make a great gap in your own honour, and fhake in pieces the heart of his obedience. I dare pawn down my life for him, that he hath writ this to feel my affection to your Honour, and to no other pretence of danger.

Glo. Think you so?

Edm. If your Honour judge it meet, I will place you where you shall hear us confer of this, and by an auricular affurance have your fatisfaction: and that, without any further delay than this very evening.

Glo. He cannot be fuch a monster.

Edm. Nor is not, fure.

Glo. To his Father, that fo tenderly and entirely loves him Heav'n and Earth! Edmund, feek him out; wind me into him, I pray you; frame the business after your own wisdom. I would unftate my felf, to be in a due refolution.

Edm. I will feek him, Sir, presently convey the bufinefs as I fhall find means, and acquaint you withal.

Glo. These late eclipfes in the fun and moon portend no good to us; tho' the wisdom of nature can reafon it thus and thus, yet nature finds it felf fcourg'd by the fequent effects. Love cools, friendship falls off, brothers divide. In cities, mutinies; in countries, difcord; in Palaces, treafon; and the bond crack'd 'twixt fon and father. This villain of mine comes under the prediction, there's fon against father; the King falls from biafs of nature, there's father against child. We have seen the best of our time. Machinations, hollowness, trea chery, and all ruinous diforders follow us difquietly to our graves! Find out this villain, Edmund; it fhall lofe thee nothing, do it carefully and the noble and true-hearted Kent banish'd! his offence, Honefty. 'Tis ftrange. [Exit.

Manet Edmund.

Edm. This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are fick in fortune, (often the furfeits of our own behaviour) we make guilty of our disasters, the fun, the moon and ftars; as if we were villains on neceffity;

fools,

a

fools, by heavenly compulfion; knaves, thieves, and treacherous, by fpherical predominance; drunkards, lyars, and adulterers, by an inforc'd obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by à divine thrusting on. An admirable evafion of whore-mafter Man, to lay his goatifh difpofition on the charge of a far my father compounded with my mother under the Dragon's tail, and my nativity was under Urfa major; fo that it follows, I am rough and lecherous. I fhould have been what I am, had the maidenlieft ftar in the firmament twinkled on my bastardizing.

Pat!

he comes, like the Catastrophe of the old comedy; my cue is villainous Melancholy, with a figh like Tom o' Bedlam O, these eclipses portend these divifions! fa, fol, la, me

Edg. How now, brother Edmund, what ferious contemplation are you in?

Edm. I am thinking, brother, of a prediction I read this other day, what fhould follow thefe eclipfes. Edg. Do you bufie your felf with that?

Edm. I promife you, the effects, he writes of, fucceed unhappily. When faw you my father last? Edg. The night gone by.

Edm. Spake you with him?

Edg. Ay, two hours together.

Edm. Parted you in good terms, found you no difpleasure in him, by word or countenance? Edg. None at all.

Edm. Bethink your felf, wherein you have offended him and, at my intreaty, forbear his prefence, until fome little time hath qualified the heat of his difpleafure; which at this inftant fo rageth in him, that with the mifchief of your perfon it would scarcely allay.

Edg. Some villain hath done me wrong.

:

Edm. That's my fear; I pray you, have a continent forbearance 'till the fpeed of his rage goes flower and, as I fay, retire with me to my lodging, from whence I will fitly bring you to hear my lord fpeak: pray

you,

you, go, there's my key: if you do ftir abroad, go arm'd.

Edg. Arm'd, brother!

Edm. Brother, I advise you to the best; I am no honeft man, if there be any good meaning toward 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 ferve you in this business:
A credulous father, and a brother noble,
Whose nature is fo far from doing harms,
That he fufpects none; on whofe foolish honefty
My practices ride eafie: I fee the bufinefs.
Let me, if not by birth, have lands by wit;
All with me's meet, that I can fashion fit.

Gon.

[Exit.

[Exit.

