abruptness rather unusual, and the old king rushes in before us with all his passions at their height, and tearing him like fiends.

"Had the actor or the Poet put more of melancholy and depression, and less of rage, into the character, we should have been very much puzzled at his so suddenly going mad. It would have required the change to have been slower, and besides his insanity must have been of another kind. It must have been monotonous and complaining instead of continually varying,-at one time full of grief, at another playful, and then wild as the winds that waved about him, and fiery and sharp as the lightning that shot by him."

"The true BLANK of thine eye"-The "blank" means the white at which the arrow is shot.

"DISEASES of the world"—"Diseases" (which reads disasters in the folio, giving an equally good sense) is to be taken in the etymological sense of dis-ease, inconveniences, which at the time was not unusual, and in older English, general. In Wickliffe's Bible, we have "diseases of the world," and again, "ye shall have disease in the world," for what is now rendered "cares of the world-tribulation in the world."

"a better wHERE to find"-i. e. a better place: "where" is used substantively, as in any-where, everywhere.-COLLIER.

"let us HIT together"-A very intelligible expression for-Let us agree together, i. e. strike at the same time. Goneril follows up the figure by addingand i' the heat"-while the iron is hot. The folio (followed in some modern editions) has sit.

SCENE II.

"Thou, NATURE, art my goddess."-Edmund calls nature his goddess, for the same reason that we call a bastard a natural son: one who, according to the law of nature, is the child of his father, but according to those of civil society is nullius filius.-M. MASON.

In this speech of Edmund you see, as soon as a man cannot reconcile himself to reason, how his conscience flies off by way of appeal to nature, who is sure upon such occasions never to find fault; and also, how shame sharpens a predisposition in the heart to evil. For it is a profound moral, that shame will naturally generate guilt; the oppressed will be vindictive, like Shylock; and in the anguish of undeserved ignominy the delusion secretly springs up, of getting over the moral quality of an action by fixing the mind on the mere physical act alone.-COLERidge.

"The CURIOSITY of nations"-i. e. the scrupulous strictness of nations. In the second speech of this play "curiosity" is used in a similar sense.

"Shall TOP the legitimate"-The quartos have "Shall tooth' legitimate," and the folio "Shall to' th' legitimate:" of which the older editors could make nothing satisfactory. Warburton and Hanmer quarrelled whether it should read "be the legitimate" or "toe the legitimate," until the witty Edwards, in his "Canons of Criti cism," after laughing at both, suggested the slight emendation of "top," which has since been adopted in all editions.

"SUBSCRIB'D his power"-i. e. Yielded his power; as in TROILUS AND CRESSIDA, it is said "Hector-subscribes to tender objects."

Upon the GAD"-Upon a new and sudden excitement; a phrase drawn from the use of the gad, the old, as it still is in many places, the vulgar word for a goad, and applied to any sharp point of metal, or other instrument to drive cattle. Hence the gad-fly, or sharpstinging fly.

"-and to no other PRETENCE"-Shakespeare always uses pretence for design or intention. See Lear's

speech in scene iv. of this act, "pretence or purpose of unkindness." It is the original sense of the word.

"-knaves, thieves, and TREACHERS"-The last word is familiar to Chaucer, Spenser, and other old writers. In the quarto it stands treacherers. The editions of the last century substituted treacherous, until Stevens restored the true reading.

"-to the charge of a star."-The Poet here sneers at the doctrines of judicial astrology, very generally believed in his time, and long after. The influence of the stars in the ascendant at the time of birth, long kept its hold on popular opinion in Great Britain, as we may learn from "Guy Mannering," and Scott's notes on it. It was the more willingly believed, because it afforded an excellent excuse to their own conscience for many a one, like Chaucer's "Wife of Bath," who was glad to be able to say,—

I followed ay mine inclination,

By virtue of my constellation. Coleridge's remarks upon this just censure of a popular error being put into the mouth of a scornful unprincipled man, is striking:

"Thus scorn and misanthropy are often the anticipations and mouth-pieces of wisdom in the detection of superstitions. Both individuals and nations may be free from such prejudices by being below them as well as by rising above them."

SCENE III.

"The Steward should be placed in exact antithesis to Kent, as the only character of utter irredeemable baseness in SHAKESPEARE. Even in this the judgment and invention of the Poet are very observable ;--for what else could the willing tool of a Goneril be? Not a vice but this of baseness was left open to him."COLERIDGE.

