Old Man. How now? who's there? Edg. O gods! who is't can fay, I'm at the worft? I'm worse, than e'er I was. Old Man. 'Tis poor mad Tom. Edg. And worfe I may be yet: the worst is not, Glo. Is it a beggar-man? Old Man. Madman, and beggar too. Glo. He has fome reason, else he could not beg. Was then scarce friends with him. I've heard more fince Edg. How fhould this be? Bad is the trade muft play the fool to forrow, "Old Man. Ay, my Lord. Glo. Get thee away: if, for my fake, Thou wilt o'ertake us hence a mile or twain Old Man. Alack, Sir, he is mad. [blind: Glo. 'Tis the time's plague, when madmen lead the Do as I bid, or rather do thy pleasure ; Above the reft, be gone. Old Man. I'll bring him the best 'parrel that I have, Come on't, what will. Glo. Sirrah, naked fellow. [Exit. His remark is upon this paffage in the Seven Captains before Thebes z Κτύπον δέδορκα, Πάταγόν τ' ἐχ ἑνὸς δορός. Alack! I fee the found, the dreadful crajh, Not of a fingle fpear. The late learned Dr. Gataker, in his treatife upon the flyle of the New Teftament, has amafs'd examples of this figure in holy writ, as well as from heathen writers, both Greek and Latin. D 4 Edg. Edg. Poor Tom's a-cold;—I cannot daub it further. Glo. Come hither, fellow. Edg. And yet I must; Blefs thy fweet eyes, they bleed. Gle. Know't thou the way to Dover? Edg. Both file and gate, horfe-way and foot-path: poor Tom hath been fcar'd out of his good wits. Blefs thee, good man, from the foul fiend. (39) Five fiends have been in poor Tom at once; of luft, as Obidicut; Hobbididen, prince of dumbness; Mahu, of ftealing; Mobu, of murder; and Flibbertigibbet, of mopping and mowing; who fince poffeffes chamber-maids and waiting-women. [plagues Glo. Here, take this purfe, thou whom the heavens That flaves your ordinance, that will not fee And each man have enough. Do'st thou know Dover? Glo. There is a cliff, whofe high and bending head Looks fearfully on the confined deep : Bring me but to the very brim of it, And I'll repair the mifery, thou do'st bear, With fomething rich about me: from that place Edg. Give me thy arm; Poor Tom fhall lead thee. [Exeunt (39) Five fiends have been in poor Tom at once;] This paffage Mr. Pope first reftor'd from the old 4to; but miferably mangled, as it is there. I have fet it right, as it came from our author, by the help of bishop Harfenet's pamphlet, already quoted. We find there, all thefe devils were in Sarab and Frifwood Williams, Mis. Peckham's two chamber-maids; and particularly Flibbertigibbet, who made them mop and mow like apes, fays that author. And to their fuppos'd possession, our poet is here fatirically alluding. SCENE SCENE, the Duke of Albany's Palace. Gon. Enter Gonerill, and Edmund.. Elcome, my Lord. I marvel, our mild hufband W Enter Steward. Now, where's your master? Stew. Madam, within; but never man fo chang'd: When I inform'd him, then he call'd me fot; GOR. Then fhall you go no further. It is the cowith terror of his fpirit, That dares not undertake: he'll not feel wrongs, I must change arms at home, and give the distaff A miftrefs's command. Wear this; fpare fpeech; Conceive, and fare thee well. Edm. Yours in the ranks of death. Gon. My moft dear Glo'fter! [Exit Edmund Oh, the strange difference of man, and man! To thee a woman's fervices are due, My fool ufurps my body. Stew. Madam, here comes my Lord. DS Enter Albany. Gon. I have been worth the whistlé. Alb. Oh Gonerill, You are not worth the duft, which the rude winds She that herfelf will fliver, and difbranch, (40) Gon (40) She that berfelf will fhiver, and disbranch,] Shiver, in thist place fhould bear the fenfe of dibranch; whereas it means, to shake; to fly a-pieces into fplinters; in which fenfe he afterwards ufes the word in this act; Thou'd't fiver'd like an egg; So that we may be affured, he would not have ufed the word in fo contrary and false a fenfe here; especially, when there is a proper word to exprefs the fenfe of disbranching, fo near this in found, and which he ufes in other places, and that is, liver: which, without doubt, is the true reading here. So in Macbeth; and flips of yew, Sliver'd in the moon's eclipfe; And again, in Hamlet; There on the pendant boughs, her coronet weeds Mr. Warburton. The old 4to reads fliver. But I owed this note to my friend's fagacity, who never once faw that copy. On the other hand, what an inftance is it of Mr. Pope's inaccuracy in collation, who fitft added this paffage from the old Quarto? (41) From ber material fap,]. Thus the old 4to; but material Jap, I own, is a phrafe that I don't underftand. The mother-tree is the true technical term; and confidering, our author has faid but just above, That nature, which contemns its origine, there is little room to queftion but he wrote,----From her maternal fap. And fo our beft claffical writers. Hic plantas tenero abfcindens de corpore matrum; Virg And again, Cum femel in fylvis ima da ftirpe recifum Matre caret, And Valerius Flaccus; Quæ neque jam frondes, virides neque proferet umbras, And Gon. No more; 'tis foolish. Alb. Wisdom and goodness to the vile feem vile; Moft barb'rous, moft degenerate, have you madded. If that the heav'ns do not their visible spirits Gon. Milk-liver'd man! That bear'st a cheek for blows, a head for wrongs; Who haft not in thy brows an eye difcerning Thine honour, from thy fuffering: that not know'ft, (42) Ere they have done their mischief. Where's thy drum? Alb. See thyfelf, devil: Proper deformity feems not in the fiend So horrid as in woman. Gon. O vain fool! Alb. Thou chang'd, and self-converted thing! For fhame, (43) And Seneca in his Trojan Captives, Que tenera cælo virga de trunco ftetit, Par ipfa matri--- And more inftances I might have produced from Rutgerfius, in his Varia Lection. 1. 4. c. 16. (42) that not know' ft, Fools do thefe villains pity,] This I have retriev'd from the first Quarto. It seems firft to have been retrench'd by the players, for brevity's fake: but, befides that the lines are fine, they admirably difplay the taunting, termagant difpofition of Gonerill, and paint out her contempt of her husband's mild pacifick fpirit. (43) Thou chang'd, and self-converted thing!] This reply of Albany to his imperious wife was likewife retreach'd; but ought not for the future to be loft to our author." Be |