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that, when we are sick in fortune, (often the sur

unnatural crimes and follies of these latter ages, fomented its original impiety to the most detestable height of extravagance. Petrus Aponensis, an Italian physician of the 13th century, assures us that those prayers which are made to God when the moon is in conjunction with Jupiter in the Dragon's tail, are infallibly heard. The great Milton, with a just indignation of this impiety, hath, in his Paradise Regained, satirized it in a very beautiful manner, by putting these reveries into the mouth of the devil.* Nor could the licentious Rabelais himself forbear to ridicule this impious dotage, which he does with exquisite address and humour, where, in the fable which he so agreeably tells from Esop, of the man who applied to Jupiter for the loss of his hatchet, he makes those who, on the poor man's good success, had projected to trick Jupiter by the same petition, a kind of astrologick atheists, who ascribed this good fortune, that they imagined they were now all going to partake of, to the influence of some rare conjunction and configuration of the stars." Hen, hen, disent ils-Et doncques, telle est au temps present la revolution des Cieulx, la constellation des Astres, & aspect des Planetes, que quiconque coignée perdra, squbdain deviendra ainsi riche?"- Nou. Prol. du IV. Livre.—But to return to Shakspeare. So blasphemous a delusion, therefore, it became the honesty of our poet to expose. But it was a tender point, and required managing. For this impious juggle had in his time a kind of religious reverence paid to it. It was therefore to be done obliquely; and the circumstances of the scene furnished him with as good an opportunity as he could wish. The persons in the drama are all Pagans, so that as, in compliance to custom, his good characters were not to speak ill of judicial astrology, they could on account of their religion give no reputation to it. But in order to expose it the more, he with great judgment, makes these Pagans fatalists; as appears by these words of Lear:

"By all the operations of the orbs,

"From whom we do exist and cease to be."

For the doctrine of fate is the true foundation of judicial astrology. Having thus discredited it by the very commendations given to it, he was in no danger of having his direct satire against it mistaken, by its being put (as he was obliged, both in paying regard to custom, and in following nature) into the mouth of the villain and atheist, especially when he has added such force of reason to his ridicule, in the words referred to in the beginning, of the note. WARBURTON.

Book IV. v. 383.

feit of our own behaviour,) we make guilty of our disasters, the sun, the moon, and the stars: as if we were villains by necessity; fools, by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and treachers, by spherical predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers, by an enforced obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on: An admirable evasion of whore-master man, to lay his goatish disposition to the charge of a star!5 My father compounded with my mother under the dragon's tail; and my nativity was under ursa major; so that it follows, I am rough and lecherous.-Tut, I should have been that I am, had the maidenliest star in the firmament twinkled on my bastardizing. Edgar—

and treachers,] The modern editors read treacherous; but the reading of the first copies, which I have restored to the text, may be supported from most of the old contemporary writers. So, in Doctor Dodypoll, a comedy, 1600:

"How smooth the cunning treacher look'd upon it!"

Again, in Every Man in his Humour:

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Oh, you treachour!”

Again, in Robert Earl of Huntingdon, 1601:

66

Hence, trecher as thou art."

Again, in The Bloody Banquet, 1639:

"To poison the right use of service-a trecher."

Chaucer, in his Romaunt of the Rose, mentions "the false treacher," and Spenser often uses the same word. STEEVENS.

5 of a star!] Both the quartos read-to the charge of So Chaucer's Wif of Bathe, 6196:

stars.

"I folwed ay min inclination

"By vertue of my constellation."

Bernardus Sylvestris, an eminent philosopher and poet of the twelfth century, very gravely tells us in his Megacosmus, that"In stellis Codri paupertas, copia Croesi,

"Incestus Paridis, Hippolytique pudor." STEEVENS.

Enter EDGAR.

and pat he comes, like the catastrophe of the old comedy: My cue is villainous melancholy, with a sigh like Tom o'Bedlam.-O, these eclipses do portend these divisions! fa, sol, la, mi.8

EDG. How now, brother Edmund? What serious contemplation are you in?

