which the priests persuaded him was from the possession of the devil, and continues-"The disease I spake of was a spice of the mother, wherewith I had bene troubled .... before my going into Fraunce: whether I doe rightly term it the mother or no, I knowe not When I was sicke of this disease in Fraunce, a Scottish doctor of physick then in Paris, called it, as I remember, vertiginem capitis. It riseth.... of a winde in the bottome of the belly, and proceeding with a great swelling, causeth a very painfull collicke in the stomach, and an extraordinary giddiness in the head."

It is at least very probable that Shakespeare would not have thought of making Lear affect to have the hysteric passion or mother, if this passage in Harsnet's pamphlet had not suggested it to him, when he was selecting the other particulars from it, in order to furnish out his character of Tom of Bedlam, to whom this demonaical gibberish is admirably adapted.-PERCY.

"thou CLIMBING sorrow"-My friend, Fitz-Greene Halleck, once cited to me this phrase as a striking example of Shakespeare's peculiar habit of giving human attributes to passions, affections, and inanimate objects, in a single epithet or phrase, without personification-a peculiarity which throws much light on his obscurest passages and most doubtful readings.

"No, but not yet;-may be he is not well."-The strong interest now felt by Lear to try to find excuses for his daughter is most pathetic.

“Till it cry-Sleep to death' "--The passage is given here according to the common reading, which means "I'll beat the drum until it cries Let them awake no more; let them sleep on to death.'' Yet the original copies punctuate thus, "Till it cry sleep to death," of which Tieck, the German annotator, gives the following explanation, adopted by Knight:--"Till the noise of the drum has been the death of sleep--has destroyed sleep-has forced them to awaken." But the drum crying till sleep is destroyed, is a hardly intelligible phrase; while ery, in the sense of speaking aloud, is not only expressive English but quite Shakespearian; as, in TROILUS AND CRESSIDA:

-the death-token of it

Cry, "No recovery!"

"— as the COCKNEY did to the eels"—The antiquarians and commentators are diffuse upon the explanation and origin of this word, which Percy maintains to mean here as in old English, merely a cook or scullion; but the better opinion is that it always meant a mere citizen, ignorant of life and all that is beyond the town-streets. Singer thus condenses the learning of Nares, Douce, and others, on this amusing subject, which belongs to Shakespearian literature, though it is little needed for the elucidation of the text:

"Bullokar, in his Expositor, 1616, under the word Cockney, says 'It is sometimes taken for a child that is tenderly or wantonly brought up; or for one that has been brought up in some great town, and knows nothing of the country fashion. It is used also for a Londoner, or one born in or near the city, (as we say,) within the sound of Bow bell.' The etymology (says Mr. Nares) seems most probable which derives it from cookery. Le pays de cocagne, or coquaine, in old French, means a country of good cheer. Cocagna, in Italian, has the same meaning. Both might be derived from coquina. This famous country, if it could be found, is described as a region where the hills were made of sugar-candy, and the loaves ran down the hills crying Come, eat me. Some lines in Camden's Remains' seem to make cokeney a name for London as well as its inhabitants. A cockney and a ninny-hammer, or simpleton, were convertible terms. Thus Chaucer, in The Reve's Tale:'

I shall be holden a daffe or a cokeney.

It may be observed that cockney is only a diminutive of cock; a wanton child was so called as a less circumlocutory way of saying 'my little cock,' or 'my bracock.' Decker, in his Newes from Hell,' 1568, says

"Than she to SCANT her duty."-So the folio: the quartos have "Than she to slack her duty." Either word may be right, though Hanmer and Johnson thought both wrong, and would read scan her duty. The plain meaning is-You know less how to value Regan's desert than she knows how to be wanting in duty.

"how this becomes the house"-i. e. the order of families, duties of relation. So Sir T. Smith, in his Commonwealth of England, 1601:-" The house I call here, the man, the woman, their children, their servants, bond and free."

