Lear. Who ftockt my fervant? Regan, I've good hope, Thou didst not know on't.Who comes here? O Heav'ns, SCENE Enter Gonerill. XII, If you do love old men, if your sweet fway Allow obedience, if yourselves are old, Make it your caufe, fend down, and take my part. Art not afham'd to look upon this beard? [To Gon, O Regan, will you take her by the hand? Gon. Why not by th' hand, Sir? How have Į offended? All's not offence, that indifcretion finds, And dotage terms fo. Lear. Ŏ fides, you are too tough! Will you yet hold?-How came my man j'th' Stocks? Corn. I fet him there, Sir; but his own diforders if If you do love old men, your Sweet fway ALLOW obedience, if your felves are old,] Could it be a queftion whether heaven allowed obedience? The poet wrote, HALLOW obedience.ie. if paternal government here be fo much the image of the mild government of heaven, that it fanctifies the obedience due to parents, and efteems the violators of it impious, make it your caufe. He adds, if your Telves are old. This perhaps may appear low and ridiculous to the unlearned reader; but we äre to confider this pagan King Lear. as alluding to the ancient heathen Theology, which teaches that Calus, or Ouranus, or Hea ven, was depofed by his fen Saturn, who rebelled and rofe in arms against him. His cafe then being the fame with Lear's, he was the fittest to be addreffed to on this occafion. WARB. Mr. Upton has proved by irrefiftible authority, that to alloc fignifies not only to permit but to approve, and has defervedly replaced the old reading. 2 - much less advancement.] The word advancement is ironi cally ufed here for confpicucufrefs of punishment; as we now fay, a Lear. You? did you? Reg. 3 I pray you, Father, being weak, feem fo. 4 To wage, against the enmity o'th air, a man is advanced to the pillory. -but his own diforders Dejerv'd much more advance ment. 3 I pray you, Father, being weak, SEEM fo.] This is a very odd requeft. She furely afked fomething more reasonable. We fhould read, -being weak, DEEM'T fo. i.. believe that my husband tells you true, that Kent's diforders deferved a more ignominious punishment. WARBURTON, The meaning is, fince you are weak, be content to think your felf weak. No change is needed. + No, ra ber I abjure all roofs, and chufe To wage against the enmity ẻ tỏ ar; To be a comrade with the wolf and orvi, Necefity's fharp pinch!] Thus fhould thefe lines (in the order they were read, in all the editions till Mr. Theobald's) be pointed. The want of which pointing contributed, perhaps, to mislead him in tranfpofing the fecond and third lines, on which imaginary regulation he thus F Why, the hot blooded France, that dow'rless took Lear. 1 pr'ythee, daughter, do not make me mad; Which I must needs call mine; thou art a bile, In my corrupted blood. But I'll not chide thee. my Reg. Not altogether fo; I look'd not for you yet, nor am provided Lear. Is this well spoken? Reg. I dare avouch it, Sir. What fifty followers? Is it not well? What fhould you need of more? Yea, or fo many, fince both charge and danger Speak 'gainft fo great a number? How in one houfe Should many people under two commands Hold amity? 'Tis hard, almoft impoffible. Gon. Why might not you, my Lord, receive attendance From thofe that the calls fervants, or from mine? t-imbofed carbuncle,] Imbeed is fuelling, protuberant. -bafe life] That is, in a fer vile fate. Reg. Reg. Why not, my Lord? if then they chanc'd to flack ye, We could controul them. If you'll come to me, To bring but five and twenty; to no more Lear. I gave you all Reg. And in good time you gave it. Lear. Made you my guardians, my depofitaries; But kept a refervation to be follow'd With fuch a number; muft I come to you Reg. And speak't again, my Lord, no more with me. 5 favour'd, When 5 Thofe WICKED creatures yet Lear confiders the unnatural bedo lock well-favour'd, When others are more WICKED.] As a little before, in the text [like flatterers] the editors had made a fimilitude where the author intended none; fo here, where he did, they are not in the humour to give it us, becaufe not introduced with the formulary word, like. Lear's fecond daughter proving ftill more unkind than the firft, he begins to entertain a better opinion of this from the other's greater degree of inhumanity; and expreffes it by a fimilitude taken from the deformities which old age brings on. Thofe WRINKLED creatures yet LED: For fo, inftead of wicked, it fhould be read in both places: which correction the word wellfavour'd might have led to. haviour of his daughters under this idea, both in and out of his fenfes. So again, fpeaking of them, in his distraction, he fays, And here's another whofe WARPT looks proclaim what fiore her heart is made of. Shakespear has the character of a very incorrect writer, and fo, indeed, he is. But this character being received, as well as given, in the lump, has made him thought an unft fubject for critical conjecture: which perhaps may be true, with regard to thofe who know no more of his genius than a general character of it conveys to them. But we fhould diftinguish. Incorrectness of ftile may be divided into two parts: an inconfiftency of the terms employed with one another; and an incongruity in the conftruction of them. In the firit cafe he is rarely faulty; in the fecond, negligent enough. And this could hardly When others are more wicked. Not being worst, [To Gonerill. Thy fifty yet doth double five and twenty ; hardly be otherwife. For his ideas being the cleareft, and his penetration in difcovering their agreement, difagreement, and relation to each other, the deepeft that ever was in any Poet, his terms of courfe muft be well put together: Nothing occafioning the jumbling of difcordant terms, from broken metaphors, but the cloudiness of the underfanding, and the confequent obfcurity of the ideas: Terms being nothing but the painting of ideas, which he, who fees clearly, will never employ in a difcordant colouring. On the contrary, a congruity in the confruction of thefe terms (which answers to drawing, as the ufe of the term does to colouring) is another thing. And Shake Jpear, who owed all to nature, and was hurried on by a warm attention to his ideas, was much lefs exact in the conftruction and grammatical arrangement of his words. The conclufion is, that where we find grofs inaccuracies, in the relation of terms to one another, there we may be confident, the text has been corrupted by his editors: and, on the contrary, that the offences againft fyntax are generally his own. Had the Oxford Editor attended to this distinction, he would not perhaps have made it the principal object in his reflored 3 Shakespear, to make his author always fpeak in ftrict grammar and meafure. But it is much easier to reform fuch flips as never obfcure the fenfe, and are fet right by a grammar rule or a finger-end, than to reduce a depraved expreffion, which makes nonfenfe of a whole fentence, and whofe reformation requires you to enter into the author's way of thinking. WARBURTON. because the editor feems to think I have given this long note, his correction of great impor tance. I was unwilling to deof conviction which I have had ny my reader any opportunity myself, and which perhaps may operate upon him, though it has been ineffectual to me, who, oftentatious remark, ftill think having read this elaborate and the old reading beft. The comlines as they now ftand, is the mentator's only objection to the difcrepancy of the metaphor, the want of oppofition betweenwicked and well-favoured. But he might his own preface concerning mixed have remembered what he says in modes. Shakespeare, whofe mind than words, had in his thoughts was more intent upon notions the deformity of wickedness; the pulchritude of virtue, and and though he had mentioned wickedness made the correlative anfwer to deformity. Gon. |