Elm. So please your lordship, none. [Putting up the letter. Edm. I know no news, my lord. Edm. Nothing, my lord. Glo. No! what z needed then that terrible dispatch of it into your pocket? the quality of nothing hath not such need to hide itself. Let's see; come: if it be nothing, I shall not need spectacles. Edm. I beseech 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 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 essay, or f taste of my virtue. Glo. reads.] This policy & and reverence of h age makes the world The qu's read needs. The 1st q. reads terribe. b St. reads bad for hath. CR. reads bid. d The qu's omit and. • The qu's read liking for over-looking. f J. proposes test for taste. The qu's omit and reverence. h So the qu's, fo's, R. P.'s q. H. and J.; P.'s duodecimo (by mistake of the prefs, I suppose) reads ages; followed by T. and W. and the last gives the following note. Ages fignifies former times. So that the sense of the words is this, what between the policy of some, and the superftitious reverence of others to old customs, 1 1 ! 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 oppression 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 fleep till I wak'd him, you should enjoy half his revenue for ever, and live the beloved of your brother EDGAR. Hum-Conspiracy! 1 leep till I * wak'd 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? Edm. It was not brought me, my lord; there's the cunning of it. I found it thrown in at the casement of my closet. Glo. You know the character to be your brother's? Edm. If the matter were good, my lord, I durst swear 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. seems to think ages an emendation of P.'s, or not to have confulted the editions before. i The three last fo's omit the. So all before R. who alters it to which; followed by all after. 1 The qu's read flept. * So the qu's; the rest wake. m R. P.'s q. and H. before brain insert a. The 1st and 2d fo's read when came you to this? • So the qu's, and ist f. all the rest omit but. Glo. P So the qu's; all the rest has he never before founded, &c. 1 Glo. P Hath he never heretofore founded you in this buffness ? Edm. Never, my lord. But I have 9 often heard him maintain it to be fit, that fons at perfect age, and fathers * declining, * the father should be ass ward to the fon, and the fon managet his revenue. Glo. O villain, villain! his very opinion in the letter. Abhorred villain! unnatural, detested, brutish villain! worfe than brutish! Go, firrah, seek him; w I'll apprehend him. Abominable villain! where is he? Edm. I do not well know, my lord. If it shall please you to fuspend 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 afsurance 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 2d, 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 such a monster. Edm. Nor is not, fure. Glo. To bis father, that so tenderly and entirely loves himHeav'n and earth! Edmund, seek 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. Edm. I will feek him, fir, presently, convey the business as I shall b see means, and acquaint you withal. Glo. These late eclipses 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 d 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 son and father. h This villain of mine comes under the prediction, there's son against father, the king falls from biafs 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 * What is in italic, viz. from the word nor to earth inclusively, are omitted in the fo's, R. P. and H. • 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 difcord. f The qu's omit in. 8 The qu's read between for 'twixt. What is in italic is not in the qu's. out true-hearted Kent banish'd! i his offence, honesty. 'Tis strange. [Exit. 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 - by necessity; fools, by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and n treachers, by spherical predominance; drunkards, lyars, and adulterers, 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-master man, to lay his goatish disposition to the 9 charge of stars! My father compounded with my mother under the dragon's tail, and my nativity was under Urfa major; so that it follows, I am rough and leacherous. • Tut, I should have been that I am, had the maidenliest star in the firmament twinkled on my " bastardizing. i The qu's read his offence honest, strange strange! * So the qu's; all the rest furfeits. I All but the qu's omit the. So the qu's; all the rest on for by. The qu's read treacherers; P. and all after, treacherous. Chaucer has, the false treacher, Rom. of the Rofe, 7168, p. 265. Ur. • The qu's read spiritual for spherical. P So the qu's; all the rest on for to. W. 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 rest omit it. Tut is an expreffion of contempt. Jul. Caf. acts. Ant. Tut! I am in their bosoms. alters that to what; followed by the rest. The qu's read bastardy. SCENE |