SCENE V.

A Room in Gloster's Castle.

Enter CORNWALL and EDMund.

CORN. I will have my revenge, ere I depart his house.

"The Eldridge knighte, he prick'd his steed;

"Syr Cawline bold abode:

"Then either shook his trusty spear,

"And the timber these two children bare

"So soon in sunder slode.”

See in the same volumes the ballads concerning the child of Elle, child Waters, child Maurice, (Vol. III. s. xx.) &c. The same idiom occurs in Spenser's Fairy Queen, where the famous knight sir Tristram is frequently called Child Tristram. See B. V. c. ii. st. 8. 13. B. VI. c. ii. st. 36. ibid. c. viii. st. 15.

PERCY Beaumont and Fletcher, in The Woman's Prize, refer also to

this:

66

a mere hobby-horse

"She made the Child Rowland."

In Have with you to Saffron Walden, or Gabriel Harvey's Hunt is up, 1598, part of these lines repeated by Edgar is quoted: -a pedant, who will find matter inough to dilate a whole daye of the first invention of

"Fy, fa, fum,

"I smell the blood of an Englishman." Both the quartos read:

to the dark town come. STEEVENS.

Child is a common term in our old metrical romances and ballads; and is generally, if not always, applied to the hero or principal personage, who is sometimes a knight, and sometimes a thief. Syr Tryamoure is repeatedly so called both before and after his knighthood. I think, however, that this line is part of a translation of some Spanish, or perhaps French ballad. But the two following lines evidently belong to a different subject: I find them in the Second part of Jack and the Giants, which, if

EDM. How, my lord, I may be censured, that nature thus gives way to loyalty, something fears me to think of.

CORN. I now perceive, it was not altogether your brother's evil disposition made him seek his death; but a provoking merit,' set a-work by a reproveable badness in himself.

EDM. How malicious is my fortune, that I must repent to be just! This is the letter he spoke of, which approves him an intelligent party to the advantages of France. O heavens! that this treason were not, or not I the detector!

CORN. Go with me to the duchess.

EDM. If the matter of this paper be certain, you have mighty business in hand.

CORN. True, or false, it hath made thee earl of Gloster. Seek out where thy father is, that he may be ready for our apprehension.

not as old as Shakspeare's time, may have been compiled from something that was so. They are uttered by a giant:

"Fee, faw, fum,

"I smell the blood of an Englishman ;

"Be he alive, or be he dead,

"I'll grind his bones to make me bread."

English is here judiciously changed to British, because the characters are Britons, and the scene is laid long before the English had any thing to do with this country. Our author is not so attentive to propriety on every occasion. RITSON.

7-but a provoking merit,] Provoking, here means stimu lating; a merit he felt in himself, which irritated him against a father that had none. M. MASON.

Cornwall, I suppose, means the merit of Edmund, which, being noticed by Gloster, provoked or instigated Edgar to seek his father's death. Dr. Warburton conceived that the merit spoken of was that of Edgar. But how is this consistent with the rest of the sentence? MALONE.

8

EDM. [Aside.] If I find him comforting the king, it will stuff his suspicion more fully.-I will persevere in my course of loyalty, though the conflict be sore between that and my blood.

CORN. I will lay trust upon thee; and thou shalt find a dearer father in my love.

[Exeunt.

SCENE VI.

A Chamber in a Farm-House, adjoining the Castle.

Enter GLOSTER, Lear, Kent, Fool, and EDGar.

GLO. Here is better than the open air; take it thankfully: I will piece out the comfort with what addition I can: I will not be long from you.

KENT. All the power of his wits has given way to his impatience:-The gods reward your kindness! [Exit GLOSTER.

EDG. Frateretto calls me; and tells me, Nero is an angler' in the lake of darkness. Pray, innocent,' and beware the foul fiend.

comforting-] He uses the word in the juridical sense for supporting, helping, according to its derivation; salvia confortat nervos.— -Schol. Sal. JOHNSON.

