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follows I am rough and lecherous. I should have been what I am, had the maidenliest star in the firmament twinkled on my bastardizing.

Pat!

SCENE IX.

To him, enter EDGAR.

He comes like the catastrophe of the old comedy; my cue is villainous melancholy, with a sigh like Tom o' Bedlam-O, these eclipses portend these divisions! fa, sol, la, mi—[Humming.

Edg. How now, brother Edmund, what serious contemplation are you in?

Edm. I am thinking, brother, of a prediction I read this other day, what should follow these eclipses.

Edg. Do you busy yourself with that?

Edm. I promise you the effects he writes of, succeed unhappily. When saw you my father last? Edg. The night gone by.

Edm. Spake you with him?

Edg. Ay, two hours together.

human resemblance, is the prototype also of Gloster, Edmund's father. The repeated mention of eclipses was intended, perhaps, to allude to the darkness of the shadows that compose Edmund's person, which led Hudibras, in speaking of Magnano, who has the same prototype, to liken him to a collier.

Edm. Parted you in good terms, found you no displeasure in him, by word or countenance?

Edg. None at all.

Edm. Bethink yourself wherein you have offended him and at my intreaty, forbear his presence, until some little time hath qualified the heat of his displeasure; which at this instant so rageth in him, that with the mischief of your person it would scarcely allay.'

Edg. Some villain hath done me wrong.

Edm. That's my fear. I pray you have a continent forbearance till the speed of his rage goes slower; and, as I say, retire with me to my lodging, from whence I will fitly bring you to hear my Lord speak. Pray you, go; there's my key. If you do stir abroad, go arm'd. (24)

Edg. Arm'd, brother?

Edm. Brother, I advise you to the best; I am no honest man, if there be any good meaning toward you. I have told you what I have seen and heard, but faintly, nothing like the image and horror of it. Pray you away.

Edg. Shall I hear from you anon?

[Exit.

(24) Armed. The light in front of Edmund's face, (about which point the hand of Edgar might come, if in act to strike with a sword,) resembles the hilt of a sword in shape. This is inserted in the figure of Magnano, (fig. 19,) who has the same prototype.

SCENE X.

Edm. I do serve you in this business : A credulous father, and a brother noble, Whose nature is so far from doing harms, That he suspects none; on whose foolish honesty My practices ride easy; I see the business. Let me, if not by birth, have lands by wit; All with me's meet, that I can fashion fit. [Exit,

SCENE XI.

Enter GONERIL and Steward. (25) Gon. Did my father strike my gentleman for chiding of his fool?

Fig. 87.

र्

(25) The steward is to be referred to the third, or fore

Stew. Ay, Madam.

Gon. By day and night he wrongs me; every He flashes into one gross crime or other, [hour That sets us all at odds: I'll not endure it.

His knights grow riotous, and himself upbraids us
On ev'ry trifle. When he returns from hunting,
I will not speak with him; say, I am sick.
If you come slack of former services,

You shall do well: the fault of it I'll answer.
Stew. He's coming, Madam; I hear him.
Gon. Put on what wary negligence you please,
You and your fellows: I'd have it come to ques-
If he distaste it, let him to my sister, [tion.
Whose mind and mine I know in that are one,
Not to be over-rul'd. Idle old man,

That still would manage those authorities
That he hath giv'n away!-Now, by my life,
Old folks are babes again; and must be us'd
With checks, not flatt'ries, when they're seen abus'd.
Remember what I have said.

most, of the three outlines of Hudibras's face, and has the same original as the second of Hamlet's grave-diggers (fig. 73). As he is frequently sent on employment on horseback, he is drawn in figure 87, with a whip and reins in his hands; and the reader, in comparing that figure with its prototype, is requested to conceive him to be mounted on Hudibras's horse.

Stew. Very well, Madam.

Gon. And let his knights have colder looks

among you:

What grows of it, no matter; and advise
Your fellows so. I'll write straight to my sister
To hold my course. Go, and prepare for dinner.
[Exeunt.

SCENE XII.

Enter KENT disguis'd.

Kent. If but as well I other accents borrow, And can my speech diffuse, my good intent May carry through itself to that full issue, For which I raz'd my likeness.

Kent, (26)

Now banished

If thou can'st serve where thou dost stand condemn'd,

So may it come, thy master, whom thou lov'st, Shall find thee full of labours.

(26) Kent, under his disguise or transformation, as it is called, (and he must be considered as greatly altered, by Lear's forgetting him so entirely,) seems to me to be converted into the same character as Horatio in Hamlet, (fig. 49,) whose prototype in the moon is a part, and a part only, of that which goes to the composition of what was before Kent proper. This transformation of Kent has a considerable analogy to that of Hamlet, above explained.

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