SCENE, the Duke of Albany's Palace.
Enter Gonerill and Steward.

D

ID my father strike my gentleman for chiding of his fool?

Stew. Ay, madam.

Gon. By day and night, he wrongs me; every hour He flashes into one grofs crime or other,

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

His Knights grow riotous, and himself upbraids us
On ev'ry trifle. When he returns from hunting,
I will not fpeak with him; fay, I am fick.
If you come flack of former services,

You fhall do well; the fault of it I'll anfwer.
Stew. He's coming, Madam, I hear him.
Gon. Put on what weary negligence you please,
You and your fellows: I'd have it come to question.
If he diftafte it, let him to my fifter,

Whose mind and mine, I know, in that are one,
Not to be over-rul'd: Idle old Man, (4)

That

(4) Idle old Man,] The following Lines, as they are fine in themselves, and very much in Character for Gonerill, I have re

ftor'd

That ftill would manage thofe Authorities,

That he hath giv'n away! Now, by my Life,
Old Fools are Babes again; and must be used

With Checks, like Flatt'rers when they're feen t'abufe us.

Remember, what I have faid.

Stev. Very well, Madam.

Gon. And let his Knights have colder looks among you what grows of it, no matter; advise your fellows fo: I'll write ftrait to my fifter to hold my course : pare for dinner.

: pre

[Exeunt.

SCENE changes to an open Place before the

Kent.

Palace.

Enter Kent difquis'd.

F but as well I other accents borrow,

I'

And can my fpeech diffufe, my good intent May carry thro' it felf to that full iffue,

For which I raz'd my likeness. Now, banish'd Kent,
If thou can'ft ferve where thou doft stand condemn'd,
So may it come, thy mafter, whom thou lov❜st,
Shall find thee full of labours.

Horns within. Enter Lear, Knights and Attendants.

Lear. Let me not stay a jot for dinner, go, get it ready : what art thou? [To Kent.

How now,
Kent. A man, Sir.

Lear. What doft thou profefs? what would't thou with us?

Kent. I do profefs to be no less than I feem; to ferve him truly, that will put me in truft; to love him that is honeft; to converfe with him that is wife and says little; to fear judgment; to fight when I cannot chufe, and to eat no fish.

Lear. What art thou?

ftor'd from the Old 4to. The laft Verse, which I have ventur'd to amend, is there printed thus:

With Checks, like Flatt'ries when they are seen abus'd.

Kent.

Kent. A very honest-hearted fellow, and as poor as the King.

Lear. If thou beeft as poor for a fubject, as he is for a King, thou art poor enough. What would't thou?

Kent. Service.

Lear. Whom would't thou ferve?

Kent. You.

Lear. Doft thou know me, fellow?

Kent. No, Sir, but you have that in your countenance, which I would fain call Master.

Lear. What's that?

Kent. Authority.

Lear. What fervices canft thou do?

Kent. I can keep honeft counfels, ride, run, marr a curious tale in telling it, and deliver a plain meffage bluntly that which ordinary men are fit for, I am qualify'd in and the best of me is diligence.

:

Lear. How old art thou?

Kent. Not fo young, Sir, to love a woman for finging; nor fo old, to doat on her for any thing. I have years on my back forty eight.

Lear. Follow me, thou fhalt ferve me; if I like thee no worse after dinner, I will not part from thee yet. Dinner, ho, dinner where's my knave? my fool? go you, and call my fool hither. You, you, firrah, where's my daughter?

Enter Steward.

Stew. So please you

[Exit.

Lear. What fays the fellow there? call the clotpole back where's my fool, ho?

I think, the world's

afleep how now? where's that mungrel ?

Knight. He fays, my lord, your daughter is not well. Lear. Why came not the flave back to me when I call'd him!

Knight. Sir, he answer'd me in the roundest manner, he would not.

Lear. He would not?

Knight. My lord, I know not what the matter is ; but, to my Judgment, your Highness is not entertain'd with

that