Johnson refines too much on this passage; comforting means merely giving comfort or assistance. So Gloster says, in the beginning of the next scene: "I will piece out the comfort with what addition I can." M. MASON.

9 Frateretto calls me; and tells me, Nero is an angler &c.] See p. 471, n. 1.

Mr. Upton observes that Rabelais, B. II. c. xxx. says that Nero was a fidler in hell, and Trajan an angler.

Nero is introduced in the present play above 800 years before he was born. MALONE.

FOOL. Pr'ythee, nuncle, tell me, whether a madman be a gentleman, or a yeoman?

LEAR. A king, a king!

FOOL.3 No; he's a yeoman, that has a gentleman to his son for he's a mad yeoman, that sees his son a gentleman before him.

LEAR. To have a thousand with red burning

spits

Come hizzing in upon them :

EDG. The foul fiend bites my back.

FOOL. He's mad, that trusts in the tameness of a

The History of Gargantua had appeared in English before 1575, being mentioned in Langham's Letter, printed in that year. RITSON.

1

Pray, innocent,] Perhaps he is here addressing the Fool. Fools were anciently called Innocents. So, in All's well that ends well: " - the Sheriff's Fool-a dumb innocent, that could not say him nay." See Vol. VIII. p. 357, n. 6.

Again, in The Whipper of the Satyre his Pennance in a white Sheete, &c. 1601:

"A gentleman that had a wayward foole,

"To passe the time, would needs at push-pin play;
"And playing false, doth stirre the wav'ring stoole:
"The innocent had spi'd him, and cri'd stay," &c.

STEEVENS.

Fool. Pr'ythee, nuncle, tell me,] And before, in the same Act, sc. iii:-" Cry to it, nuncle." Why does the Fool call the old King, nuncle? But we have the same appellation in The Pilgrim, by Fletcher:

Farewell, nuncle,-" Act IV. sc. i.

And in the next scene, alluding to Shakspeare:

"What mops and mowes it makes."

WHALLEY.

See Mr. Vaillant's very decisive remark on this appellation, p. 358, n. 6. STEEVENS.

Fool.] This speech is omitted in the quartos. STEEVENS. Edg.] This and the next thirteen speeches (which Dr. Johnson had enclosed in crotchets) are only in the quartos.

STEEVENS

wolf, a horse's health,5 a boy's love, or a whore's oath.

LEAR. It shall be done, I will arraign them

straight:

Come, sit thou here, most learned justicer ; 6

[TO EDGAR. Thou, sapient sir, sit here. [To the Fool.]-Now, you she foxes!

EDG. Look, where he stands and glares!— Wantest thou eyes" at trial, madam ?8

— a horse's health,] Without doubt we should read— heels, i. e. to stand behind him. WARBURTON.

Shakspeare is here speaking not of things maliciously treacherous, but of things uncertain and not durable. A horse is above all other animals subject to diseases. JOHNson.

Heels is certainly right.

"Trust not a horse's heel, nor a dog's tooth," is a proverb in Ray's Collection; as ancient at least as the time of our Edward II:

Et ideo Babio in comædiis insinuat, dicens;

"In fide, dente, pede, mulieris, equi, canis, est fraus.

"Hoc sic vulgariter est dici:"

"Till horsis fote thou never traist,

"Till hondis toth, no woman's faith."

Forduni Scotichronicon, L. XIV. c. xxxii. That in the text is probably from the Italian. RITSON.

6

most learned justicer;] The old copies read-justice. The correction was made by Mr. Theobald. MALONE.

7 Wantest &c.] I am not confident that I understand the meaning of this desultory speech. When Edgar says, Look where he stands and glares! he seems to be speaking in the character of a mad man, who thinks he sees the fiend. Wantest thou eyes at trial, madam? is a question which appears to be addressed to the visionary Goneril, or some other abandon'd female, and may signify, Do you want to attract admiration, even while you stand at the bar of justice? Mr. Seward proposes to read, wanton'st instead of wantest. STEEvens.

8

at trial, madam?] It may be observed that Edgar, being supposed to be found by chance, and therefore to have no