have been what I am, had the maidenliest star in the firmament twinkled on my bastardizing.

SCENE XV. Ingratitude in a Child.
(6) Ingratitude! thou marble-hearted fiend,
More hideous, when thcu shew'st thee in a child,
Than the fea-monster.

ACT II. SCENE VI.

Flattering Sycophants. That such a slave as this should wear a sword, Who wears no honesty: (7) such smiling rogues (as thefe,]

Like

(6) Ingratitude &c.] Ingratitude a marble hearted-fiend is more hideous and dreadful, when shewing itself in a child, than even that sea-monster, which is the emblem itself of impiety and ingratitude : by which monster he means the Hippopotamus, or river-horse, which, says Sardys, in his travels, p. 105. fignify'd, Murder, Impudence, Violence and Injustice : for they say, that he killeth his fire, and ravisheth his own dam.” . Mr. Uplon's alteration of, Than ith' fea-monster, seems unnecessary : for the poet makes ingratitude, a fiend, a monster itself, and one more odious than even this hieroglyphical symbol of impiety. See Observations on Shakespear, p. 203.

(7) Such, &c.] The words as these, may be safely omitted without injuring the sense; they are flat and spoil the metre. The next lines are read thus in the old editions ;

Like rats, oft bite the holy cords atwaine,

Which are t intrince t' unloose, Atwaing is doubtless the genuine word, which was commonly used, fignifying, in two, afunder, in twain. And Mr. Upton, observing, that Shakespear sometimes strikes off a Sylla ble or more from the latter part of a word, would preserve intrince in the text, which he explains by intrinsicate. 'Tis certain the author uses intrinsicate, but I don't rememember ever to have met with intrince: See vol. I. p. 169. “ This shortening of words is indeed too much the genius of our language;" and as the reader knows the sense of the word, and what the criticks would read, I have kept to the old editions, notwithstanding the quotation made by

me

Like rats, oft bite the holy cords atwain
Which are too intrince t’unloose; sooth ev'ry passion,
That in the nature of their lords rebels :
Bring oil to fire, snow to their colder moods ;
Renege, affirm, and turn their halcyon beaks
With ev'ry gale and vary of their masters ;
As knowing naught, like dogs, but following.

Plain, blunt Men,
This is some fellow,
Who, having been prais'd for bluntness, doth affect
A saucy roughness; and constrains the garb,
Quite from his nature. He can't flatter, he,
An honest mind and plain, he mult speak truth ;
And they will take it, so; if not, he's plain.
These kind of knaves I know, which in this plainness
Harbour more craft, and more corrupter ends,
Than twenty (8) filly, ducking observants,
That stretch their duties nicely.

3

SCENE VII. Description of Bedlam Beggars,

While I may 'scape,
I will preserve my felf: and am bethought
To take the baseft and the poorest shape,
That ever penury in contempt of man
Brought near to beast: my face I'll grime with filth ;
Blanket

my loins ; elfe all my hair in kno!s ;
And with presented nakedness out-face
T'he winds, and perfecutions of the sky.

me from Mr. Edwards, in the place just referr d too. I forbear quoting any similar passages here : Horace and Juvenal abound with them, and Shakespear himself hath excellenily painted the character in Polonius." See particularly Hamlet, Ad 4. Sc 7.

(8) Sily] Some read filky : filly is not always taken in a bad fcnfe amongft the old writers.

The country gives me proof and president
Of Bedlam beggars, who, with roaring voices,
Strike in their numb’d and mortify'd bare arms,
Pins, wooden pricks, nails, sprigs of rofemary;
And with this horrible object, from low farms,
Poor pelting villages, Theep.coats and mills,
Sometimes with lunatick bans, sometimes with pray'rs,
Inforce their charity.

SCENE X. The faults of Infirmi'y, pardonable.

Fiery? the fiery duke ? tell the hot duke, that
No, but not yet; may be, he is not well;
Infirmity doth still neglect all office,
Whereto our health is bound; we're not ourselves,
When nature, being opprest, commands the mind
To luifer with the body. I'll forbear ;
And am fall’n out with my more headier wille
To take the indispos'd and fickly fit
For the found man.

