Lear. Read. Glo. What, with the cafe of eyes?? Lear, O, ho, are you there with me? No eyes in your head, nor no money in your purfe? Your eyes are in a heavy cafe, your purfe in a light: Yet you fee how this world goes. Glo. I fee it feelingly. Lear. What, art mad? A man may see how this world goes, with no eyes. Look with thine ears: fee how yon' justice rails upon yon' fimple thief. Hark, in thine ear: Change places; and, handy-dandy*,which is the justice, which is the thief?-Thou haft feen a farmer's dog bark at a beggar? What, with the cafe of eyes ] Mr. Rowe changed the into this, but without neceflity. I have reftored the old reading. The cafe of eyes is the focket of either eye. Statius in his first Thebaid, has a fimiJar expreffion. Speaking of Oedipus he says: "Tunc vacuos orbes crudum ac miferabile vitæ "Supplicium, oftentat cœlo, manibufque cruentis "Inane folum," i. e. vacui oculorum loci, Shakspeare has the expreffion again in the Winter's Tale: "- they feem'd almoft, with staring on one another, to tear the cases of their eyes." STEEVENS. In Pericles, Prince of Tyre, 1609, we have the fame expression: her eyes as jewel-like, "And cas'd as richly." Again, ibidem: "Her eye-lids, cafes to those heavenly jewels "Begin to part their fringes of bright gold." This could not have been the authour's word; for " this case of eyes" in the language of his time fignified-this pair of eyes, a sense directly oppofite to that intended to be conveyed. MALONE. Change places; and, handy-dandy,-] The words change places, and, are not in the quartos. Handy-dandy is, I believe, a play among children, in which fomething is fhaken between two hands, and then a guess is made in which hand it is retained. See Florio's Italian Dict. 1598: "Bazziccbiare. To shake between two hands; to play bandydandy." Coles in his Latin Dict. 1679, renders "to play handydandy," by digitis micare; and he is followed by Ainfworth; but they appear to have been mistaken; as is Dr. Johnfon in his definition in his Dictionary, which seems to have been formed on the paffage before us, misunderstood. He fays, Handy-dandy is " a play in which children change hands and places." MALONE. Glo. Ay, fir. Lear. And the creature run from the cur? There thou might'ft behold the great image of authority: a dog's obey'd in office. Thou rafcal beadle, hold thy bloody hand: Why doft thou lafh that whore? Strip thine own back; Thou hotly luft'ft to use her in that kind For which thou whipp'ft her. The usurer hangs the cozener. Through tatter'd cloaths fmall vices do appear; To fee the things thou doft not.-Now, now, now, now: Edg. O, matter and impertinency mix'd! Reafon in madness! Lear. If thou wilt weep my fortunes, take my eyes. I know thee well enough; thy name is Glofter: Thou must be patient; we came crying hither. Thou know'ft, the first time that we smell the air, We wawl, and cry+:-I will preach to thee; mark me. Robes, and furr'd gowns, bide all.] So, in the Rape of Lucrece: "Hiding bafe fin in pleats of majefty." MALONE. From bide all to accufer's lips, the whole paffage is wanting in the first edition, being added, I fuppofe, at his revifal. JoHNSON. 2 Plate fin-] The old copies read-Place fin. Mr. Pope made the correction. MALONE. 3- I'll able 'em :] An old phrafe fignifying to qualify, or uphold them. So Scogan, contemporary with Chaucer, fays: "Set all my life after thyne ordinaunce, "And able me to mercie or thou deme." WARBURTON. So Chapman, in his comedy of The Widows Tears, 1612: « Admitted! ay, into her heart, and I'll able it." STEEVENS. 4 Thou know'ft, the first time that we smell the air, We waw! and cry:-] 4 "Vagituque locum lugubri complet, ut æquum eft STEEVENS. i Glo. Alack, alack the day! Lear. When we are born, we cry, that we are come To this great ftage of fools;-This a good blocks?It were a delicate ftratagem, to shoe A troop of horse with felt: I'll put it in proof; s-This a good block?] Upon the king's faying, I will preach to thee, the poet feems to have meant him to pull off his bat, and keep turning it and feeling it, in the attitude of one of the preachers of thofe times, (whom I have feen fo reprefented in ancient prints,) till the idea of felt, which the good bat or block was made of, raifes the ftratagem in his brain of fhoeing a troop of horse with a substance soft as that which he held and moulded between his hands. This makes him ftart from his preachment.-Block anciently fignified the bead part of the hat, or the thing on which a bat is formed, and fometimes the hat itfelf. See Much Ado about Nothing: "He weares his faith but as the fashion of his bat; it changes with the next block." Again, in Green's Tu Quoque, 1599: 66 Where did you buy your felt? "Nay, never laugh, for you're in the fame block." Again, in Run and a great Caft, an ancient collection of Epigrams, 4to, without date. Epigram 46. In Sextinum : "A pretty blocke Sextinus names his bat; "So much the fitter for his head by that." STEEVENS. 