dandy, which is the justice, which is the thief?Thou hast seen a farmer's dog bark at a beggar? Glo. Ay, sir.

Lear. And the creature run from the cur? There thou might'st behold the great image of authority: a dog's obey'd in office.

Thou rascal beadle, hold thy bloody hand:

Why dost thou lash that whore? Strip thine own back;

Thou hotly lust'st to use her in that kind

For which thou whipp'st her. The usurer hangs the

cozener.

Through tatter'd clothes small vices do appear; Robes, and furr'd gowns, hide all 29. Plate sin with gold,

And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks: Arm it in rags, a pigmy's straw doth pierce it. None does offend, none, I say, none; I'll able 'em 30 : Take that of me, my friend, who have the power To seal the accuser's lips. Get thee glass eyes; And, like a scurvy politician, seem

To see the things thou dost not.-Now, now, now,

now:

Pull off my boots :-harder, harder; so.

Edg. O, matter and impertinency 31 mix'd! Reason in madness!

Lear. If thou wilt weep my fortunes, take my eyes. I know thee well enough; thy name is Gloster:

29 From hide all' to accuser's lips' is wanting in the quartos.

30 i. e. support or uphold them. So Chapman in the Widow's Tears, 1612:

'Admitted! ay, into her heart, and I'll able it.'

Again, in his version of the twenty-third Iliad :—

I'll able this

For five revolved years.'

31 Impertinency here is used in its old legitimate sense of something not belonging to the subject.

Thou must be patient; we came crying hither. Thou know'st, the first time that we smell the air, We wawl,and cry32:-I will preach to thee; mark me. Glo. Alack, alack the day!

Lear. When we are born, we cry, that we are

come

To this great stage of fools;This a good block 33? It were a delicate stratagem, to shoe

A troop of horse with felt: I'll put it in proof;

32 The childe feeles that, the man that feeling knowes, Which cries first borne, the presage of his life,' &c. Sidney's Arcadia, lib. ii.

The passage is, however, evidently taken from Pliny, as translated by Philemon Holland, Proeme to b. vii. :- Man alone, poor wretch [nature] hath laid all naked upon the bare earth, even on his birthday to cry and wrawle presently from the very first houre that he is borne into this world.'-Douce.

35 Upon the king's saying I will preach to thee,' the poet seems to have meant him to pull off his hat, and keep turning it and feeling it, in the attitude of one of the preachers of those times (whom I have seen represented in ancient prints) till the idea of felt, which the good hat or block was made of, raises the stratagem in his brain of shoeing a troop of horse with the [same substance] which he held and moulded between his hands. So in Decker's Gull's Hornbook, 1609:- That cannot observe the tune of his hatband, nor know what fashioned block is most kin to his head for in my opinion the brain cannot chuse his felt well.' Again, in Run and a Great Cast, no date, Epigram 46, in Sextinum :

"

'A pretty blocke Sextinus names his hat,
So much the fitter for his head by that.'

This delicate stratagem is mentioned by Ariosto:-
fece nel cadar strepito quanto

Avesse avuto sotto i piediil feltro.'

So in Fenton's Tragical Discourses, 4to. blk. 1. 1567:- He attyreth himself for the purpose in a night-gowne girt to hym, with a payre of shoes of felte, leaste the noyse of his feete might discover his goinge,' p. 58. It had, however been actually put in practice about fifty years before Shakspeare was born, at a tournament held at Lisle before Henry VIII. [Oct. 13, 1513], where the horses, to prevent their sliding on a black stone pavement, were shod with felt or flocks (feltro sive tomento). See Lord Herbert's Life of King Henry VIII. p. 41.

And when I have stolen upon these sons-in-law, Then, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill 34.

Enter a Gentleman, with Attendants. Gent. O, here he is, lay hand upon him.-Sir, Your most dear daughter

Lear. No rescue? What, a prisoner? I am even The natural fool of fortune 35.-Use me well;

You shall have ransome.

I am cut to the brains.

Gent.

Let me have a surgeon,

You shall have any thing.

Lear. No seconds? All myself?

Why, this would make a man, a man of salt 36,
To use his eyes for garden water-pots,

Ay, and for laying autumn's dust.

Gent.

Good sir,

Lear. I will die bravely, like a bridegroom: What? I will be jovial; come, come; I am a king, My masters, know you that!

