comedy: My cue is villainous melancholy, with a sigh like Tom o'Bedlam.-O, these eclipses do portend these divisions! fa, sol, la, mi.

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 should follow these eclipses. EDG. Do you busy yourself with that?

6

EDM. I promise you, the effects he writes of,

-pat

he comes,] The quartos read

and out he comes- -." STEEVENS.

7 he comes, like the catastrophe of the old comedy:] I think this passage was intended to ridicule the very aukward conclusions of our old comedies, where the persons of the scene make their entry inartificially, and just when the poet wants them on the stage. WARNER.

8

- O, these eclipses do portend these divisions! FA, SOL, LA, MI.] The commentators, not being musicians, have regarded this passage perhaps as unintelligible nonsense, and therefore left it as they found it, without bestowing a single conjecture on its meaning and import. Shakspeare however shows by the context that he was well acquainted with the property of these syllables in solmisation, which imply a series of sounds so unnatural, that ancient musicians prohibited their use. The monkish writers on musick say, mi contra fa est diabolus: the interval fa mi, including a tritonus, or sharp 4th, consisting of three tones without the intervention of a semi-tone, expressed in the modern scale by the letters FGAB, would form a musical phrase extremely disagreeable to the ear. Edmund, speaking of eclipses as portents and progedies, compares the dislocation of events, the times being out of joint, to the unnatural and offensive sounds, fa, sol, la, mi. DR. BURNEY.

The words fa, sol, &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. v. p. 438. MALONE.

9 I promise you,] The folio edition commonly differs from the first quarto, by augmentations, or insertions, but in this place it varies by omission, and by the omission of something which naturally introduces the following dialogue. It is easy to remark, that in this speech, which ought, I think, to be inserted as it now is in the text, Edmund, with the common craft of fortune-tellers, mingles the past and future, and tells of the future only what he

succeed unhappily; [as of1 unnaturalness between the child and the parent; death, dearth, dissolution of ancient amities; divisions in state, menaces and maledictions against king and nobles; needless diffidences, banishment of friends, dissipation of cohorts 2, nuptial breaches, and I know not what. EDG. How long have you been a sectary astro

nomical ?

3

EDM. Come, come ;] when saw you my father last ?

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 displeasure 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 presence, till some little time hath qualified the heart of his displeasure; which at this instant so 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 con

already foreknows by confederacy, or can attain by probable conjecture. JOHNSON.

as of] All between brackets is omitted in the folio. STEEVENS. 2-dissipation of COHORTS,] Thus the old copy. Dr. Johnson reads-of courts. STEEVENS.

3 How long have you—] This line I have restored from the two eldest quartos, and have regulated the following speech according to the same copies. STEEVENS.

that WITH the mischief of your person-] This reading is in both copies; yet I believe the author gave it, that but with the mischief of your person it would scarce allay. JOHNSON.

I do not see any need of alteration. He could not express the violence of his father's displeasure in stronger terms than by saying it was so great that it would scarcely be appeased by the destruction of his son. MALONE.

tinent forbearance, till the speed of his rage goes slower ; and, as I say, retire with me to my lodging, from whence I will fitly bring you to hear my lord speak: Pray you, go; there's my key:-If

stir abroad, go armed.
EDG. Armed, brother?]

*

you do

EDM. Brother, I advise you to the best; go armed; I am no honest man, if there be any good meaning towards you: I have told you what I have seen 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 serve you in this business.-

[Exit EDGAR.
A credulous father, and a brother noble,
Whose nature is so far from doing harms,
That he suspects none; on whose foolish honesty
My practices ride easy!-I see the business.-
Let me, if not by birth, have lands by wit:
All with me's meet, that I can fashion fit. [Exit.

SCENE III.

A Room in the Duke of ALBANY'S Palace.

Enter GONERIL and Steward.

GoN. Did my father strike my gentleman for chiding of his fool?

STEW. Ay, madam.

GON. By day and night! he wrongs me"; every

hour

*First folio omits go armed.

5 That's my fear.] All between brackets is omitted in the quartos. STEEVENS.

6 By day and night! he wrongs me ;] It has been suggested by Mr. Whalley that we ought to point differently:

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By day and night he wrongs me;

He flashes into one gross crime or other,

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

His knights grow riotous, and himself upbraids us
On every trifle :-When he returns from hunting,
I will not speak with him; say, I am sick :-
If you come slack of former services,

You shall do well; the fault of it I'll answer.
STEW. He's coming, madam; I hear him.

[Horns within. GON. Put on what weary negligence you please, You and your fellows; I'd have it come to ques

tion:

If he dislike it, let him to my sister,
Whose mind and mine, I know, in that are one,
[Not to be over-ruled'. Idle old man,

* Quarto, fellow servants.

† First folio, distaste it.

not considering these words as an adjuration. But that an adjuration was intended, appears, I think, from a passage in King Henry VIII. The king, speaking of Buckingham, (Act I. Sc. II.) - By day and night

"He's traitor to the height."

It cannot be supposed that Henry means to say that Buckingham is a traitor in the night as well as by day.

The regulation which has been followed in the text, is likewise supported by Hamlet, where we have again the same adjuration:

"O day and night! but this is wondrous strange." MALONE. By night and day, is, perhaps, only a phrase signifyingalways, every way. So, in Troilus and Cressida :

Prince Troilus, I have lov'd you night and day "For many weary months."

See vol. viii. p. 330, n. 8. I have not, however, displaced Mr. Malone's punctuation. STEEVENS.

7 Not to be over-rul'd, &c.] This line and the four following lines, are omitted in the folio. MALONE.

8 Idle old man, &c.] The lines between brackets, as they are fine in themselves, and very much in character for Goneril, I have restored from the old quarto. The last verse, which I have ventured to amend, is there printed thus:

"With checks, like flatt'ries when they are seen abus'd."

THEOBALD.

That still would manage those authorities,
That he hath given away!-Now, by my life,
Old fools are babes again; and must be us'd
With checks, as flatteries,-when they are seen
abus'd.]

Remember what I have said.

STEW.

Very well, madam.

GON. And let his knights have colder looks

among you ;

What grows of it, no matter; advise your fellows

So:

[I would breed from hence occasions, and I shall,

9 Old fools are babes again; and must be us'd

With checks, as flatteries,-when they are seen abus'd.] The sense seems to be this: Old men must be treated with checks, when as they are seen to be deceived with flatteries: or, when they are weak enough to be seen abused by flatteries, they are then weak enough to be used with checks.' There is a play of the words used and abused. To abuse is, in our author, very frequently the same as to deceive. This construction is harsh and ungrammatical; Shakspeare perhaps thought it vicious, and chose to throw away the lines rather than correct them, nor would now thank the officiousness of his editors, who restore what they do not understand. JOHNSON.

The plain meaning, I believe, is-old fools must be used with checks, as flatteries must be check'd when they are made a bad use of. TOLLET.

I understand this passage thus. Old fools-must be used with checks, as well as flatteries, when they [i. e. flatteries] are seen to be abused.' TYRWHITT.

66

The objection to Dr. Johnson's interpretation is, that he supplies the word with or by, which are not found in the text: when as they are seen to be deceived with flatteries," or "when they are weak enough to be seen abused by flatteries," &c.; and in his mode of construction the word with preceding checks, cannot be understood before flatteries.

66

MALONE.

When old fools

I think Mr. Tyrwhitt's interpretation the true one. The sentiment of Goneril is obviously this: will not yield to the appliances of persuasion, harsh treatment must be employed to compel their submission." When flatteries are seen to be abused by them, checks must be used, as the only means left to subdue them. HENLEY.