Allow not nature more than nature needs,
Man's life is cheap as beasts.

Lear on the Ingratitude of his Daughters. You see 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 fhallI will do such things;What they are, yet I know not; but they fall be

The

That wanting all, and setting pain aside,
With bare privation sense is satisfy'd.

See LUCRET, B. 2.

Behold, ye sons 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. Rowe'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 támeness; but touch me with noble anger ; let me reSent 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) That, &c.] This seems to have been imitated from the ene or the other of these passages following:

Haud quid fit scio,
Sed grande quiddam eft.

Senec. Thyeste A. 2.
What it is I know not
But something terrible it is-

-Nefcio

The terrors of the earth; you think, I'll weep:
No, I'll not weep. (13) Í have full cause of weeping:
This heart shall break into a thousand flaws,
Or ere I weep. O fool, I shall go mad.

Scene XIII. Wilful Men.

O, fir, to wilful men,
The injuries, that they themselves procure,
Must be their schoolmasters.

Description of Lear's Distress amidst the Storm. Kent. Where's the king ?

Gent. Contending with the fretful elements; Bids the wind blow the earth into the sea ; Or fwell the curled waters 'bove the main, That things might change, or ceafe: tears his white

hair, (Which the impetuous blasts, with eyeless rage, Catch in their fury ;) Strives in his little world of man t'out-scorn The to-and-fro conflicting wind and rain.

This

-Nefcio quid ferox
Decrevit animus intus, et nondum fibi audet fateri. Medea.
I know not what my furious mind
Hath inwardły determin’d, and fill darès not
Even to itself reveal.
Magnum eft quodcunque paravi:
Quid fit adhuc dubita.

Ovid. Met. 6. 'Tis something great I've inly meditated

What it is, yet I'm doubtful. (13) I have, &c:] Perhaps this should be, Tho' I've full cause. This night, wherein the (14) cub-drawn bear would

couch,
The lion, and the belly-pinched wolf
Keep their furr dry ; unbonneted he runs,
And bids what will take all.

Scene II. Lear's pasionate Exclamations amidî

the Tempeft. Blow-winds, and crack your cheeks ! rage! blow! You cataracts, and hurricanoes, spout 'Till you have drencht our steeples, drown'd the cocks ! You Tulph'rous and thought-executing fires, (15) Vaunt-couriers of oak-cleaving thunderbolts, Singe my white head. And thou, all shaking thunder, Strike flat the thick rotundity o'th' world; Crack nature's mould, all (16) germins spill at once That make ingrateful man. Rumble thy belly-full, fpit fire, spout rain ; Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire, are my daughters;

I tax

(14) Gub-drawn.] i. e. Drawn dry by its cubs, and therefore the more ready to go out in search of prey; he speaks of a lioness with udders all droun dry, in the play of As you like it.

(15) Varmt-couriers, &c.]. Nothing can be plainer than this pailage, which it is surprising Mr. Warburton should so much mistake, as to imagine this line the players spurious i[re, on account of any contradiction in it; the Reader may see his note, and Mr. Editards?s comment upon it, in the Canons of Criticism, p. 33. In the mean time we may be contented with this clear sensemYou fires and lightnings, fore-runners of the thunder, singe me, &c.- -You thunder, strike flat the thick rotundity of the world.”

(16) Germins] Vulg. Germains--This reading is Mr. Theotald's. The word is derived from germen, otopa, seed, the sense is, “ Crack nature's mould, and spill all the feces of mata ter, that are hoarded within it.” In the Winter's Tale he says; Let na

re crush the sides of th' earth together,
And mar the seeds within."-See Macbeth, A.4. S. 2.

I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness;
I never gave you kingdom, call'd you children;
You owe me no subscription, Then let fall
Your horrible pleasure;-here I stand your slave;
A poor, infirm, weak, and despis’d old man !
But yet I call you fervile ministers,
That have with two pernicious daughters join'd
Your high-engender'd battles, 'gainst a head
So old and white as this. Oh! oh! tis foul.

1

Kint. Alas, sir, are you here? things that love

night, Love not fuch nights as these : the wrathful skies (17) Gallow the very vand'rers of the dark, And make them keep their caves : since I was a man, Such sheets of fire, such bursts of horrid thunder, Such groans of roaring wind and rain, I never Remember to have heard. Man's nature cannot carry Th'affliction, nor the force.

Lear. Let the great gods, That keep this dreadful pudder o'er our heads, Find out their enemies now. Tremble, thou wretch That haft within thee undivulged crimes, Unwhipp'd of justice. Hide thee, thou bloody hand! Thou perjure, and thou similar of virtue, Thou art incestuous ! caitiff, shake to pieces, That under covert and convenient seeming, Hast practis?d on man's life!.-Close pent up guilts, Rive your concealing continents, and alk These dreadful summoners grace.--I am a man More finn'd against, than finning.

Kent. Alack, bare headed? Gracious

my

lord, hard by here is a hovel ; Some friendship will it lend you'gainst the tempeft. Lear. Thou think'st 'tis much, that this contentious storm

Invades

*

*

*

*

*

*

17) Gallmu] 1.c. Scare, frighten. See the foregoing passage,

HA

Invades us to the skin; fo 'tis to thee;
But where the greater inalady is fixt,
'The leffer is scarce felt. Thou’dít hun a bear,
But if thy flight lay toward the roaring sea,
Thou’dst meet the beari' th' mouth. When the mind's

free,
'The body's delicate; the tempest in my mind
Doth from my senses take all feeling else
Save what beats there. Filial ingratitude !
Is it not, as this mouth should tear this hand
For lifting food to't ?-But I'll punish home;
No, I will weep no more--

-In such a night,
To shut me out?-pour on, I will endure.
In such a night as this? O, Regan, Goneril,
Your old kind father, whose frank heart gave all-
O, that way madness lies ; let me thun that ;
No more of that.

Kent. Good my lord, enter here.

Lear. Pr'ythee go in thyself; feek thine own ease;
This tempeft will not give me leave to ponder
On things would hurt me more--but I'll go in,
In, boy, go first. You houseless poverty
Nay, get thee in; I'll pray, and then I'll sleep
Poor naked wretches, wherefoe'er you are,
That bide the pelting of this pitilefs storin!
How shall

your houseless heads, and unfed fides,
Your loop'd and window'd raggedness defend you
From seasons such as these? --O, I have ta'en
Too little care of this! take phyfic, pomp ;
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel,
That thou mayst shake the superflux to them,
And shew the heavens more just.

Enter Edgar, disguis'd like a Madmana

Edg. Away! the foul fiend follows me. Through the Sharp hawthorn blows the cold wind. Humph, go to thy bed and warm thee.

Lear.