"Old fools are babes again."-These lines are found only in the first edition, and were thrown out of the revision for the copy from which the folio was printed, perhaps for the reason intimated by Johnson, that the expression is obscure, and the construction harsh, and in shortening the drama for the stage, the author “chose to throw away the lines rather than correct them." They are nevertheless characteristic of the speaker. The only difficulty as to the sense is, whether "they" refers to 'old men" or to "flatterers." "Old men must be treated as babes, and checked as well as flattered, when they are seen to be abused, or injured by flattery;" or better, with Tyrwhitt and Malone, "Old men must, like babes, be treated harshly, as well as flattered (or soothed) when flatteries are seen to be abused," which seems to me quite satisfactory. This would be made more clear by a strong emphasis on they.

SCENE IV.

"That can my speech DIFFUSE"-To diffuse meant, in the time of Shakespeare, to disorder or confuse. A "diffused song," in the MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR, meant obscure, indistinct. We find, in Stowe's Chronicle, "I doubt not but thy speech shall be more diffuse to him, than his French shall be to thee."

"Let me not stay a jot for dinner."--" In Lear old age is itself a character,--its natural imperfections being increased by life-long habits of receiving a prompt obedience. Any addition of individuality would have been unnecessary and painful; for the relations of others to him, of wondrous fidelity and of frightful ingratitude, alone sufficiently distinguish him. Thus Lear becomes the open and ample play-room of nature's passions.”— COLERIDGE.

"the fool hath much pined away." ."--" The Fool is no common buffoon to make the groundlings laugh,— no forced condescension of Shakespeare's genius to the taste of his audience. Accordingly the Poet prepares for his introduction, which he never does with any of

his common clowns and fools, by bringing him into living connection with the pathos of the play. He is as wonderful a creation as Caliban;-his wild babblings, and inspired idiocy, articulate and guage the horrors of the scene."-COLERIDGE.

"Now, our joy, though last, not least,' my dearest of all fools, Lear's Fool! Ah, what a noble heart, a gentle and a loving one, lies beneath that party-coloured jerkin! Thou hast been cruelly treated. Regan and Goneril could but hang thee, while the unfeeling players did worse; for they tainted thy character, and at last thrust thee from the stage, as one unfit to appear in their worshipful company. Regardless of that warning voice, forbidding them to speak more than is set down for them,' they have put into thy mouth words so foreign to thy nature, that they might, with as much propriety, be given to Cardinal Wolsey. But let me take thee, without addition or diminution, from the hands of Shakespeare, and then thou art one of his perfect creations. Look at him! It may be your eyes see him not as mine do, but he appears of a light delicate frame, every feature expressive of sensibility even to pain, with eyes lustrously intelligent, a mouth blandly beautiful, and withal a hectic flush upon his cheek. O that I were a painter! O that I could describe him as I knew him in my boyhood, when the Fool made me shed tears, while Lear did but terrify me!

"I have sometimes speculated on filling an octavo on Shakespeare's admirable introduction of characters. This would rank among his best. We are prepared to see him with his mind full of the fatal division of the kingdom,' and oppressed with 'thick-coming fancies; and when he appears before us we are convinced of both, though not in an ordinary way. Those who have never read any thing but the French theatre, or the English plays of the last century, would expect to see him upon the scene wiping his eyes with his cloak; as if the worst sorrows did not often vent themselves in jests, and that there are not beings who dare not trust their nature with a serious face when the soul is deeply struck. Besides, his profession compels him to raillery and seeming jollity. The very excess of merriment is here an evidence of grief; and when he enters throwing his coxcomb at Kent, and instantly follows it up with allusions to the miserable rashness of Lear, we ought to understand him from that moment to the last. Throughout this scene his wit, however varied, still aims at the same point; and in spite of threats, and regardless how his words may be construed by Goneril's Creatures, with the eagerness of a filial love he prompts the old king to 'resume the shape he had cast off.' 'This is not altogether fool, my lord.' But alas! it is too late; and when driven from the scene by Goneril, he turns upon her with an indignation that knows no fear of the halter for himself.'

