For confirmation that I am much more
Than my out-wall, open this purse and take
What it contains. If you fhall fee Cordelia,
(As, fear not, but you fhall) fhew her that ring,
And the will tell you who this fellow is,

That yet you do not know. Fie on this ftorm!
1 will go feek the King.

Gent. Give me your hand, have you no more to say ? Kent. Few words, but, to effect, more than all yet; That, when we have found the King, (in which you take That way, I this :) he that firft lights on him, Hollow the other.

[Exeunt feverally, Storm ftill. Enter Lear and Fool.

Lear. Blow winds, and crack your cheeks; rage, blow! You cataracts, and hurricanoes, fpout

'Till you have drencht our steeples, drown'd the cocks! You fulph'rous and thought-executing fires, Vaunt-couriers of oak-cleaving thunder-bolts,

Singe my white head. And thou all-fhaking thunder, Strike flat the thick rotundity o' th' world;

Crack nature's mould, all germins fpill at once (26) That make ingrateful man.

Fool.

(26) Crack nature's mould, all germains fpill at once.] Thus all the editions have given us this paffage, and Mr. Pope has explain'd ger mains, to mean, relations, or kindred elements. Then it must have been germanes (from the Latin adjective, germanus ;) a word more than once used by our author, tho' always falfe fpelt by his editors. So, in Hamlet;

The phrase would be more germane to the matter, if we could carry cannon by our fides:

And fo in Othello;

You'll have your nephews neigh to you; You'll have courfers for coufins, and gennets for germanes.

But the poet means here, "Crack nature's mould, and fpill all "the feeds of matter, that are hoarded within it." To retrieve which fenfe, we must write germins; (a fubftantive deriv'd from germen, wopa: as the old gloffaries expound it;) and so we must again in Macbeth;

Fool. O nuncle, court-holy-water in a dry houfe is better than the rain-waters out o' door. Good nuncle, in, and afk thy daughters bleffing: here's a night, that pities neither wife men nor fools.

Lear. Rumble thy belly full, fpit fire, fpout rain;
Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire, are my daughters;
I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness;
I never gave you kingdom, call'd you children;
You owe me no fubfcription. Then let fall
Your horrible pleafure;-here I ftand, your flave;
A poor, infirm, weak, and defpis'd old man!
But yet I call you fervile minifters,

That have with two pernicious daughters join'd
Your high-engender'à battles, 'gainst a head

So old and white as this. Oh! oh! 'tis foul.

Fool. He that has a houfe to put's head in, has a good head-piece :

The cod-piece that will house, before the head has any: The head and he fhall lowfe; fo beggars marry many. That man that makes his toe, what he his heart fhould

make,

Shall of a corn cry woe, and turn his fleep to wake. For there was never yet fair woman, but fhe made mouths in a glass.

To them, Enter Kent.

Lear. No, I will be the pattern of all patience, I will fay nothing.

Kent. Who's there?

Foal. Marry here's grace, and a cod-piece, that's a wife man and a fool.

Kent. Alas, Sir, are you here? things that love night, Love not fuch nights as thefe: the wrathful fkies Gallow the very wand'rers of the dark,

And make them keep their caves: fince I was man,

And to put this emendation beyond all doubt, I'll produce one more paffage, where our author not only uses the fame thought again, but the word that afcertains my explication. In Winter's Tale;

Let nature crush the fides o' th' earth together,
And marr the feeds within.

Such

Such fheets of fire, such bursts of horrid thunder,
Such groans of roaring wind and rain, I never

Remember to have heard. Man's nature cannot carry Th' affliction, nor the force..

Lear. Let the great gods,

That keep this dreadful pudder o'er our heads,
Find out their enemies now. Tremble, thou wretch, (27)
That haft within thee undivulged crimes,

Unwhipt of juftice. Hide thee, thou bloody hand;
Thou Perjure, and thou Simular of virtue, (28)
That art incestuous: caitiff, fhake to pieces,
That under covert and convenient feeming,
Haft practis'd on man's life!-Clofe pent-up guilts,
Rive your concealing continents, and afk
Thefe dreadful fummoners grace.-I am a man,
More finn'd against, than finning.

Kent. Alack, bare-headed?

