Old Man. How now? who's there?

Edg. O gods! who is't can say, I'm at the worst?

I'm worse, than e'er I was.

Old Man. 'Tis poor mad Tom.

Edg. And worse I may be yet: the worst is not,

So long as we can say, this is the worst.

Old Man. Fellow, where goest?

Glo. Is it a beggar-man?

Old Man. Madman, and beggar too.

Glo. He has fome reason, else he could not beg.

My fon

1

I'th' last night's storm I such a fellow faw;
Which made me think a man, a worm.
Came then into my mind; and yet my mind
Was then scarce friends with him. I've heard more fince,
As flies to wanton boys, are we to th' gods;
They kill us for their sport.

Edg. How should this be?

Bad is the trade must play the fool to forrow,
Ang'ring itself and others. - Bless thee, master.
Glo. Is that the naked fellow ?

Old Man. Ay, my Lord.

Glo. Get thee away: if, for my fake,
Thou wilt o'ertake us hence a mile or twain
I' th' way tow'rd Dover, do it for ancient love;
And bring some covering for this naked foul,
Whom I'll intreat to lead me.

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 passage in the Seven Captains before Thebes

Κτύπον δέδορκα,

Παταγόν τ ̓ ἐχ ἑνὸς δορός.

Not of a fingle spear.

Alack! I fee the found, the dreadful crash,

The late learned Dr. Gataker, in his treatise upon the style of the

New Testament, has amass'd examples of this figure in holy writ, as

well as from heathen writers, both Greek and Latin.

Edg. Poor Tom's a-cold; -I cannot daub it further.

Glo. Come hither, fellow.

Edg. And yet I must;

Bless thy sweet eyes, they bleed.

Gle. Know'ft thou the way to Dover?

Edg. Both ftile and gate, horfe-way and foot-path: poor Tom hath been scar'd out of his good wits. Bless 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; Mabu, of stealing; Mohu, of murder; and Flibbertigibbet, of mopping and mowing; who fince possesses chamber-maids and waiting-women. [plagues

Glo. Here, take this purse, thou whom the heavens Have humbled to all strokes. That I am wretched, Makes thee the happier: heavens deal so stil!! Let the fuperfluous, and luft-dieted man, That flaves your ordinance, that will not fee Because he does not feel, feel your power quickly: So diftribution should undo excess,

And each man have enough. Do'st thou know Dover? Edg. Ay, master.

Glo. There is a cliff, whose high and bending head

Looks fearfully on the confined deep :
Bring me but to the very brim of it,

And I'll repair the misery, thou do'st bear,

With something rich about me: from that place

I shall no leading need.

Edg. Give me thy arm;

Poor Tom shall lead thee.

[Exeunt

(39) Five fiends have been in poor Tom at once;] This passage 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 Harjenet's pamphlet, already quoted. We find there, all these devils were in Sarab and Friswood Williams, Mis. Peckham's two chamber-maids; and particularly Flibbertigibbet, who made them mop and mow like apes, fays that author. And to their suppos'd poffeffion, qur poet is here satirically alluding.

SCENE

SCENE, the Duke of Albany's Palace.

Gon.

W

Enter Gonerill, and Edmund.

Elcome, my Lord. Imarvel, our mild husband
Not met us on the way.

Enter Steward.

Now, where's your master ?

Stew. Madam, within; but never man so chang'd:
I told him of the army that was landed:
He smil'd at it. I told him you were coming,
His answer was, the worse. Of Glo'ster's treachery,
And of the loyal fervice of his son,

When I inform'd him, then he call'd me fot;
And told me, I had turn'd the wrong fide out.
What most he should dislike, seems pleasant to him,
What like, offensive.

