When nobles are their tailors' tutors ;7
No heretics burn'd, but wenches' suitors :
When every case in law is right;

No squire in debt, nor no poor knight;
When slanders do not live in tongues;
Nor-cutpurses come not to throngs;
When usurers tell their gold i'the field;
And bawds and whores do churches build ;-
Then shall the realm of Albion

Come to great confusion.

Then comes the time, who lives to see't,
That going shall be used with feet.

This prophecy Merlin shall make; for I live before his

time.

SCENE III.

[Exit.

A Room in GLOSTER's Castle. Enter GLOSTER and EDMUND.

Glo. Alack, alack, Edmund, I like not this unnatural dealing: When I desired their leave that I might pity him, they took from me the use of mine own house; charged me, on pain of their perpetual displeasure, neither to speak of him, entreat for him, nor any way sustain him.

Edm. Most savage, and unnatural !

Glo. Go to; say you nothing: There is division between the dukes; and a worse matter than that: I have received a letter this night ;-'tis dangerous to be spoken ;-I have locked the letter in my closet: these injuries the king now bears will be revenged home; there is part of a power already footed; we must incline to the king. I will seek him, and privily relieve him: go you, and maintain talk with the duke, that my charity be not of him perceived: If he ask for me, I am ill, and gone to bed. If I die for it, as no less is threatened me, the king my old master must be relieved. There is some strange thing toward, Edmund; pray you, be careful. [Exit.

Edm. This courtesy, forbid thee, shall the duke

Instantly know; and of that letter too :-
This seems a fair deserving, and must draw me
That which my father loses; no less than all;

The younger rises, when the old doth fall.

[Exit.

[7] Invent fashions for them. WARBURTON. [8] The disease to which wenches' suitors are particularly exposed, was called in Shakspeare's time, the brenning or burning. JOHNSON.

So, in Isaiah iii. 24. "-and burning instead of beauty" STEEVENS.

SCENE IV.

A Part of the Heath, with a Hovel. Enter LEAR, KENT, and

Fool.

Kent. Here is the place, my lord; good my lord, enter;

The tyranny of the open night's too rough

For nature to endure.

Lear. Let me alone.

Kent. Good my lord, enter here.

Lear. Wilt break my heart?

[Storm still.

Kent. I'd rather break mine own: Good my lord, enter.

Lear. Thou think'st 'tis much, that this contentious

storm

Invades us to the skin: so 'tis to thee;

But where the greater malady is fix'd,

The lesser is scarce felt. Thou'dst shun a bear;

But if thy flight lay toward the raging sea,

Thou'dst meet the bear i'the mouth. When the mind's

free,

The body's delicate: the tempest in my mind
Doth from my senses take all feeling else,
Save what beats there. Filial ingratitude !
Is it not as this mouth should tear this hand,
For lifting food to't ?-But I will punish home :-
No, I will weep no more. In such a night,-
To shut me out! - Pour on; I will endure :-
In such a night as this! O Regan, Goneril!-
Your old kind father, whose frank heart gave all,-
O, that way madness lies; let me shun that;
No more of that,-

Kent. Good my lord, enter here.

Lear. Pr'ythee, go in thyself; seek thine own ease; This tempest will not give me leave to ponder On things would hurt me more. But I'll go in : In, boy; go first. [To the Fool.] You houseless poverty, Nay, get thee in. I'll pray, and then I'll sleep.

[Fool goes in.

Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are,
That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,
How shall your houseless heads, and unfed sides,
Your loop'd and window'd raggedness, defend you
From seasons such as these? O, I have ta'en
Too little care of this! Take physic, pomp;
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel;
That thou may'st shake the superflux to them,

And show the heavens more just.

Edg. [Within.] Fathom and half, fathom and half ! Poor Tom! [The Fool runs out from the Hovel. Fool. Come not in here, nuncle, here's a spirit. Help me, help me !

Kent. Give me thy hand-Who's there?

Fool. A spirit, a spirit; he says his name's poor Tom. Ken.Whatart thou that dost grumble there i'the straw? Come forth.

Enter EDGAR, disguised as a madman. Edg. Away! the foul fiend follows me !-Through the sharp hawthorn blows the cold wind.Humph! go to thy cold bed, and warm thee.

Lear. Hast thou given all to thy two daughters ? And art thou come to this?

Edg. Who gives any thing to poor Tom? whom the foul fiend hath led through fire and through flame, through ford and whirlpool, over bog and quagmire; that hath laid knives under his pillow, and halters in his pew; set ratsbane by his porridge; made him proud of heart, to ride on a bay trotting-horse over four-inched bridges, to course his own shadow for a traitor :-Bless thy five wits! Tom's a-cold.-O, do de, do de, do de.Bless thee from whirlwinds, star-blasting, and taking!3 Do poor Tom some charity, whom the foul fiend vexes : There could I have him now, and there, and there, -and there again, and there. [Storm continues.

Lear. What, have his daughters brought him to this pass!