"on my knees I beg"-The present edition agrees with that of Knight, in here omitting the stage-direction of "Kneeling," which is not in any of the old copies, nor necessarily connected with the text, but is inserted in almost all modern editions. Lear says to Regan, on whom he still trusts, what he must say to her ungrate ful sister, should he return to her. This may be said in various manners. An actor of fiery impulse might well throw himself on his knees, and preserve the Poet's intent; but it may be well doubted whether the author had this in his mind as essential to his poetry. The passage, spoken with lofty and indignant irony, might not be less effective. There is not only no printed early authority for this direction, but it is certainly not supported by the early stage tradition, as Davies informs us that the lines were omitted anciently in representation, so that this dramatic situation was unknown to Betterton and Booth, who inherited the imperfect tradition of the theatrical art. "It was," says Davies, "restored by Garrick, who threw himself on both knees, with his hands clasped, and in a supplicating tone, repeated the petition." He doubtless did honour, as others have since done, to the Poet's meaning; but there is no evidence that the Poet meant that the actor should be limited to this particular mode of giving effect to his lines.

"To fall and BLAST HER PRIDE"--So every quarto: the folio merely, "to fall and blister," which is followed in some modern editions.

"Thy tender-HESTED nature"-I have here preferred the reading of the quartos. Hest is a common old word for commands, laws, as "the ten hests" for the ten commandments: it is used in the TEMPEST. It would mean, as compounded here-Thy nature, subject to tender laws, to the commands of natural kindness. Tenderhefted is found in the folios, and most generally followed: possibly both are a misprint for tender-hearted. Tender-hefted affords the sense, taking hefted as heaved, of heaving with tenderness. In the WINTER'S TALE, we have hefts used for heavings. It may be remarked that heft is the old word for handle, and tender-hefted, as Johnson suggested, may mean tender-handled.

"-to scant my SIZES"-i. e. To contract my allowances or proportions settled. It is derived by lexi

"CORN. What trumpet's that?

REG. I know't, my sister's."

Thus, in OTHELLO:

The Moor,-I know his trumpet.

It should seem from these and other passages, that the approach of great personages was announced by some distinguishing note or tune appropriately used by their own trumpeters. Cornwall knows not the present sound; but to Regan, who had often heard her sister's trumpet, the first flourish of it was as familiar as was that of the Moor to lago.-STEVENS.

"Allow obedience"-Warburton as an editor, and Tate as an adapter of this play to the modern stage, not being familiar with this phrase, have read hallow obedience." But allow, in old English, meant approve, as in the gospels, "Ye allow the deeds of your fathers," and still more commonly in the older English version called the Bishops' Bible, known only to modern readers through the prose version of the Psalms used in the English liturgy. It is worthy the notice of the philological student who wishes to trace the progress of our language, that the "authorized version," as it is now called, (or King James's Bible,) is a little posterior to Shakespeare's writings, though made by his contemporaries, being first published in 1611. His own scriptural language and allusions must have been drawn either from the Bishops' Bible then read in churches, or, the Geneva Bibles most commonly in private use. "and SUMPTER"-A sumpter is a horse, or mule, to carry necessaries on a journey.

"O' reason not the need."-Observe that the tranquillity which follows the first stunning of the blow permits Lear to reason.— .-COLERIDGE.

"O, fool! I shall go mad"-Mr. Dana, in his criticism on Kean's acting," has preserved the memory of Kean's striking conception of the close of this terrible scene, and his ending the last interview of Lear" with a horrid shout and cry, with which he runs mad from their presence as if his very brain had taken fire."

"HATH put himself"--The personal pronoun he is understood. He hath was anciently contracted h'ath, and hence the omission of the pronoun.

ACT III.-SCENE I.

"to OUT-SCORN

The to-and-fro-conflicting wind and rain.” Stevens ingeniously conjectures this to be an error of the press for out-storm, a correction probable in itself, and supported by a similar phrase in act v., "Myself could else out-frown false fortune's frown." The error is more probable as the lines are only in the inaccurate quartos. Yet I have preferred retaining the original text, as it gives a good sense: Lear returns with scorn the scorn of the elements.

"—the CUB-DRAWN bear"-Shakespeare here gives in a single compound epithet, the image which he uses elsewhere more in detail, as in As You LIKE IT, "A lioness with udders all drawn dry," and again, "the sucked and hungry lioness."

