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So much commend itself, you shall be ours;
Natures of such deep Trust we shall much need:
You we first seize on.

Edm. 1 shall serve you, Sir,

Truly, however else.

Glo. I thank your Grace.

Corn. You know not why we came to vifit you
Reg. Thus out of season threading dark-ey'dnight; (14)

Occafions, noble Glo'ster, of some prize,
Wherein we must have use of your advice.
Our father he hath writ, fo hath our fifter,
Of diff'rences, which I best thought it fit
To answer from our home: the fev'ral messengers
From hence attend dispatch. Our good old friend,
Lay comforts to your bosom; and bestow

Your needful counsel to our businesses,

Which crave the instant use.

Glo. I serve you, Madam:

Your Graces are right welcome.

[Exeunt.

Enter Kent, and Steward, feverally.

Stew. Good evening to thee, friend; art of this house?
Kent. Ay.

Stew. Where may we set our horfes?

Kent. I'th' mire.

Stew. Pr'ythee, if thou lov'st me, tell me.

Kent. I love thee not.

Stew. Why then I care not for thee.

Kent. If I had thee in Lipsbury pinfold, I would make

thee care for me.

Stew. Why dost thou use me thus? I know thee not.
Kent. Fellow, I know thee.

Stew. What dost thou know me for?

(14)-threading dark-ey'd night.] I have not ventur'd to difplace this reading, tho' I have great fufpicion that the poet wrote,

treading dark-cy'd night.

i. e. travelling in it. The other carries too obscure, and mean an allufion. It must either be borrow'd from the cant-phrafe of threading of alleys, i. e. going thro' bye-passages to avoid the high streets; s to threading a needle in the dark.

Kent.

Kent. A knave, a rascal, an eater of broken meats, a base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-fuited, hundred-pound, filthy worsted-stocking knave; a lilly-liver'd, action-taking, knave; a whorson, glass-gazing, superserviceable finical rogue; one-trunk-inheriting flave; one that would'st be a bawd in way of good fervice; and art nothing but the compofition of a knave, beggar, coward, pander, and the fon and heir of a mungril bitch; one whom I will beat into clam'rous whining, if thou deny'st the least fyllable of thy addition.

Stew. Why, what a monstrous fellow art thou, thus to rail on one, that is neither known of thee, nor knows thee?

Kent. What a brazen-fac'd varlet art thou, to deny thou know'st me? is it two days ago, since I tript up thy heels, and beat thee before the King? draw, you rogue; for tho' it be night, yet the moon shines; I'll make a sop o' th' moonshine of you; you whorson, cullionly, barber-monger, draw. [Drawing his fword. Stew. Away, I have nothing to do with thee. Kent. Draw, you rascal; you come with letters against the King; and take Vanity, the Puppet's part, againft the royalty of her father; draw, you rogue, or I'll fo carbonado your shanks-draw, you rascal, come your

ways.

Stew. Help, ho! murder! help! Kent. Strike, you slave; stand, rogue, stand, you neat slave, strike. [Beating him.

Stew. Help ho! murder! murder !

Enter Edmund, Cornwall, Regan, Glo'ster, and Servants.
Edm. How now, what's the matter? Part-
Kent. With you, goodman boy, if you please; come,

I'll flesh ye; come on, young master.

Glo. Weapons? arms? what's the matter here?

Corn. Keep peace, upon your lives; he dies, that

strikes again; what's the matter?

Reg. The messengers from our sister and the King ? Corn. What is your difference? speak.

Stew.

!

i

Stew. I am scarce in breath, my lord. Kent. No marvel, you have so bestir'd your valour; you cowardly rascal! nature disclaims all share in thee: a taylor made thee.

Corn. Thou art a strange fellow; a taylor make a man? Kent. I, a taylor, Sir; a stone-cutter, or a painter could not have made him so ill, tho' they had been but two hours o' th' trade.

Corn. Speak yet, how grew your quarrel?

Stery. This ancient ruffian, Sir, whose life I have spar'd at fuit of his grey beard

Kent. Thou whorfon zed! thou unnecessary letter! my lord, if you will give me leave, I will tread this unbolted villain into mortar, and daub the wall of a jakes with him. Spare my grey beard? you wagtail!Corn. Peace, Sirrah!

You beastly knave, know you no reverence ?

Kent. Yes, Sir, but anger hath a privilege.
Corn. Why art thou angry?

