Shining thro' tears like April suns in showers, "That labour to o'ercome the cloud that loads them."

524. "As pearls from diamonds dropp'd-In brief, sorrow."

It should, undoubtedly, as Mr. Steevens has suggested, be " dropping."

526. Gent." No.”.

Kent. "

Was't before the king re

turn'd?"

Gent." No; since."

"A sovereign shame so elbows him."

I am persuaded that "elbows" was never the poets word: if it even possessed a better sense than can here be annexed to it; its not conforming to the metre is an evidence of its corruption. suppose the word was "awes:"

I

"A sovereign shame so awes him, his own unkindness."

"Tis so; they are afoot."

What has "tis so" to do with Kent's question? Some words are wanting:

527.

"'Tis so delivered me; they are a-foot."

Along with me."

This hemistic could easily be removed :

Lending me this acquaintance: pray go with

me."

[Exeunt,

528.

SCENE IV.

"In our sustaining corn.-A century ends forth."

Sustaining," here, perhaps, is enduring, subject to assault or injury, as in the Tempest: "On their sustaining garments, not a blemish, "But fresher than before."

A slight transposition is necessary to the mea

sure:

"In our sustaining corn.-Send forth a century." "Our sustaining corn," &c.

"Our sustaining corn" is the corn which sustains us; the corn which (according to the vulgar expression) is the staff of life.

LORD CHEDWORTH.

"And bring him to our eye.

What can man's wisdom do ?"

More corruption and disorder:

"And bring him to us.-What can wisdom do?"

"There is a means, madam, that we will try."

All bless'd secrets,

"All you unpublish'd virtues of the earth, Spring with my tears!"

i. e. Spring up in consequence of my tears.

Therefore great France."

Further deficiency:

"To heal thy bleeding wrongs; therefore, great France."

529.

And our ag'd father's right."
[Exeunt.

"Soon may I hear and see him"

Is a weak and silly addition of the player's.

SCENE V.

Himself."

The metre has fallen into disorder-I would regulate it thus:

Reg. Stew. "

"Your sister, madam, is the better soldier." Reg. "Lord Edmund spake not with

at home?"

Stew. "No, madam."

your lord

Reg. What, I marvel, might import."
"My sister's letter to him?"
I know not, lady.'
Reg. "The strength and order of the enemy.

Stew. "

"

531. To noble Edmund; come, I know that

Reg. "I speak

Madam! I!"

"In understanding; and you are-I know it."

532. "So, fare you well."

This fragment should be dismissed.

SCENE VI.

533. "Hark! do you hear the sea roar?"

Glo. "

Truly, no."

How fearful

"And dizzy 'tis, to cast one's eyes so low," &c.

Most readers, I believe, will concur with Addison in the general encomium he has pronounced on this speech, and the "poverty of that writer's wit," in the instance quoted by Dr. Johnson, would be almost overlooked, if it had not instigated the learned and acute editor to a false and disingenuous remark-had the Doctor (to use his own words on another occasion) been in quest of truth, he would plainly have perceived the difference between a real object of terror, and a fictitious one. The objection, perhaps, might stand if we could suppose the speaker really impressed with the terrors of the precipice which he is only artfully describing; but, as Edgar has made a plausible representation to deceive his father, the Doctor seems disposed to play a similar trick on his confiding readers.

535.

The deficient sight
Topple down headlong.'

This is hardly a warrantable expression: "the deficient sight," for "the person defective of sight."

536. "

Fairies, and gods,

"Prosper it with thee !"

Fairies are sometimes invoked as auspicious, and sometimes deprecated as malignant.-In Cymbeline, Imogen prays thus:

"From fairies and the tempters of the night,
"Guard me, beseech you.

66

Why I do trifle thus with his despair, "Is done to cure it."

This would be very unskilful writing: the sense and spirit of the drama requires what one

of the quartos authorises, and what Theobald and Dr. Warburton adopted:

Why do I trifle thus with his despair? ""Tis done to cure it."

537. Ho, you sir! friend! what are you?Hear you?-speak!"

538. "But have I fall'n, or no? beseech you

mock not."

Do but look up.”

up! alack! I cannot, I have no eyes."

Enter Lear.

There can be no reason, except corruption, for the first speeches of Lear, in this scene, being prose, when what follows is in measure: but the depravity is too rooted to admit of any attempt to obtain purity.

540. "

66

Gods, who make them honours Of men's impossibilities."

Who acquire glory by performing miracles.

"The safer sense will ne'er accommodate "His master thus."

A man in his right mind would never make such an appearance as this: "the safer sense" is the unimpaired understanding, according to a mode of speech common enough-my better fortune; my better angel; my worser spirit, i. e. my evil genius.

543. "

They flatter'd me like a dog."

As a dog flatters, by fawning: Hotspur uses the same comparison: