More compofition and fierce quality; To him Enter GLO'STER.. Glo. Kent banished thus! and France in choler parted! And the King gone to-night! fubfcribed his power! Confined to exhibition! all is gone Upon the gad!--Edmund, how now? what news? Edm. So pleafe your Lordthip, none. [Putting up the letter. religious reverence paid it at that time; and Shakespeare makes his best characters in this very play own and acknowledge the force of the ftars' influence." The Poet, in fort, gives an atheistical turn to all his fentiments; and how much the lines following this are in this character, may be seen by that strange monstrous with, which Vanini, the infamous Neapolitan atheift, made in his tract De Admirandis Natura; printed at Paris in 1616, the very year that our Author died "O! utinam extra legitimam et con-«nubialem thorum effem procreatus! Ita enim progenitores mei in venerem incaluiffent ardentius, ac cumulatim affatimque generofa "( Semina contuliffent; a quibus ego forma blanditiam et elegantiam, robuftas corporis vires, mentemque innubilam confequ&tus fuiffem. "At quia conjugatorum fum foboles, his orbatus fum bonis."Now had this book been publified ten years before, who would not have fworn that Shakespeare hinted at this paffage? But the divinity of his genius here, as it were, fore told what fuch an atheift, as Vanini was, would fay when › he wrote upon this fubject. Mr. Warburton. Glo. Why fo earneftly feek you to put up that Edm. I know no news, my Lord. Glo. What paper were you reading? Edm. Nothing, my Lord. [letter? Glo. No! what needed then that terrible dif patch of it into your pocket? the quality of nothing hath not fuch need to hide itfelf. Let's fee; come, if it be nothing, I fhall not need spectacles. Edm. I befeech you, Sir, pardon me, it is a letter from my brother, that I have not all o'er-read; and for fo much as I have perused, I find it not fit for your o'erlooking. Glo. Give me the letter, Sir. .Edm. I fhall offend, either to detain or give it; the contents, as in part I understand them, are to blame. Glo. Let's fee, let's fee. 6.6 Edm. I hope, for my brother's juftification, he wrote this but as an effay or taste of my virtue. - Glo. reads.] This policy and reverence of age "makes the world bitter to the best of our times; keeps our fortunes from us, 'till our oldness cannot relish them. I begin to find an idle and fond bondage in the oppreffion of aged tyranny; which "fways not as it hath power, but as it is fuffered. "Come to me, that of this I may fpeak more. If our father would fleep till I waked him, you fhould enjoy half his revenue for ever, and live "the beloved of your brother EDGAR." Hum !---Confpiracy !---fleep 'till I wake him---you fhould enjoy half his revenue---my fon Edgar! had he a hand to write this! à heart and brain to breed it in ! When came this to you? who brought it ? Edm. It was not brought me, my Lord; there's the cunning of it. I found it thrown in at the cafement of my closet. Glo. You know the character to be your brother's? Edm. If the matter were good, my Lord, I durft fwear it were his; but in respect of that, I would fain think it were not. Glo. It is his. Edm. It is his hand, my Lord: I hope his heart is not in the contents. Glo. Has he never before founded you in this bufinefs? Edm. Never, my Lord. But I have heard him oft maintain it to be fit, that fons at perfect age, and fathers declining, the father fhould be as a ward to the fon, and his fon manage his revenue. Glo. O villain, villain! his very opinion in the letter. Abhorred villain! unnatural, detefted, brutish villain! worse than brutish! Go, Sirrah, feek him; I'll apprehend him. Abominable villain! where is he? Edm. I do not well know, my Lord; if it fhall. please you to fufpend your indignation against my: brother, 'till you can derive from him better teflimony of his intent, you fhould run a certain courfe;. where, if you violently proceed against him, miftaking his purpose, it would make a great gap in: your own honour, and fhake in pieces the heart of his obedience. I dare pawn down my life for himthat he hath writ this to feel my affection to your Honour, and to no other pretence of danger. Glo. Think you fo? Edm. If your Honour judge it meet, I will place you where you fhall hear us confer of this, and by an auricular affùrance have your fatisfaction: and that, without any further delay than this very evening. Glo. He cannot be fuch a monster. Glo. To his father, that fo tenderly and entirely loves him--Heaven and Earth! Edmund, feek him out; wind me into him, I pray you; frame the business after your own wifdom. I would unftate myself, to be in a due resolution. Edm. I will feek him, Sir, presently; convey the bufinefs as I fhall find means, and acquaint you withal. Glo. Thefe late eclipfes in the fun and moon portend no good to us; though the wisdom of Nature çin reafon it thus and thus, yet Nature finds itself icourged by the fequent effects. Love cools, friendfhip falls off, brothers divide. In cities, mutinies; in countries, difcord; in palaces, treafon; and the bond cracked 'twixt fon and father. This villain of mine comes under the prediction, there's fon against father; the King falls from bias of nature, there's father against child. We have seen the best of our time. Machinations, hollownefs, treachery, and all ruinous diforders follow us difquietly to our graves! Find out this villain, Edmund; it thall lofe thee nothing, do it carefully--And the noble and true-hearted Kent banished! his offence, honesty. "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 difafters, the fun, the moon and stars (7); as if we (7) We make guilty of our differs, the fun, the moon, and ftars;] It was the opinion of judicial aftrologers, that what foever good difpofitions the infant, unborn, might be endowed with, either from nature or traductively from its parents; yet if, at the hour of birth, its delivery was by any cafual were villains on neceffity; fools by heavenly compulfion; knaves, thieves, and treacherous, by ipherical predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers, by an inforced obedience of a planetary influence; and all that we are evil in by a divine thrusting on. An admirable evafion of whore-mafter man, to lay his goatifh difpofition on the charge of a star! 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 baftardizing. To him Enter EDGAR. Pat he comes, like the catastrophe of the old comedy; my cue is villainous melancholy, with a figh like Tom o' Bedlam--O, thefe eclipfes portend thefe divifions! fa, fol, la, mi----- 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 should follow these eclipfes. Edg. Do you bufy yourself 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. accident fo accelerated, or retarded, that it fell in with the predominancy of a malignant conftellation; that momentary influence would entirely change its nature, and bias it to all the contrary all qualities.- This was fo wretched and mouftrous an opinion, that it well deferved and was well fitted for the lath of fatire. Mr Warburton. |