"Whereof, perchance, these are but furnishings.”This and the seven preceding lines are only in the folios; what follows to the end of the speech, is only in the quartos. Two copies have "secret feet ;" the other, "secret fee."-COLLIER,

Johnson observes: "This speech, as it now stands, has been collected from two editions: the eight lines degraded by Mr. Pope, are found in the folio, not in the quarto: the following lines inclosed in crotchets, are in the quarto, not in the folio. So that if the speech be read with omission of the former, it will stand ac

and the lines that follow them omitted, it will then stand according to the second. The speech is now tedious because it is formed by a coalition of both. The second edition is generally best, and was probably nearest to Shakespeare's last copy; but in this passage the first is preferable: for in the folio, the messenger is sent, he knows not why, he knows not whither. I suppose Shakespeare thought his plot opened rather too early, and made the alteration to veil the event from the audience; but, trusting too much to himself, and full of a single purpose, he did not accommodate his new lines to the rest of the scene. Scattered means divided, unsettled, disunited.”—JOHNSON.

"these are but FURNISHINGS"-A furnish anciently signified a sample. Green, in his "Groat'sworth of Wit," makes one of his characters say, "To lend the world a furnish of wit, she lays her own out to pawn."-STEVENS.

SCENE II.

THOUGHT-EXECUTING fires"-Doing execution with rapidity equal to thought.-JOHNSON. "Vaunt-couriers"-Avant courriers, Fr. This old phrase is familiar to writers of Shakespeare's time. It originally meant the foremost scouts of an army.

"Crack nature's moulds, all GERMINS spill at once."-Crack nature's mould, and spill all the seeds of matter, that are hoarded within it. Our author not only uses the same thought again, but the word that ascertains my explication, in the WINTER'S TALE :— Let nature crush the sides o' the earth together, And mar the seeds within.

THEOBALD.

"O nuncle, court holy-water,” etc.-Cotgrave, in his "Dictionary," translates Eau benite de cour, “court holie water; compliments, faire words, flattering speeches," etc.

"You owe me no SUBSCRIPTION.". - Obedience, as "subscribe" in the first act, where see note.

"That keep this dreadful PUDDER"-We retain the original word, with Mr. Knight, who observes :-"This is generally modernized into pother; the same word, doubtless, but somewhat vulgarized by the change."

"When priests are more in word than matter.”—This prophecy is not found in the quartos, and it was therefore somewhat hastily concluded that it was an interpolation of the players. It is founded upon a prophecy in Chaucer, which is thus quoted in Puttenham's "Art of Poetry," 1589 :—

When faith fails in priestes saws,

And lords' hests are holden for laws, And robbery is tane for purchase,

And lechery for solace,

Then shall the realm of Albion
Be brought to great confusion.

Warburton had a theory that the lines spoken by the Fool contain two separate prophecies;-that the first four lines are a satirical description of the present manners as future, and the subsequent six lines a description of future manners, which the corruption of the present would prevent from ever happening. He then recommends a separation of the concluding two couplets to mark the distinction. Capell thinks also that they were separate prophecies, not spoken at the same time, but on different nights of the play's performance. All this appears to us to pass by the real object of the pas sage, which, by the jumble of ideas-the confusion between manners that existed, and manners that might exist in an improved state of society-were calculated to bring such predictions into ridicule. The conclusion,

Then comes the time, who lives to see't,
That going shall be used with feet,--

leaves no doubt of this. Nor was the introduction of such a mock prophecy mere idle buffoonery. There can be no question, from the statutes that were directed against these stimulants to popular credulity, that they were considered of importance in Shakespeare's day. Bacon's essay "Of Prophecies" shows that the philosopher gravely denounced what our Poet pleasantly ridiculed. Bacon did not scruple to explain a prophecy of this nature in a way that might disarm public apprehension:-"The trivial prophecy which I heard when I was a child, and Queen Elizabeth was in the flower of her years, was,

When hempe is sponne,

England's done; whereby it was generally conceived that, after the princes had reigned which had the principal letters of that word hempe, (which were Henry, Edward, Mary, Philip, and Elizabeth,) England should come to utter confusion; which, thanks be to God, is verified only in the change of the name; for that the king's style is now no more of England, but of Britain." Bacon adds, "My judgment is that they ought all to be despised, and ought to serve but for winter talk by the fireside: though, when I say despised, I mean it as for belief, for otherwise, the spreading or publishing of them is in no sort to be despised, for they have done much mischief; and I see many severe laws made to suppress them."KNIGHT.