EDM. I am thinking, brother, of a prediction I read this other day, what should follow these eclipses.

pat he comes,] The quartos read

and out he comes.- STEEVENS.

7 he comes, like the catastrophe of the old comedy:] I think this passage was intended to ridicule the very aukward conclusions of our old comedies, where the persons of the scene make their entry inartificially, and just when the poet wants them on the stage. WARNER.

O, these eclipses do portend these divisions! fa, sol, la, mi.] The commentators, not being musicians, have regarded this passage perhaps as unintelligible nonsense, and therefore left it as they found it, without bestowing a single conjecture on its meaning and import. Shakspeare however shows by the context that he was well acquainted with the property of these syllables in solmisation, which imply a series of sounds so unnatural, that ancient musicians prohibited their use. The monkish writers on musick say, mi contra fa est diabolus: the interval fa mi, including a tritonus, or sharp 4th, consisting of three tones without the intervention of a semi-tone, expressed in the modern scale by the letters FG A B, would form a musical phrase extremely disagreeable to the ear. Edmund, speaking of eclipses as portents and prodigies, compares the dislocation of events, the times being out of joint, to the unnatural and offensive sounds, fa sol la mi. DR. BURney.

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The words fa, sol, &c. are not in the quarto. The folio, and all the modern editions, read corruptly me instead of mi. Shakspeare has again introduced the gamut in The Taming of the Shrew, Vol. IX. p. 102. MALONE.

EDG. Do you busy yourself with that?

**

EDM. I promise you," the effects he writes of, succeed unhappily; as of1 unnaturalness between the child and the parent; death, dearth, dissolutions of ancient amities; divisions in state, menaces and maledictions against king and nobles; needless diffidences, banishment of friends, dissipation of cohorts, nuptial breaches, and I know not what. EDG. How long have you3 been a sectary astronomical?

EDM. Come, come; * when saw you my father

last?

EDG. Why, the night gone by.

EDM. Spake you with him?

EDG. Ay, two hours together.

EDM. Parted you in good terms? Found you no displeasure in him, by word, or countenance? EDG. None at all.

9

EDM. Bethink yourself, wherein you may have

I promise you,] The folio edition commonly differs from the first quarto, by augmentations, or insertions, but in this place it varies by omission, and by the omission of something which naturally introduces the following dialogue. It is easy to remark, that in this speech, which ought, I think, to be inserted as it now is in the text, Edmund, with the common craft of fortune-tellers, mingles the past and future, and tells of the future only what he already foreknows by confederacy, or can attain by probable conjecture. JOHNSON.

1

as of-] All from this asterisk to the next, is omitted in the folio. STEEVENS.

2

-

-dissipation of cohorts,] Thus the old copy. Dr. Johnson reads of courts. STEEvens.

How long have you-]

This line I have restored from the two eldest quartos, and have regulated the following speech according to the same copies. STEEVENS.

offended him and at my entreaty, forbear his presence, till some little time hath qualified the heart of his displeasure; which at this instant so rageth in him, that with the mischief of your person it would scarcely allay.

EDG. Some villain hath done me wrong.

EDM. That's my fear.5. I pray you, have a continent forbearance, till the speed of his rage goes slower; and, as I say, retire with me to my lodging, from whence I will fitly bring you to hear my lord speak: Pray you, go; there's my key:-Ïf you do stir abroad, go armed.

EDG. Armed, brother ?*

EDM. Brother, I advise you to the best; go armed; I am no honest man, if there be any good meaning towards 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 serve you in this business.— [Exit EDGAR. A credulous father, and a brother noble, Whose nature is so far from doing harms, That he suspects none; on whose foolish honesty My practices ride easy!-I see the business.Let me, if not by birth, have lands by wit: All with me's meet, that I can fashion fit. [Exit.

that with the mischief of your person-] This reading is in both copies; yet I believe the author gave it, that but with the mischief of your person it would scarce allay. JOHNSON.

I do not see any need of alteration. He could not express the violence of his father's displeasure in stronger terms than by saying it was so great that it would scarcely be appeased by the destruction of his son. MALONE.

5

That's my fear.] All between this and the next asterisk, is omitted in the quartos. STEEVENS.

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