"That such a character should be distorted by players, printers, and commentators! Observe every word he speaks; his meaning, one would imagine, could not be misinterpreted; and when at length, finding his covert reproaches can avail nothing, he changes his discourse to simple mirth, in order to distract the sorrows of his master. When Lear is in the storm, who is with him? None-not even Kent

None but the Fool; who labours to outjest
His heart-struck injuries.

The tremendous agony of Lear's mind would be too painful, and even deficient in pathos, without this poor faithful servant at his side. It is he that touches our hearts with pity, while Lear fills the imagination to aching. The explosions of his passion,' as Lamb has written in an excellent criticism, are terrible as a volcano; they are storms turning up, and disclosing to the bottom that sea, his mind, with all its vast riches.' Such a scene wanted relief, and Shakespeare, we may rely upon it, gives us the best. But it is acted otherwise,no, it is Tate that is acted. Let them, if they choose, bring this tragedy on the stage; but, by all means, let us not be without the Fool. I can imagine an actor in this

part, with despair in his face, and a tongue for ever struggling with a jest, that should thrill every bosom. What! banish him from the tragedy, when Lear says, 'I have one part in my heart that's sorry for thee;' and when he so feelingly addresses him with, Come on, my boy: how dost, my boy? Art cold? I am cold myself. At that pitch of rage, Off! off, you lendings! Come, unbutton here!' could we but see the Fool throw himself into his master's arms, to stay their fury, looking up in his countenance with eyes that would fain appear as if they wept not, and hear his pathetic entreaty, Pr'ythee, nuncle, be contented ;'-pshaw! these players know nothing of their trade. While Gloster and Kent are planning to procure shelter for the king, whose wits at that time begin to unsettle,' he remains silent in grief; but afterwards, in the farm-house, we find him endeavouring to divert the progress of Lear's madness, as it becomes haunted by the visions of his daughters, and that in the most artful manner, by humouring the wanderings of his reason, and then striving to dazzle him with cheerfulness. At the last, we behold him, when all his efforts are proved unavailing, utterly dumb."-CH. ARMITAGE BROWN.

"there, take my coxcomb"-By "coxcomb" the fool means his cap; called so because on the top of it was sewed a piece of red cloth, resembling the comb of a cock. Hence the modern use denotes a vain, conceited fellow.

"How now, NUNCLE"-A familiar contraction of mine uncle, as ningle, &c. The customary appellation of the old licensed fool to his superiors was uncle. In Beaumont and Fletcher's "Pilgrim," when Alinda assumes the character of a fool, she uses the same language. She meets Alphonso, and calls him nuncle; to which he replies by calling her naunt. In the same style, the fools call each other cousins. Mon oncle was long a term of respect and familiar endearment in France, as well as ma tante. They have a proverb, "Il est bien mon oncle, qui le ventre me comble." It is remarkable that the lower people in Shropshire call the judge of assize "my nuncle the judge." "-NARES AND VAILLANT.

"when the lady BRACH"-A "brach" was a female hound, but the word was also used for dogs in general.

"Lend less than thou owEST,

Learn more than thou TROWEST." Owe had a double and apparently contradictory sense in old English-its present one, and that now obsolete, and answering to the verb "to own." The latter sense was still common in Shakespeare's day, as in the TEMPEST, "no sound that the earth owes," and may be found in Massinger, and Drayton, and even the prose writers of that day. The proverb then means, "Do not lend all you have." To trow is to believe: as, "Do not believe all you hear."

"and LOADS too"-Modern editors, without the slightest authority, read "and ladies too," when the old copies have not a word about ladies: all the fool

means to say is, that if he had a monopoly of folly, great men would have part of it, and a large part, too"and loads too"-printed lodes in the quartos.

66 -now thou art an O WITHOUT A FIGURE"-The Fool means, that Lear, "having pared his wit on both sides, and left nothing in the middle," is become a mere cipher.-MALONE.

"we were left darkling"-Dr. Farmer supposes that the words-" So, out went the candle," &c., are a fragment of some old song. Shakespeare's fools are certainly copied from the life. The originals whom he copied were no doubt men of quick parts; lively and sarcastic. Though they were licensed to say any thing, it was still necessary to prevent giving offence, that every thing they said should have a playful air: we may suppose, therefore, that they had a custom of taking off the edge of too sharp a speech by covering it hastily with the end of an old song, or any glib nonsense that came into the mind. I know of no other way of accounting for the incoherent words with which Shakespeare often finishes this Fool's speeches.-SIR J. REYNOLDS.