SCENE IV.

"In, boy; go first."-These two lines were added in the author's revision, and are only in the folio. They are judiciously intended to represent that humility, or tenderness, or neglect of forms, which affliction forces on the mind.-JOHNSON.

that hath laid knives under his pillow"-The feigned madness of Edgar assumes, throughout, that he represented a demoniac. His first expression is, "Away! the foul fiend follows me;" and in this and the subsequent scenes the same idea is constantly repeated. "Who gives any thing to poor Tom, whom the foul fiend hath led through fire and through flame?" "This is the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet ;"--" Peace, Smolkin, peace, thou foul fiend;"-" The foul fiend haunts poor Tom in the voice of a nightingale." Shakespeare has put language in the mouth of Edgar that was familiar to his audience. In the year 1603, Dr. Samuel Harsnet, afterwards Archbishop of York, published a very extraordinary book, entitled "A Declaration of Egregious Popish Impostures, to withdraw the hearts of Her Majesty's subjects from their allegiance, under the pretence of casting out devils, practised by Edmunds, alias Weston, a Jesuit, and divers Romish priests, his wicked associates." When Edgar says that the foul fiend "hath laid knives under his pillow, and halters in his pew," Shakespeare repeats one of the circumstances of the imposture described by Harsnet: "This examinant further saith, that one Alexander, an apothecary, having brought with him from London to Denham on a time a new halter and two blades of knives, did leave the same upon the gallery floor in her master's house. A great search was made in the house to know how the said halter and knife-blades came thither, till Ma. Mainy, in his next fit, said it was reported that the devil laid them in the gallery, that some of those that were possessed might either hang themselves with the halter, or kill themselves with the blades." In Harsnet we find that "Fratiretto, Fliberdigibbet, Hoberdidance, Tocobatto, were four devils of the round or morrice. These four had forty assistants under them, as themselves do confess." The names of three of these fiends are used by Mad Tom, and so is that of a fourth, Smallkin, also mentioned by Harsnet. When Edgar says,

The prince of darkness is a gentleman;
Modo he's call'd, and Mahu--

he uses names which are also found in Harsnet, where Modo was called the prince of all devils.-KNight.

"Pillicock sat on Pillicock-hill”—Mr. Halliwell has pointed out that "Pillicock" is thus mentioned in Ritson's "Gammer Gurton's Garland :”—

Pillycock, Pilly cock sat on a hill;

If he's not gone, he sits there still.

It is also introduced into the second edition of Mr. Halliwell's "Nursery Rhymes," and it is certainly singular, as he observes, that neither Douce nor any of the commentators should have referred to it.

"'tis a NAUGHTY night to swim in."—Naughty, not meant in the ludicrous sense it would now bear in this connection, but used in its ordinary sense of that age, for bad, as in the English Bible, "naughty figs," for bad or rotten figs.

"His wits begin t' unsettle."-Horace Walpole, in the postscript to his "Mysterious Mother," observes that when "Belvidera talks of

Lutes, laurels, seas of milk, and ships of amber,-she is not mad, but light-headed. When madness has taken possession of a person, such character ceases to be fit for the stage, or at least should appear there but for a short time; it being the business of the theatre to exhibit passions, not distempers. The finest picture ever drawn, of a head discomposed by misfortune, is that of King Lear. His thoughts dwell on the ingratitude of his daughters, and every sentence that falls from his wildness, excites reflection and pity. Had frenzy entirely seized him, our compassion would abate: we should conclude that he no longer felt unhappiness. Shakespeare wrote as a philosopher, Otway as a poet.”

SCENE V.

"—but a PROVOKING merit”—Malone says, "Cornwall means the merit of Edmund, which, being noticed by Gloster, provoked or instigated Edgar to seek his father's death;" but Warburton and Mason refer it to Edgar's "merit," as compared with his father's "badness."

SCENE VI.

"Nero is an angler in the lake of darkness.”—It is an amusing and instructive part of literary history, to trace the pedigree of a jest or a popular image. This one comes from the Greek of Lucian, an author with whom there is no manner of probability that Shakespeare had any acquaintance even in translation. But Rabelais, the most learned of buffoons, had borrowed directly from Lucian's "Menippus" the idea of employing emperors and heroes in the humblest occupations in the infernal regions, where he makes Nero a fiddler, and Trajan a fisherman. Rabelais was as popular in Shakespeare's day as Sterne was in the last generation, and if our Poet had not read him in French he might have done it in English, for the "History of Garagantua" had appeared in English before 1575.

"Pray, INNOCENT"-Fools were of old called "innocents," when they were not professed jesters, but mere idiots; and hence the not unfrequent misapplication of the word, when professed jesters were spoken to or of. Edgar was here addressing himself to King Lear's fool.

"a horse's health."-Warburton, Ritson, Douce, and other annotators, are very positive that this should be read "a horse's heels," and cite an old proverb from Ray's "Collection,"-"Trust not a horse's heels, nor a dog's tooth." But the old copies all agree in the reading of the text, and every "gentleman in search of a horse" must well know that the soundness or unsoundness of a horse is quite as uncertain as any of the other matters in the Fool's catalogue.

"Come o'er the bourn, Bessy, to me"-This, and what follows from the Fool, are parts of an old song

which was imitated by W. Birch, in his "Dialogue between Elizabeth and England," which thus com

mences

Come over the bourn, Bessy, come over the bourn, Bessy, Sweet Bessy, come over to me;

And I shall thee take,

And my dear lady make Before all that ever I see.

It is in the same measure as the addition by the Fool; and in W. Wager's interlude "The longer thou livest, the more Fool thou art," part of the same song is thus sung by Moros, who may be called the hero :

Come over the boorne, Besse,

My little pretie Besse,

Come over the boorne, Besse, to me.

"EDG. Pur! the cat is grey.

LEAR. Arraign her first; 'tis Goneril."

In Dr. Ray's "Medical Jurisprudence of Insanity," there is an excellent chapter on the distinctive marks of real and simulated insanity, illustrated from examples and cases. This scene in LEAR would afford an admirable commentary throughout, and agrees in a remarkable manner with the conclusions and observations of modern medical science-especially in the forced extravagance and mere incoherence of Edgar, as compared with Lear's more vivid illusions and wilder ravings, which, yet in the most sudden and violent transitions, always have some common reference to the exciting causes of his malady.

Hound, or spaniel, BRACH or LYM❞—According to Minshew, a lym or lyme, is a bloodhound; Chaucer has it lymer. "Tike," says Stevens, "is the Runic for a little or worthless dog." It may be so; but he could have better explained the sense by going to Scotland, where this, (like many other words of Elizabeth's age now obsolete elsewhere,) is still in use. "Tike," "trundletail," are dogs of low degree, mentioned in opposition to the more aristocratic breeds before enumerated.

"Poor Tom, thy HORN is dry"-A horn was usually carried about by every Tom of Bedlam, to receive such drink as the charitable might afford, with whatever scraps of food they might give him. When, therefore, Edgar says, his horn is dry, or empty, I conceive he merely means, in the language of the character he assumes, to supplicate that it may be filled with drink. See "A Pleasant Dispute between Coach and Sedan,' quarto, 1636: "I have observed when a coach is appendant by two or three hundred pounds a yeere, marke it, the dogges are as leane as rakes; you may tell all their ribbes lying by the fire; and Tom-a-Bedlam may sooner eate his horne than get it filled with small drinke; and for his old almes of bacon there is no hope in the world." In Hausted's "Rival Friends," 1632, a Tom of Bedlam is introduced, and Anteros says of him, "Ah! he has a horn like a Tom o' Bedlam."COLLIER.

"Bind fast his CORKY arms"-Dry, withered, husky arms, says Johnson; and Percy adds a passage from Harsnet's "Declaration," 1603, in which the epithet "corky" is applied to an old woman. Hence, it is possible, Shakespeare obtained it, as it has not been pointed out in any other author.

"In his anointed flesh RASH boarish fangs"-So the quartos: the folio more feebly reads "stick boarish fangs." To "rash" is the old hunting term for the stroke made by the wild boar with his fangs; and in Spenser's "Faery Queen" we find "rashing off helms." "that STERN time"-In the quartos it stands

"that dearn time," which may have been Shakespeare's word, and it is found also in PERICLES: dearn is lonely, dreary, melancholy, and sometimes secret.-COLLIER.

em

- else SUBSCRIBED”—i. e. Yielded, submitted to the necessity of the occasion.-JOHNSON. In this play we have already had "subscribed" en ployed in the sense of yielded or surrendered, and such was a common application of the word.

