Cordelia leaves you: I know what you are,
And, like a fister, am most loth to call

Your faults, as they are nam'd. Love well our father:
To your profeffing bofoms I commit him;
But yet, alas! stood I within his grace,
I would prefer him to a better place.

So farewel to you both.

Reg. Prescribe not us our duty.

Gon. Let your study

Be to content your lord, who hath receiv'd you
At fortune's alms; you have obedience scanted,
And well are worth the Want that you have vaunted.
Cor. Time shall unfold what plaited cunning hides,
Who covers faults, at last with shame derides.
Well may you profper!

France. Come, my fair-Cordelia.

Gon.

[Exeunt France and Cordelia.

SCENE V.

SISTER, it is not little I've to fay,

Of what most nearly appertains to us both;

I think our father will go hence to-night. Reg. That's certain, and with you; next month with us.

Gon. You fee how full of change his age is, the observation we have made of it hath not been little; he always lov'd our sister most, and with what poor judgment he hath now cast her off, appears too grofly.

Reg. 'Tis the infirmity of his age; yet he hath ever but slenderly known himself.

Gon. The best and foundest of his time hath been but rash; then must welook, from his age, to receive not alone the imperfections of long-engrafted condition, but therewithal the unruly waywardness, that infirm and choleric years bring with them.

Reg. Such unconstant starts are we like to have from him, as this of Kent's banishment.

Gon.

Gon. There is further complement of leave-taking between France and him; pray you, let us hit together: if our father carry Authority with fuch disposition as he bears, this last surrender of his will but offend us.

Reg. We shall further think of it.

Gon. We must do something, and i'th'heat. [Exeu.

SCENE VI.

Changes to a Castle belonging to the Earl of Glo'ster.

Edm.

Enter Edmund, with a letter.

THOU, Nature,

law

art

my Goddess; to thy

My services are bound; wherefore should I

Stand in the Plage of custom, and permit
The curtesy of nations to deprive me,

For that I am some twelve or fourteen moon-shines
Lag of a Brother? Why bastard? wherefore base?
When my dimensions are as well compact,
My mind as gen'rous, and my shape as true,
As honest Madam's issue? why brand they us
With base? with baseness? bastardy? base, base?
Who, in the lufty stealth of nature, take
More composition and fierce quality;
Than doth, within a dull, stale, tired bed,
Go to creating a whole tribe of fops,
Got 'tween a-fleep and wake? Well then,
Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land;
Our father's love is to the bastard Edmund,
As to th' legitimate, fine word-legitimate-
Well, my legitimate, if this letter speed,
And my invention thrive, Edmund the bafe
Shall be th' legitimate. I grow, I profper;
* Now, Gods, ftand up for bastards !

SCENE VII.

To him, Enter Glo'ster.

Glo. KENT banish'd thus! and France in choler

parted!

And the King gone to-night! fubfcrib'd his pow'r! Confin'd to exhibition! all is gone

Upon the gad! - Edmund, how now? what news? Edm. So please your lordship, none.

[Putting up the letter.

Glo. Why so earnestly seek 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 needed then that terrible dispatch of it into your pocket? the quality of nothing hath not fuch need to hide itself. Let's fee; come if it be nothing, I shall not need spectacles.

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

Glo. Give me the letter, Sir.

Edm. I shall 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 justification, he wrote this but as an effay, or taste of my virtue.

Glo. reads.] This policy and reverence of ages makes the 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; which sways, not as it hath power, but as it is fuffered. Come to me, that of this I may speak more. our father would fleep, till I wak'd him, you should enjoy kalf his revenue for ever, and live the beloved of your bro

If

ther Edgar.
I wake him-you should enjoy half his revenue-
My fon Edgar! had he a hand to write this! a heart
and brain to breed it in! When came this to you?
who brought it?

Hum Confpiracy! fleep, till

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 durst 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; I hope, his heart is not in the contents.

Glo. Has he never before founded you in this business ?

Edm. Never, my lord. But I have heard him oft maintain it to be fit, that fons at perfect age, and fathers declining, the father should be as a ward to the fon, and the fon manage his revenue.

Glo. O villain, villain! his very opinion in the letter. Abhorred villain! unnatural, detested, brutish villain! worse than brutish! Go, firrah, seek him; I'll apprehend him. Abominable villain, where is he?

Edm. I do not well know, my lord; if it shall please you to fufpend your indignation against my brother, 'till you can derive from him better testimony of his intent, you should run a certain course; where, if you violently proceed against him, mistaking his purpose, it would make a great gap in your own honour, and shake 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 shall hear us confer of this, and by an auricular assurance have your fatisfaction: and that, without any further delay than this very evening. Glo. He cannot be fuch a monster.

Edm. Nor is not, sure.

Glo. To his Father, that so tenderly and entirely loves him Heav'n and Earth! Edmund seek him out; wind me into him, I pray you; frame the business after your own wisdom. I would unstate myfelf, to be in a due resolution.

Edm. I will feek him, Sir, presently,: convey the business as I shall find means, and acquaint you withal.

Glo. These late eclipses in the fun and moon portend no good to us; tho' 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, difcord; in Palaces, treason; and the bond crack'd 'twixt son and father. This villain of mine comes under the prediction, there's son against father; the King falls from biass of nature; there's father against child. We have seen the best of our time. Machinations, hollowness, treachery, and all ruinous disorders follow us disquietly to our graves! Find out this villain, Edmund; it shall lose thee nothing, do it carefully- and the noble and truehearted Kent banish'd! his offence, Honesty. 'Tis strange. [Exit.

Edm.

SCENE VIII.

THIS is

Manet Edmund.

the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are fick in fortune, (often the surfeits of our own behaviour) we make guilty of our difasters, the fun, the moon and stars, as if we were villains on neceffity; fools, by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and treacherous, by sphe