SCENE XI. UN KINDNES S. Thy sister's naught; oh Regan, she hath tied Sharp-tooth'd unkindness, like a vulture here.

[Points to his beart.

Scene XII. Offences mistaken.
All's not offence that indiscretion (9) finds,
And dotage terms fo.
VOL. II.
G

Rising (9) Finds Finds is an allusion to a jury's verdict : and the word so relates to that as well as to torms. We meet with the very same expression in Hamlet, Act 5. Sc. I.

Why, 'tis found so.
Shakespear uses the word in this sense in other places ;

The coroner bath fat on her, and finds it christian burial. Ib.

Rising Pafron,
I pr’ythee, daughter, do not make me mad,
I will not trouble thee, my child. Farewel ;
We'll no more meet, no more fee one another;
But yet thou art my flesh, my blood, my daughter,
Or rather a disease that's in

my

feth,
Which I must needs call mine ; thou art a bile,
A plague-fore, or imbofled carbuncle,
In my corrupted blood; but I'll not chide thee.
Let shame come when it will, I do not call it;
I do not bid the thunder-bearer shoot,
Nor tell tales of thee to high-judging Jove.

The Neceffaries of Life, few.
(10) O, reafon not the need : our baseft beggars
Are in the poorest things fuperfluous;
Allow not nature more than nature needs,
Man's life is cheap as beasts.

Lear

As

you like it. A. 4. S. 2. Leander was drown'd, and the foolish chrniciers (perhaps corners] of that age found it was---

---Hero of Sestos.'' Edwards.

(10) O reafon, &c. The poets abound with sentiments similar to this : take the two following potages from Lucretius and Lucan.

O wretched man, in what a mift of life,
Inclos'd with dangers, and beset with strife,
He spends his little span, and over-feeds
His cram'd desires with more than nature needs.
For nature wisely Itints our appetite,
And craves no more than' undisturb’d delight.
Which minds unmixt with cares and fears obtain ;
A soul serene, a body void of pain.
So little this corporeal frame requires,
30 bounded are our natural desires,
That wanting all and setting pain aside,
With bare privation sense is fatisfy'd.

See LUCRET. B. 2.

Behold

Lear on the Ingratitude of his Daughters. You fee me here, you gods, a poor

old

man, As full of grief as age; wretched in both! If it be you, that stir these daughters hearts Against their father, fool me not so much To bear it tamely; (11) touch me with noble anger ; O let not womens weapons, water drops, Stain my man's cheeks. No, you unnat'ral hags, I will have such revenges on you both, (12) That all the world shall-. I will do such things;What they are, yet I know not; but they shall be The terrors of the earth : you think, I'll weep :

Behold, ye fons of luxury, behold,
Who scatter in excess your lavish gold;
For whom all earth all ocean are explor'd,
To spread the various proud voluptuous board :
Behold how little thrifty nature craves.

See Lucan, B. 4. Rorve's trann. (11) Touch me, &c.] * If you, ye gods have stirred my daughters hearts against me : at left let me not bear it with any unworthy tameness; but touch me with noble anger ; let me refent it with such resolution as becomes a man. ---And “ let not woman's weapons, water-drops, stain my man's cheeks." See Canons of Crit. p. 78.

(12) Tbat, &c.] See vol. 1. p. 110. This feems to have been imitated from the one or the other of these pallages fol- . lowing :

Haud quid fit scio
Sed grande quiddam eft. Senec. Thyest. A. 2.
What it is I know not ---.
But something terrible it is -

Nefcio quid ferox
Decrevit animus intus, & nondum fibi audet fateri,

Medea,
I know not what, my furious mind
Hath inwardly determin'd, and still dares not
Even to itself reveal.
Magnum eft quodcunque paravi:
Quid fit adbuc dubitó.

Ovid, Met. 6.
'Tis fomething great I've inly meditated.se
What it is, yet I'm doubtful.

No:

G 2