"A peasant stand up thus"-The only stage-direction in this part of the scene in the folio is, "Kills him,” although the servant delivers two lines afterwards. The tearing out and trampling on Gloster's eyes, so minutely described in modern editions, (that of Mr. Knight excepted,) may be sufficiently gathered from the dialogue. When Regan kills the servant, we are told in the quartos, "She takes a sword and runs at him behind;" and it seems probable that she snatched it from one of the attendants. She may, however, have seized the weapon which her husband had drawn in vain.-COLLIER.

"Where is thy lustre now?"-Of the scene of tearing out Gloster's eyes, Coleridge thus speaks :-" I will not disguise my conviction that, in this one point, the tragic in this play has been urged beyond the outermost mark and ne plus ultra of the dramatic." He subsequently says, "What can I say of this scene? There is my reluctance to think Shakespeare wrong, and yet—." As the scene stands in modern editions, it is impossible not to agree with Coleridge. The editors, by their stage-directions, have led us to think that this horrid act was manifested to the sight of the audience. They say, "Gloster is held down in his chair, while Cornwall plucks out one of his eyes, and sets his foot on it." Again, "Tears out Gloster's other eye, and throws it on the ground." Nothing of these directions occurs in the original editions, and we have therefore rejected them from the text. But if it can be shown that the act was to be imagined, and not seen by the spectators, some part of the loathing which we feel must be diminished. We give Tieck's argument that the horrid action of tearing out Gloster's eyes did not take place on the stage proper :

"The chair (or seat) in which Gloster is bound is the same which stood somewhat elevated in the middle of the scene, and from which Lear delivered his first speech. This little theatre, in the midst, was, when not in use, concealed by a curtain, which was again withdrawn when necessary. Shakespeare has therefore, like all the dramatists of his age, frequently two scenes at one and the same time. In Henry VIII. the nobles stand in the ante-chamber; the curtain is withdrawn, and we are in the chamber of the king. Thus also, when Cranmer waits in the ante-chamber, the curtain then opens to the council-chamber. We have here this advantage, that, by the pillars which divided this little central theatre from the proscenium or proper stage, not only could a double group be presented, but it could be partially concealed; and thus two scenes might be played, which would be wholly comprehended, although not every thing in the smaller frame was expressly and evidently seen. Thus Gloster sat probably concealed, and Cornwall, near him, is visible. Regan stands below, on the fore-stage, but close to Cornwall; and on this fore-stage also stand the servants. Cornwall, horribly enough, tears Gloster's eye out with his hand; but we do not directly see it, for some of the servants who hold the chair stand around, and the curtain is only half-withdrawn (for it divided on each side.) The expression which Cornwall uses is only figurative, and it is certainly not meant that the act of treading on the eye is actually done. During the scornful speeches of Cornwall and Regan, one of the servants runs up to the upper stage, and wounds Cornwall. Regan, who is below, seizes a sword from another of the vassals, and stabs him from behind while he is yet fighting. The groups are all in motion, and become more concealed; aud, while the attention is strongly attracted to the

We hear

Thus

bloody scene, Gloster loses his second eye. Gloster's complainings, but we see him no more. he goes off; for this inner stage had also its place of exit. Cornwall and Regan come again upon the proscenium, and go off on the side. The servants conclude the scene with some reflections. This I imagine to be the course of the action, and through this the horrors of the scene become somewhat softened. The Poet, to be sure, trusted much to the strong minds of his friends, who would be too much affected by the fearfulness of the entire representation of this tragedy to be interrupted by single events, bloody as they were; or, through them, to be frightened back from their conception of the whole."-KNIGHT.

"and known to be contemn'd."-Johnson thought this might be perhaps an early error of the press, and that the line might have been written,

Yet better thus, unknown to be contemned. Yet there seems no necessity of emendation. Reynolds's explanation is quite satisfactory:

Sir J.

"Yet is is better to be thus, in this fixed and acknowledged contemptible state, than, living in affluence, to be flattered and despised at the same time. He who is placed in the worst and lowest state has this advantage: he lives in hope, and not in fear of a reverse of fortune. The lamentable change is from affluence to beggary. He laughs at the idea of changing for the worse, who is already as low as possible."