"Lear's shadow"-Here, with M. Mason, Singer and Knight, we follow the folio arrangement, in preference to that of the quartos, (adopted by Stevens, Malone, Collier, and most later editors,) which read "Lear's shadow" as a broken sentence of Lear's own speech.

"Who is it can tell me who I am?" says Lear. In the folio, the reply, "Lear's shadow," is rightly given to the Fool, but the latter part of the speech of Lear is omitted in that copy. Lear heeds not what the Fool replies to his question, but continues :-"Were I to judge from the marks of sovereignty, knowledge, or reason, I should think I had daughters, yet that must be a false persuasion;-It cannot be-." The Fool seizes the pause in Lear's speech to continue his interrupted reply to Lear's question: he had before said, "You are Lear's shadow;" he now adds, "which they (i. e. your daughters) will make an obedient father." Lear heeds him not in his emotion, but addresses Goneril with "Your name, fair gentlewoman."-SINGER.

"Than the SEA-MONSTER"--The sea-monster is the Hippopotamus, the hieroglyphical symbol of impiety and ingratitude. Sandys, in his "Travels," says--" that he killeth his sire, and ravisheth his own dam."--UPTON.

"Hear, nature, hear."-The classical reader will find a very remarkable and noble parallel to this imprecation in that of Edipus upon his sons, in the "Edipus Coloneus" of Sophocles. There is not the remotest probability that the Greek drama was in any way known to Shakespeare, as whatever might have been the precise extent of his literary acquirements, Greek tragedy was certainly not within their limits, and Sophocles had not then been translated. Nor is there in these lines any of that sort of similarity which marks imitation, whether immediate, or as sometimes happens, indirect and unconscious. The resemblance is that of deep passion, not that of imagery. It is the coincidence of genius in distant ages, and under very different influences of taste, and manners, and opinions, pourtraying the same terrible intensity of parental malediction. The curse of Edipus is prophetic of the fate of his sons, and dictated by the mythological and fatalist opinions of Greece. Shakespeare appeals to universal feeling, invoking on the ungrateful child pangs similar to those which she inflicts.

The mode of delivering this terrific imprecation was much discussed by the critics of the last century. Booth, the rival of Garrick, spoke it after the traditionary manner of Betterton, and very probably much as Burbage, the original Lear of the Poet's own day, had pronounced it—with fierce and rapid vehemence. Garrick depicted the struggles of parental affection, and shifting emotions of contending passions, for which he was considered by the critics of the older school as too deliberate, and wanting in indignant energy. His contemporary, Davies, thus defends him in " Davies's Miscellanies:"

"We should reflect that Lear is not agitated by one

passion alone, that he is not moved by rage, grief, or indignation singly, but by a tumultuous combination of them all together, when all claim to be heard at once, and when one naturally interrupts the progress of the other. Shakespeare wrote them for the mouth of one who was to assume the action of an old man of fourscore, for a father as well as a monarch, in whom the most bitter execrations are accompanied with extreme anguish, with deep sighs and involuntary tears. Garrick rendered the curse so deeply affecting to the audience that during his utterance of it they seemed to shrink from it as from a blast of lightning. His preparation for it was extremely affecting; his throwing away his crutch, kneeling on one knee, clasping his hands together, and lifting his eyes towards heaven, presented a picture worthy the pencil of a Raphael.”

Kemble appears to have returned to the original idea of unmixed wrath. Boaden thus describes this curse, as given by him in his best personification of Lear:

"The curse, as he then enacted it, harrowed up the soul; the gathering himself together, with the hands convulsively clasped, the increasing power, and rapidity, and suffocation of the concluding words, all evinced profound emotion. His countenance, in grandeur, approached the most awful impersonation of Michael Angelo."

Walter Scott has, in his review of the "Life of Kemble," preserved an anecdote of Mrs. Siddons, which shows that that great expounder of Shakespeare's thoughts had again taken a different view of the most effective means of embodying and giving expression to this terrible burst of passion. Her recitations of the scenes of Lear, Othello, and other male characters, given in her public readings, are remembered by critics as among the noblest and most exquisite specimens of the art, more admirable as exhibited alone, without the aid or illusion of the interest, or dialogue, or costume of the stage.