6 It were a delicate ftratagem, to fhoe A troop of borje with felt:] i. e. with flocks kneaded to a mass, a practice I believe fometimes ufed in former ages, for it is mentioned in Ariofto: fece nel cadar ftrepito quanto "Avefle avuto fotto i piedi il feltro" JOHNSON. This "delicate ftratagem" had actually been put in practice about fifty years before Shakspeare was born, as we learn from Lord Herbert's Life of Henry the Eightb, p. 41. "And now," fays that hiftorian, "having feafted the ladies royally for divers dayes, he [Henry] departed from Tournay to Lifle, [Oct. 13, 1513,] whither he was invited by the lady Margaret, who caufed there a jufte to be held in an extraordinary manner; the place being a fore-room raised high from the ground by many steps, and paved with black square ftones like marble; while the borfes, to prevent fliding, were food with felt or flocks (the Latin words are feltro five tormento): after which the ladies danced all night." MALONE. Shakspeare might have adopted the ftratagem of shoeing a troop' of horfe with felt from the following paffage in Felton's Tragical Difcourfes, 4to. bl. 1. 1567: "he attyreth him felfe for the purpofe in a night-gowne girt to hym, with a paire of fhoes of felt, leaste the noyse of his feete shoulde discover his goinge." p. 58. STEVENS. And TI 4 And when I have ftolen upon these fons-in-law, Enter a Gentleman, with Attendants. Lear. No refcue? What, a prifoner? I am even Gent. You shall have any thing. Why, this would make a man, a man of falt”, Ay, and laying autumn's duft'. Gent. Good fir 2, Lear. I will die bravely, like a bridegroom: What? I will be jovial; come, come; I am a king, My mafters, know you that? "Gent. You are a royal one, and we obey you. 7 Then, kill, kill, &c.] This was formerly the word given in the English army, when an onfet was made on the enemy. So, in Venus and Adonis: "Gives falfe alarms, fuggefteth mutiny, "And in a peaceful hour doth cry, kill, kill." Again, in The Mirrour for Magiftrates, 1610, p. 315: "For while the Frenchmen fresh affaulted still, "Our Englishmen came boldly forth at night, "Crying, Saint George, Salisbury, kill, kill, "And offer'd freshly with their foes to fight." MALONE. 8 The natural fool of fortune.] So, in Romeo and Juliet: "O, I am fortune's fool! STEEVENS. 9-a man of falt,] A man of falt is a man of tears. In All's Well that ends Well, we meet with your fait tears' head;" and in Trai lus and Creffida, "the falt of broken tears." Again, in Coriolanus e ́ "He has betray'd your bufinefs, and given up, "For certain drops of falt, your city Rome." MALONE. ▾ Ay, and laying autumn's duft.] These words are not in the folio. MALONE. 2 Gent. Good fir,-] Thefe words I have reftored from one of the quartos. In the other, they are omitted. The folio reads: — a smug bridegroom➡ STEEVENS. Lear. J Lear. Then there's life in it". Nay, an you get it, you shall get it by running. Sa, fa, fa, fa. [Exit, running; Attendants follow. Gent. A fight moft pitiful in the meanest wretch; Edg. Hail, gentle fir. Gent. Sir, fpeed you: What's your will? you hear aught, fir, of a battle toward? Gent. Moft fure, and vulgar: every one hears that, Which can diftinguish found. Edg. But, by your favour, How near's the other army? Gent. Near, and on speedy foot; the main defcry Stands on the hourly thought 3. Edg. I thank you, fir: that's all. Gent. Though that the queen on special caufe is here, Her army is mov'd on. Edg. I thank you, fir. [Exit Gent, Glo. You ever-gentle gods, take my breath from me; Let not my worfer fpirit tempt me again To die before you please! Edg. Well pray you, father. Glo. Now, good fir, what are you? Edg. A moft poor man, made lame by fortune's blows *; Who, by the art of known and feeling forrows", Am pregnant to good pity. Give me your hand, 2 Then there's life in it.] The cafe is not yet defperate. JOHNSON. 3- the main defcry Stands on the bourly thought.] The main body is expected to be defcry'd every hour. The expreffion is harfh. JOHNSON. 4-made lame by fortune's blows;] Thus the quartos. The folio has-made tame to fortune's blows. I believe the original is here, as in many other places, the true reading. So, in our poet's 37th Sonnet : "So I, made lame by fortune's dearest fpight,." MALONE. 5 Who, by the art of known and feeling forrows, &c.] i. e. Sorrows paft and prefent. WARBURTON. Haud ignara mali, miferis fuccurrere difco. Virg. I doubt whether feeling is not used, with our poet's ufual licence, for felt. Sorrows known, not by relation, but by experience. MALONE. I'll |