Edm. So please your lordship, none. [Putting up the letter. Glo. Why fo earnestly feek you to put up that letter?

Edm. I know no news, my lord.

Glo. What paper were you reading?

Edm. Nothing, my lord.

Glo. No! what

into your pocket?

с

needed then that a terrible dispatch of it

b

the quality of nothing hath not fuch need to hide itself. Let's fee; come: if it be nothing, I fhall not need fpectacles.

Edm. 1 befeech you, fir, pardon me, it is a letter from my brother, that I have not all o'er-read; d and for fo much as I have perus'd, I find it not fit for your overlooking.

Glo. Give me the letter, fir.

Edm. I fhall offend, either to detain, or give it. The contents, as in part I understand them, are to blame.

Glo. Let's fee, let's fee.

Edm. I hope, for my brother's juftification, he wrote this but as an effay, or f taste of my virtue.

h

Glo. reads.] This policy & and reverence of age makes the

The qu's read needs.

a The 1ft q. reads terribe.

b St. reads had for hath.

CR. reads bid.

The qu's omit and.

The qu's read liking for over-looking.

J. propofes teft for taste.

The qu's omit and reverence.

world

h So the qu's, fo's, R. P.'s q. H. and J.; P.'s duodecimo (by miftake of the prefs, I fuppofe) reads ages; followed by T. and W. and the last gives the following note.

Ages fignifies former times. So that the fenfe of the words is this, what between the policy of fome, and the fuperftitious reverence of others to old

customs,

i

world bitter to the best of our times; keeps our fortunes from us, till our oldness cannot relish them. I begin to find an idle and fond bondage in the oppreffion of aged tyranny; k who fways, not as it hath power, but as it is fuffered. Come to me, that of this I may speak more. If our father would sleep till I wak'd him, you should enjoy half his revenue for ever, and live the beloved of your brother EDGAR.

Hum-Confpiracy!

fleep till I* wak'd him—you My fon Edgar! had he a hand to write this! a heart and brain to breed it in!

should enjoy half his revenue.

"When came this to you? who brought it?

Edm. It was not brought me, my lord; there's the cunning of it. I found it thrown in at the cafement of my closet.

Glo. You know the character to be your brother's?

Edm. If the matter were good, my lord, I durft fwear it were his; but in respect of that, I would fain think, it were

not.

Glo. It is his.

Edm. It is his hand, my lord; but I hope his heart is not in the contents.

customs, it is now become an established rule, that fathers shall keep all they have till they die. W.

By this W. feems to think ages an emendation of P.'s, or not to have confulted the editions before.

i The three laft fo's omit the.

k So all before R. who alters it to which; followed by all after.

1 The qu's read fept.

*So the qu's; the rest wake.

m R. P.'s q. and H. before brain infert a.

n The 1st and 2d fo's read when came you to this?

So the qu's, and 1ft f. all the reft omit but.

Glo

Glo. P Hath he never heretofore founded you in this buffnefs?

Edm. Never, my lord. But I have often heard him maintain it to be fit, that fons at perfect age, and fathers declining, the father fhould be ass ward to the son, and the fon manage his revenue.

t

Glo. O villain, villain! his very opinion in the letter. Abhorred villain! unnatural, detefted, brutish villain! worfe than brutish! Go, "firrah, feek him; w I'll apprehend him. Abominable villain! where is he?

Edm. I do not well know, my lord. If it fhall please you to fufpend your indignation against my brother, till you can derive from him better teftimony of his intent, you should run a certain courfe; where, if you violently proceed againft him, miftaking his purpofe, it would make a great gap in your own honour, and fhake in pieces the heart of his obedience. I dare pawn down my life for him, that he hath writ this to feel my affection to your honour, and to no other pretence of danger.

Glo. Think you fo?

Edm. If your honour judge it meet, I will place you where you fhall hear us confer of this, and by an auricular affurance

P So the qu's; all the reft has he never before founded, &c.
So the qu's; the rest heard him oft maintain it, &c.

The fo's and R. read declin'd.

The qu's read his father, &c.

P. and all after, infert a before ward.

The qu's read the revenue.

The qu's read fir for firrah.

The qu's read I apprehend, &c.

The qu's read this for his.

The ad, 3d, and 4th fo's, R. P. and H. omit own.

have your fatisfaction, and that without any further delay than

this very evening.

Glo. He cannot be fuch a monster.

Edm. Nor is not, fure.

Glo. To his father, that fo tenderly and entirely loves himHeav'n and earth! Edmund, feek him out; wind me into him, I pray you. Frame the business after your own wifdom; I would unstate myself, to be in a due resolution.

a

Edm. I will feek him, fir, presently, convey the business as I fhall b fee means, and acquaint you withal.

Glo. Thefe late eclipfes in the fun and moon portend no good to us; though the wisdom of nature can reason it thus and thus, yet nature finds itself scourg'd by the sequent effects. Love cools, friendship falls off, brothers divide. In cities, mutinies; in countries, difcords; fin palaces, treafon; and the bond crack'd g 'twixt fon and father. h This villain of mine comes under the prediction, there's fon against father; the king falls from biafs of nature, there's father against child. We have feen the best of our time. Machinations, hollowness, treachery, and all ruinous disorders follow us difquietly to our graves! Find out this villain, Edmund; it shall lofe thee nothing, do it carefully-and the noble and

z What is in italic, viz. from the word nor to earth inclufively, are omitted in the fo's, R. P. and H.

a The qu's read your for the.

So the qu's; the rest read find for fee.

The qu's omit it.

d T.'s octavo reads frequent for fequent. So the qu's; all the rest discord.

f The qu's omit in.

The qu's read between for 'twixt.
What is in italic is not in the qu's.

true

true-hearted Kent banifh'd! his offence, honefty. 'Tis

ftrange.

[Exit.

SCENE VIII.

Manet Edmund.

k

Edm. This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are fick in fortune (often the furfeit of our own behaviour) we make guilty of our disasters, the fun, the moon, and the stars; as if we were villains m by necessity; fools, by heavenly compulfion; knaves, thieves, and " treachers, by spherical predominance; drunkards, lyars, and adul terers, by an inforc'd obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on. An admirable evasion of whore-mafter man, to lay his goatifh difpofition to the charge of ftars! My father compounded with my mother under the dragon's tail, and my nativity was under Urfa major; fo that it follows, I am rough and leacherous. Tut, I fhould have been that I am, had the maidenlieft star in the firmament twinkled on my " bastardizing.

t

i The qu's read his offence honeft, strange strange!

So the qu's; all the reft furfeits.

1 All but the qu's omit the.

So the qu's; all the reft on for by.

The qu's read treacherers, P. and all after, treacherous. Chaucer has, the falfe treacher, Rom. of the Rofe, 7168, p. 265. Ur.

• The qu's read spiritual for spherical.

So the qu's; all the reft on for to.

I. reads change for charge.

So the qu's; the rest of a star.

The qu's read fut, the t being changed into an f; all the reft omit it. Tut is an expreffion of contempt. Jul. Caf. act 5. Ant. Tut! I am in

their bofoms.

P, alters that to what; followed by the rest.
The qu's read baftardy.

SCENE