"World, world, O world!"-O world! if reverses of fortune and changes such as I now see and feel, from ease and affluence to poverty and misery, did not show us the little value of life, we should never submit with any kind of resignation to the weight of years, and its necessary consequences, infirmity and death.—MALONE.

“Our MEANS secure us”—i. e. as Pope and Warburton explain it, "our middle state secures us." The mean is often used to express a condition neither high nor low. All the old copies read "Our means secure us."

"I cannot DAUB it further"-Meaning, "I cannot keep up my disguise any longer." To "daub" was of old used in this sense, as in RICHARD III., "So smooth he daub'd his vice with show of virtue."

"That SLAVES your ordinance”—i. e. that makes a slave of Heaven's ordinances, using them for his own desires instead of acting in obedience to them. This is the explanation of nearly all the commentators, though Malone inclines somewhat to the reading of the quartos, "That stands your ordinance," taking stands in the sense of withstands.

"There is a cliff, whose high and bending head Looks fearfully in the confined deep." Shakespeare's Cliff, at Dover, is thus described by a correspondent of the Pictorial edition: -"It stands about a mile west of Dover Pier, and, by a trigonometrical observation taken by myself, is 313 feet above high-water mark. Though, perhaps, somewhat sunken, I consider it of the same shape as it was in the days of our great dramatist: and, though it has been said that the word 'in' means that it overhung the sea, I imagine differently; and that the bays on each side of it, which make it a small promontory, are sufficient to account for the use of the word. You must perceive that the half-way down' must have projected beyond the summit, to enable the samphire-gatherer to procure the plant."

SCENE II.

"Decline your head.”—She bids him decline his head, that she might give him a kiss (the steward being present) and that it might appear only to him as a whisper.-STEVENS.

"My FOOL usurps my BODY"--Such is the wording of the folio, and it affords an obvious meaning, quite consistent with the previous part of the speech. The old quartos present a variety of readings: one copy has My foot usurps my head," another "My fool usurps my bed," a third gives it "My foot usurps my body." The reader will be able to judge for himself which is most probable.

66

"I have been worth the whistle."-This expression is proverbial. Heywood, in one of his dialogues, consisting entirely of proverbs, says :

It is a poor dog that is not worth the whistling. Goneril's meaning seems to be-"There was a time when you would have thought me worth the calling to you; reproaching him for not having summoned her to consult with on the present critical occasion."— STEVENS.

"Cannot be border'd CERTAIN in itself"-The sense is-That nature, which is arrived to such a pitch of unnatural degeneracy as to contemn its origin, cannot from thenceforth be restrained within any certain bounds.-HEATH.

"Thou changed and SELF-COVER'D thing."-Of these lines there is but one copy, and the eidtors are forced upon conjecture. They have published this line thus: Thou changed, and self-converted thing.

But I cannot but think that by self-cover'd the author meant, thou that hast disguised nature by wickedness; thou that hast hid the woman under the fiend.JOHNSON.

"Be-monster not thy FEATURE."-Feature, in Shakespeare's age, meant the general cast of countenance, and often beauty. Bullokar, in his "Expositor," 1616, explains it by the words, "handsomeness, comeliness, beautie."-MALONE.

"Why the king of France is so suddenly gone back.”The King of France being no longer a necessary personage, it was fit that some pretext for getting rid of him should be formed, before the play was too near advanced towards a conclusion. Decency required that a monarch should not be silently shuffled into the pack of insignificant characters; and therefore his dismission (which could be effected only by a sudden recall to his own dominions) was to be accounted for before the audience. For this purpose, among others, the present scene was introduced. It is difficult indeed to say what use could have been made of the king, had he appeared at the head of his own armament, and survived the murder of his queen. His conjugal concern on the occasion, might have weakened the effect of Lear's parental sorrow; and being an object of respect, as well as pity, he would naturally have divided the spectator's attention, and thereby diminished the consequence of Albany, Edgar, and Kent, whose exemplary virtues deserved to be ultimately placed in the most conspicuous point of view.-STEVENS.

"Were like a better WAY."-This is the original reading of the two quartos, where alone this beautiful scene has been preserved; it having been omitted in