Couldst thou save nothing? Didst thou give them all ? Fool. Nay, he reserved a blanket, else we had been all shamed.

Lear. Now, all the plagues that in the pendulous air Hang fated o'er men's faults, light on thy daughters! Kent. He hath no daughters, sir.

Lea. Death, traitor! nothing could have subdu'd nature

[1] Alluding to the ignus fatuus, supposed to be lights kindled by mischievous beings to lead travellers into destruction. JOHNSON.

[2] He recounts the temptations by which he was prompted to suicide; the opportunities of destroying himself, which often occurred to him in his melancholy moods. JOHNSON. --Shakspeare found this charge against the tiend, with many others of the same nature, in Harsnet's Declaration, and has used the very words of it. The book was printed in 1603. STEEVENS.

[3] To Take-is to blast, or strike with malignant influence.

"-strike her young bones,
"Ye taking airs, with lameness!"

JOHNSON.

To such a lowness, but his unkind daughters.
Is it the fashion, that discarded fathers
Should have thus little mercy on their flesh ?
Judicious punishment! 'twas this flesh begot
Those pelican daughters.*

Edg. Pillicock sat on Pillicock's hill;

Halloo, Halloo, loo, loo!

Fool. This cold night will turn us all to fools and madmen.

Edg. Take heed o'the foul fiend: Obey thy parents; keep thy word justly; swear not; commit not with man's sworn spouse; set not thy sweet heart on proud array: Tom's a-cold.

Lear. What hast thou been?

Edg. A serving-man, proud in heart and mind; that curled my hair; wore gloves in my cap, served the lust of my mistress's heart, and did the act of darkness with her; swore as many oaths as I spake words, and broke them in the sweet face of heaven: one, that slept in the contriving of lust, and waked to do it: Wine loved I deeply; dice dearly; and in woman, out-paramoured the Turk: False of heart, light of ear, 3 bloody of hand; hog in sloth, fox in stealth, wolf in greediness, dog in madness, lion in prey. Let not the creaking of shoes, nor the rustling of silks, betray thy poor heart to women: Keep thy foot out of brothels, thy hand out of plackets, thy pen from lenders' books, and defy the foul fiend. Still through the hawthorn blows the cold wind: Says suum, mun, ha no nonny, 5 dolphin, my boy, my boy, sessa; let him trot by.

[Storm still continues.

Lear. Why, thou were better in thy grave, than to answer with thy uncovered body this extremity of the skies. Is man no more than this? Consider him well: Thou owest the worm no silk, the beast no hide, the sheep no wool, the cat no perfume:-Ha! here's three of us are sophisticated !-Thou art the thing itself: unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art. -Off, off, you lendings :Come; unbutton here.- [Tearing off his clothes.

Fool. Pr'ythee, nuncle, be contented; this is a naughty night to swim in. Now a little fire in a wild field were like an old lecher's heart; a small spark, all the rest of his body cold.-Look, here comes a walking fire.

Edg. This is the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet : he begins at curfew, and walks till the first cock; he gives the web and the pin, squints the eye, and makes the harelip; mildews the white wheat, and hurts the poor creature of earth.

Saint Withold footed thrice the wold;
He met the night-mare, and her nine-fold;

Bid her alight,

And her troth plight,

And, aroint thee, witch, aroint thee !8

Kent. How fares your grace?

Enter GLOSTER, with a torch.

Lear. What's he?

Kent. Who's there? What is't you seek?

[6] "Frateretto, Fliberdigibet, Hoberdidance, Tocobatto, were four devils of the round or morrice.... These four had forty assistants under them, as themselves doe confesse." Harsnet, p. 49.

[7] Web and pin-diseases of the eye.

[8] We should read thus:

PERCY.

JOHNSON.

Saint Withold footed thrice the wold,

He met the night-mare, and her name told,
Bid her alight, and her troth plight,

And aroint thee, witch, aroint thee right.

Saint Withold traversing the wold or downs, met the nightmare; who having told her name, he obliged her to alight from those persons whom she rides, and plight her troth to do no more mischief. This is taken from a story of him in his legend. Hence he was invoked as the patron saint against that distemper. And these verses were no other than a popular charm, or night spell against the Epialtes. The last line is the formal execration or apostrophe of the speaker of the charm to the witch, aroint thee right, i. e. depart forthwith. Bedlams, gipsies, and such like vagabonds, used to sell these kind of spells or charms to the people. They were of various kinds for various disorders. We have another of them in the Monsieur Thomas of Fletcher, which he expressly calls a night spell, and is in these words :"Saint George, Saint George, our lady's knight, "He walks by day, so he does by night;

"And when he had her found,

"He her beat and her bound;

"Until to him her troth she plight,

"She would not stir from him that night." WARBURTON. Her nine fold seems to be put (for the sake of rhyme) instead of nine foals. I cannot find this adventure in the common legends of St. Vitalis, who, I suppose, is here called St. Withold.

TYRWHITT.