Gent. You are a royal one, and we obey you. Lear. Then there's life in it 37.

it, you shall get it by running.

Nay, an you get

Sa, sa, sa, sa 38.

[Exit, running; Attendants follow.

34 This was the cry formerly in the English army when an onset was made on the enemy. So in Venus and Adonis :"Gives false alarms, suggesteth mutiny,

And in a peaceful hour doth cry, Kill, kill.' Again, in The Mirrour for Magistrates, 1610, p. 315 :Our Englishmen came boldly forth at night, Crying St. George,-Salisbury,-kill, kill,

And offer'd freshly with their foes to fight.'

35 So in Romeo and Juliet:-' O, I am fortune's fool.

36 A man of salt' is a man of tears. In All's Well that Ends Well, we meet with Your salt tears head.'

And in Troilus and Cressida, the salt of broken tears.' Again, in Coriolanus:'He has betray'd your business, and given up,

For certain drops of salt, your city Rome.'

37 The case is not yet desperate. So in Antony and Cleopatra: There's sap in't yet.'

38 Mr. Boswell thinks that this passage seems to prove that sessa means the very reverse of cessez. See p. 468, and p. 479, note 14, ante.

Gent. A sight most pitiful in the meanest wretch; Past speaking of in a king!-Thou hast one daughter, Who redeems nature from the general curse

Which twain have brought her to.

Edg. Hail, gentle sir.

Gent. Sir, speed you: What's your will? Edg. Do you hear aught, sir, of a battle toward? Gent. Most sure, and vulgar: every one hears that, Which can distinguish sound.

Edg.

How near's the other army?

But, by your favour,

Gent. Near, and on speedy foot, the main descry Stands on the hourly thought 39.

Edg.

I thank you, sir: that's all. Gent. Though that the queen on special cause is

here,

army is mov'd on.

Her

Edg.

I thank you, sir. [Exit Gent.

Glo. You ever-gentle gods,take my breath from me;

Let not my worser spirit 40

To die before you please!

Edg.

tempt me again

Well pray you, father. Glo. Now, good sir, what are you?

Edg. A most poor man, made lame by fortune's

blows 41:

42

Who, by the art of known and feeling sorrows Am pregnant to good pity. Give me your hand, I'll lead you to some biding.

39 The main body is expected to be descried every hour. 40 By this expression may be meant my evil genius.'

41 The folio reads made tame by fortune's blows.' The original is probably the true reading. So in Shakspeare's thirtyseventh Sonnet :

'So I made lame by fortune's dearest spight.'

42 Feeling is probably used here for felt. Sorrows known not by relation, but by experience. Warburton explains it, Sorrows past and present.'

Glo.

Hearty thanks :

The bounty and the benizon of heaven

To boot, and boot!

Enter Steward.

Stew.

A proclaim'd prize! Most happy! That eyeless head of thine was first fram'd flesh To raise my fortunes.-Thou old unhappy traitor, Briefly thyself remember 43 :-The sword is out That must destroy thee.

Glo.

Put strength enough to it.
Stew.

Now let thy friendly hand

[EDGAR opposes. Wherefore, bold peasant,

Dar'st thou support a publish'd traitor? Hence;
Lest that the infection of his fortune take
Like hold on thee. Let go his arm.

Edg. Chill not let go, zir, without vurther 'casion.
Stew. Let go, slave, or thou diest.

44

Edg. Good gentleman, go your gait **, and let poor volk pass. And ch'ud ha' been zwagger'd out of my life, 'twould not ha' been zo long as 'tis by a vortnight. Nay, come not near the old man; keep out, che vor'ye 45, or ise try whether your costard or my bat be the harder: Ch'ill be plain with you. Stew. Out, dunghill!

46

43 i. e. quickly recollect the past offences of thy life, and recommend thyself to heaven.'

44 Gang your gait is a common expression in the north. In the last rebellion the Scotch soldiers, when they had finished their exercise, were dismissed by this phrase, ' gang your gaits.'

45 i. e. I warn you. When our ancient writers have occasion to introduce a rustic they commonly allot him the Somersetshire dialect. Golding, in his translation of the second book of Ovid's Metamorphoses, makes Mercury, assuming the appearance of a clown, speak with the provinciality of Edgar.

46 i. e. head. See vol. ii. p. 337, note 10. A bat is a staff. It is the proper name of a walkingstick in Sussex even at this day.