Gracious my Lord, hard by here is a hovel;
Some friendship will it lend you 'gainft the tempeft:
Repose you there, while I to this hard houfe
(More hard than is the fione whereof 'tis rais'd;
Which even but now, demanding after you,
Denied me to come in) return, and force
Their fcanted courtefy.

Lear. My wits begin to turn.

Come on, my boy. How doft, my boy art cold? I'm cold myself. Where is the ftraw, my fellow? The art of our neceffities is ftrange,

That can make vile things precious. Come, your hovel;

(27) Tremble, thou wretch,] Thus Juvenal in his 13th satire; Hi funt qui trepidant, & ad omnia fulgura pallent,

Cum tonat; &c.

(28) Thou perjur'd, and thou fimular man of virtue,] The first Folio leaves out man in this verfe; and, I believe, rightly to the poet's mind. He would ufe a fimular of virtue to fignify, a falfe pretender to it; a diffembler, that would make an outward fhew of it: as he elfewhere employs perjure fubftantively, for a perjur'd creature. So in Love's Labour loft,

Why, he comes like a Perjure, wearing papers.

And fo, in his Troublefom Reign of King Juba, in two parts:
But now black-fpotted Perjure as he is.

Poor

Poor fool and knave, I've one part in my heart,
That's forry yet for thee.

Fool.

He that has an a little tyny wit,

With heigh ho, the wind and the rain;
Muft make content with his fortunes fit,
Though the rain it raineth every day.

Lear. True, my good boy: come, bring us to this hovel.

Fool. 'Tis a brave night to cool a curtezan.
I'll speak a prophecy, or ere I go;
When priests are more in words than matter,
When brewers marr their malt with water;
When nobles are their taylors tutors;
No hereticks burn'd, but wenches fuitors;
When every cafe in law is right,

No Squire in debt, nor no poor Knight;
When flanders do not live in tongues,
And cut-purfes come not to throngs;
When ufurers tell their gold i' th' field,
And bawds and whores do churches build:
'Then fhall the realm of Albion

Come to great confusion:

Then comes the time, who lives to fee't,

That going fhall be us'd with feet.

[Exit.

This prophecy Merlin fhall make, for I do live before

his time.

[Exit.

SCENE, An apartment in Glofter's castle.

Enter Glo'fter, and Edmund.

Glo. A I

natural dealing; when I defired their leave that I might pity him, they took from me the use of mine own houfe; charg'd me, on pain of perpetual difpleasure, neither to fpeak of him, entreat for him, or any way fuftain him.

Edm. Moft favage and unnatural!

Gle. Go to; fay you nothing. There is divifion be

tween

tween the Dukes, and a worfę matter than that: I have receiv'd a letter this night, 'tis dangerous to be spoken; (I have lock'd the letter in my clofet:) thefe injuries, the King now bears, will be revenged home; there is part of a power already footed; (†) we must incline to the King; I will look for him, and privily relieve him; go you, and maintain talk with the Duke, that my charity be not of him perceiv'd; if he ask for me, I am ill, and gone to bed; if I die for it, as no lefs is threaten'd me, the King my old master must be relieved. There are ftrange things toward, Edmund; pray you, be careful. [Exit. Edm. This courtefy, forbid thee, shall the Duke Inftantly know, and of that letter too. This feems a fair deferving, and muft draw me That which my father lofes; no lefs than all. The younger rifes, when the old doth fall.

[Exit.

SCENE changes to a part of the Heath, with a hovel.

Kent. H

Enter Lear, Kent, and Fool.

Ere is the place, my Lord; good my Lord,

enter;

The tyranny o' th' open night's too rough

For nature to endure.

cum.

Lear. Let me alone.

Kent. Good my Lord, enter here.

[Storm ftill.

(t) There is part of a pozver already landed.] This reading, notwithstanding Mr. Pope's declaration in his preface, is not ex fide CodiAll the authentick copies read, footed, i. e. on foot, on their arch. If this gentleman's nice ear was offended at the word in this place, how came he to let it pafs undisturb'd in fome others? As, for inftance, afterwards in this play;

And what confed'racy have you with the traitors,
1.ate footed in the kingdom?

And again, in Henry Vth.

Dispatch us with all speed, left that our King
Come here himself to queftion our delay;

Fer he is footed in this land already.

Lear.