1

difpofitions as he bears, this laft furrender of his will but offend us.

Reg. We fhall further think of it.

Gon. We must do fomething, and 'i' the heat.

SCENE II.

[Exeunt.

A caftle belonging to the Earl of Glofter.

Enter Edmund, with a letter.

Edm. 7 Thou, nature, art my goddefs; to thy law
My fervices are bound: Wherefore should I
Stand in the plague of cuftom: and permit

-let us hit

-] i. e. agree. STEEVENS.

-i' the heat] i. e. We muft ftrike while the iron's hot. STEEVENS.

1 Thou, nature, art my goddess;] He makes his baftard an atheist. Italian atheism had much infected the English court, as we learn from the best writers of that time. But this was the general title those atheists in their works gave to nature thus Vanini calls one of his books, De admirandis Naturæ Regina deæque mortalium Arcanis. So that the title here is empha

tical. WARBURTON.

Dr. Warburton fays that Shakspeare has made his baftard an atheift; when it is very plain that Edmund only speaks of nature in oppofition to custom, and not (as he fuppofes) to the existence of a God. Edmund means only, as he came not into the world as cuftom or law had prefcribed, fo he had nothing to do but to follow nature and her laws, which make no difference between legitimacy and illegitimacy, between the eldest and the youngest. To contradict Dr. Warburton's affertion yet more strongly, Edmund concludes this very speech by an invocation to heaven. "Now gods ftand up for baftards!" STEEVENS.

Stand in the plague of cuftom,-] The word plague is in all the old copies: I can fcarcely think it right, nor can I yet reconcile myself to plage, the emendation propofed by Dr. Warburton, though I have nothing better to offer." JOHNSON.

The meaning is plain, though oddly expreffed. Wherefore fhould I acquiefce, fubmit tamely to the plagues and injustice of custom?

The

Now, gods, ftand up for bastards!

Enter Glofter.

Glo. Kent banish'd thus! And France in choler parted!

And the king gone to-night! fubfcrib'd his power! Confin'd to exhibition! 7 All this done

6

Upon the gad!-Edmund! How now? what news? Edm.

fhew 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 plausible to him that fhall confult the original reading. Butter's quarto reads: -Edmund the bafe

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-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 fupplant. The word be has no authority. JOHNSON.

Mr. Edwards would read,Shall top the legitimate. I have received this emendation, because the fucceeding expreffion, I grow, feems to favour it. STEEVENS.

So, in Macbeth:

Not in the legions

"Of horrid hell can come a devil more damn'd,

"To top Macbeth.”

alienated.

MALONE.

-subscrib'd his power!] Subfcrib'd, for transferred, WARBURTON.

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

The folio reads-prefcribed.

6

STEEVENS.

exhibition!] Is allowance. The term is yet ufed

in the universities. JOHNSON.

7

-All this done

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