Gon. Then shall you go no further.
It is the cowish terror of his spirit,
That dares not undertake: he'll not feel wrongs,
Which tie him to an answer; our wishes on the way
May prove effects. Back, Edmund, to my brother;
Haften his musters, and conduct his powers.
I must change arms at home, and give the distaff
Into my husband's hands. This trufty servant
Shall pass between us: you ere long shall hear,
If you dare venture in your own behalf,
A mistress's command. Wear this; fpare speech;
Decline your head. This kiss, if it durft speak,
Would ftretch thy spirits up into the air:

Conceive, and fare thee well.

Edm. Yours in the ranks of death.

Gon. My most dear Glo'fter!

[Exit Edmund.

Oh, the strange difference of man, and man!

To thee a woman's services are due,

My fool ufurps my body.

Stew. Madam, here comes my Lord.

A

Ds

Enter Albany.

Gon. I have been worth the whistle.

Alb. Oh Gonerill,

You are not worth the duft, which the rude windy
Blows in your face. - I fear your difpofition:
That nature, which contemns its origine,
Cannot be border'd certain in itself;

She that herself will fliver, and disbranch, (40)
From her maternal fap, perforce must wither, (41)
And come to deadly use..

Gon

(40) She that herself will shiver, and disbranch,] Shiver, in this place should bear the sense of disbranch; whereas it means, to shake; to fly a-pieces into splinters; in which sense he afterwards uses the word in this act;

Thou'd'it piver'd like an egg;

So that we may be affured, he would not have used the word in fo contrary and false a sense here; especially, when there is a proper/ word to exprefs the sense of disbranching, fo near this in found, and which he uses 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 eclipse;

And, again, in Hamlet;

There on the pendant boughs, her coronet weedscidin
Clamb'ring to hang, an envious Sliver broke;

Mr. Warburton.

The old 4to reads fliver. But I owed this note to my friend's sagacity, who never once faw that copy. On the other hand, what an instance is it of Mr. Pope's inaccuracy in collation, who first added this passage from the old Quarto?

(41) From ber material fap,] Thus the old 4to; but material Jap, I ewn, is a phrafe that I don't understand. The mother-tree is the true rechnical term; and confidering, our author has faid but just above, That nature, which contemns its origine, there is little room to question but he wrote,----From her maternal fap.

And so our best claffical writers.

Hic plantas tenero abfcindens de corpore matrum; Virg.

And again,

Quæ neque jam frondes, virides neque proferet umbras,
Ut semel eft avulla jugis, & matre perempta,

And

Gon. No more; 'tis foolish.

Alb. Wisdom and goodness to the vile feem vile;
Filths favour but themselves-What have you done?
Tigers, not daughters, what have you perform'd?
A father, and a gracious aged man,

Most barb'rous, most degenerate, have you madded.
Cou'd my good brother fuffer you to do it,
A man, a Prince by him so benefited?
If that the heav'ns do not their visible spirits
Send quickly down to tame the vile offences,
Humanity must perforce prey on itself,
Like monsters of the deep.

Gon. Milk-liver'd man!

That bear'ît a cheek for blows, a head for wrongs;
Who haft not in thy brows an eye difcerning
Thine honour, from thy suffering: that not know'st, (42)
Fools do these villains pity, who are punish'd
Ere they have done their mischief. Where's thy drum?
France spreads his banners in our noiseless land,
With plumed helm thy flayer begins his threats;
Whilst thou, a moral fool, fit'st still, and cry'st,
"Alack! why does he so?

Alb. See thyself, devil:

Proper deformity seems not in the fiend

So horrid as in woman.

Gon. O vain fool!

Alb. Thou chang'd, and self-converted thing! For

shame, (43)

And Seneca in his Trojan Captives,

Quæ tenera cælo virga de trunco ftetit,

Par ipfa matri

And more instances I might have produced from Rutgerfius, in his Variæ Lection. 1. 4. c. 16.

(42) that not know'st,

Fools do these villains pity,] This I have retriev'd from the first Quarto. It seems first to have been retrench'd by the players, for brevity's fake: but, befides that the lines are fine, they admirably display 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 retrench'd; but ought not for the future to be loft to our author.

Be