Kent. That fuch a flave as this shou'd wear a sword,
Who wears no honesty: such smiling rogues as these,
Like rats, oft bite the holy cords in twain (15)

Too

(15) Like rats, oft bite the holy cords atwaine, Which are t' intrince, t' unloofe;) Thus the first editors blunder'd this passage into unintelligible nonsense. Mr. Pope so far has disengag'd them, as to give us plain sense; but by throwing out the epithet boy, 'tis evident, he was not aware of the poet's fine meaning. I'll first establish and prove the reading; then explain the allufion. Thus the poet gave it;

Like rats, oft bite the holy cords in twain,

Too 'intrinficate t' unloofe

This word again occurs in our author's Antony and Cleopatra, where she is speaking to the aspick;

- Come, mortal wretch;

With thy sharp teeth this knot intrinficate
Of life at once untie.

And we meet with it in Cynthia's Revels by Ben. Jonson.

Yet there are certain puntilio's, or (as I may more nakedly infinuate them) certain intr.nficate strokes and wards, to which your activity is not yet amounted; &c.

It means, inward, hidden; perplext; as a knot, hard to be unravell'd; it is deriv'd from the Latin adverb intrinfecus; from which

:

the

Too 'intrinficate t' unloose: footh every passion,
That in the nature of their lords rebels:

Bring oil to fire, snow to their colder moods;
Renege, affirm, and turn their halcyon beaks
With ev'ry Gale and Vary of their masters;
As knowing nought, like dogs, but following.
A plague upon your epileptick visage!
Smile you my speeches, as I were a fool?
Goose, if I had you upon Sarum-plain,
I'd drive ye cackling home to Camelot. (16)
Corn. What art thou mad, old fellow?
Glo. How fell you out? say that.
Kent. No contraries hold more antipathy,

Than I and such a knave.

:

Corn. Why dost thou call him knave? what is his fault? Kent. His countenance likes me not.

Corn. No more, perchance, does mine, nor his, nor hers.
Kent. Sir, 'tis my occupation to be plain;

I have seen better faces in my time,
Than stand on any shoulder that I fee
Before me at this instant.

Corn. This is some fellow,

Who having been prais'd for bluntness, doth affect
A faucy roughness; and constrains the garb,

Quite from his nature. He can't flatter, he,

the Italians have coin'd a very beautiful phrase, intrinficarsi col uno, i. e, to grow intimate with, to wind one self into another. And now to our author's fenfe. Kent is rating the steward, as a parafite of Gonerill's; and supposes very justly, that he has fomented the quarrel betwixt that princess and her father: in which office, he compares him to a facrilegious rat: and by a fine metaphor, as Mr. Warburton obferved to me, stiles the union between parents and children the boly cords.

(16)cackling bome to Camelot.] As Sarum, or Salisbury, plain is mention'd in the preceding verfe, I prefume this Camelot to be that mention'd by Holingshead, and call'd Camaletum, in the marshes of Somersetshire, where there was an old tradition of a very strong Caftle. Langbam in his account of queen Elizabeth's reception at Kenil. worth, says, from king Arthur's acts, that that Prince kept his royal court at Camelot: but whether this be the place already mention'd, or some other of that name in Wales, or the Camelot in Sterling-County in Scotland, I am not able to say.

An

An honest mind and plain, he must speak truth;
An they will take it, fo; if not, he's plain.
These kind of knaves I know, which in this plainness
Harbour more craft, and more corrupter ends,
Than twenty filly ducking observants,

That stretch their duties nicely.

Kent. Sir, in good faith, in fincere verity, Under th' allowance of your grand aspect, Whose influence, like the wreath of radiant fire On flickering Phœbus' front

Corn. What mean'st by this ?

Kent. To go out of my dialect, which you discommend so much: I know, Sir, I am no flatterer; he, that beguil'd you in a plain accent, was a plain knave; which for my part I will not be, though I should win your displeasure to intreat me to't.

Corn. What was th' offence you gave him ?
Stew. I never gave him any:
It pleas'd the King his master very lately
To strike at me upon his misconstruction;
When he conjunct, and flatt'ring his displeasure,
Tript me behind; being down, insulted, rail'd,
And put upon him such a deal of man, that
That worthied him; got praises of the King,
For him attempting who was self-fubdu'd;
And, in the fleshment of this dread exploit,
Drew on me here again.

Kent. None of these rogues and cowards,
But Ajax is their fool.

Corn. Fetch forth the Stocks.

You stubborn ancient knave, you rev'rend braggart, We'll teach you

Kent. Sir, I am too old to learn :

Call not your Stocks for me, I serve the King;
On whose employment I was sent to you.
You shall do small respect, shew too bold malice
Against the grace and person of my master,

Stocking his messenger.

Corn. Fetch forth the Stocks;

As I have life and honour, there shall he fit 'till noon.

Reg.

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