Scott, after observing that Kemble at times sacrificed energy of action to grace, adds:--" We remember the observation being made by Mrs. Siddons herself; nor shall we easily forget the mode in which she illustrated her meaning. She arose and placed herself in the attitude of one of the old Egyptian statues; the knees joined together, and the feet turned a little inwards. She placed her elbows close to her sides, folded her hands, and held them upright, with the palms pressed to each other. Having made us observe that she had assumed one of the most constrained, and, therefore, most ungraceful positions possible, she proceeded to recite the curse of Lear on his undutiful offspring, in a manner which made hair rise and flesh creep; and then called on us to remark the additional effect which was gained by the concentrated energy which the unusual and ungraceful posture itself applied."

"And from her DEROGATE body."-Degraded, blasted, as in CYMBELINE, "Is there no derogation on it?"

"Th' UNTENTED woundings of a father's curse."The rankling or never-healing wounds inflicted by parental malediction. Tents are well-known dressings inserted into wounds as a preparative to healing them. Shakespeare quibbles upon this surgical practice in TROILUS AND CRESSIDA:-

Patr. Who keeps the tent now?

Ther. The surgeon's box, or the patient's wound.

"I cannot be so partial," etc.-Observe the baffled endeavour of Goneril to act on the fears of Albany, and yet his passiveness, his inertia; he is not convinced, and yet he is afraid of looking into the thing. Such characters always yield to those who will take the trouble of governing them, or for them. Perhaps, the influence of a princess, whose choice of him had royalized his state, may be some little excuse for Albany's weakness.-COLERIDGE.

"AT POINT a hundred knights”—i. e. complely armed, and consequently ready at appointment or command on the slightest notice.

SCENE V. "O, let me not be mad," etc.-The mind's own anticipation of madness! The deepest tragic notes are often struck by a half sense of an impending blow. The Fool's conclusion of this act by a grotesque prattling seems to indicate the dislocation of feeling that has begun and is to be continued.-COLERIDGE.

Fool's last couplet.-It is but justice to the Poet to state that the two or three passages delivered by the Fool in this play occur in the form of tags (as they are technically called;) that is, phrases or lines spoken in conclusion, or while making an exit. These were probably interpolations in the first instance, and gradually became incorporated with the text of the prompter'sbook. The severity with which the Poet, in Hamlet's advice to the players, remarks on the clowns "speaking more than was set down for them," indicates that he had himself suffered in this way.

(Sophocles. From a Bust in the British Museum.)

ACT II.-SCENE I.

queazy"-is used by old writers from Hackluyt to Milton, as it still is provincially, for that state of the stomach which is easily provoked to sickness, and thence metaphorically for any tendency to disease or danger.

"Do more than this in sport"-Passages are quoted from dramatic writers of the time to show, that young men, out of gallantry stabbed their arms, in order to drink the healths of their mistresses in blood.

"And found-dispatch."-The sense is interrupted. He shall be caught-and, found, he shall be punished with dispatch.-JOHNSON.

"My worthy ARCH"-i. e. chief; now used only in composition, as arch-duke, arch-angel, &c.-STEVENS. "And found him PIGHT to do it, with CURST speech," etc.-"Pight" is pitched, fixed, settled. "Curst" is severe, harsh, vehemently angry.-JOHNSON.

"Thou unpossessing bastard."-Thus the secret poison in Edmund's own heart steals forth; and then observe poor Gloster's

Loyal and natural boy!

as if praising the crime of Edmund's birth!-COLERIDGE. "My very CHARACTER"-i. e. my own hand-writing. "To make thee CAPABLE"-i. e. capable of inheriting his father's lands and rank, which, as an illegitimate son, he could not otherwise do. The word in this sense was of common use.

"What! did my father's godson seek your life?"Compare this speech of Regan's with the unfeminine violence of her

All vengeance comes too short, &c.,-and yet no reference to the guilt, but only to the accident, which she uses as an occasion for sneering at her

father. Regan is not, in fact, a greater monster than Goneril, but she has the power of casting more venom.— COLERIDGE.

"He did BEWRAY his practice"-The quartos here read betray for "bewray," which is the older word for the same meaning.

SCENE II.

"If I had thee in Lipsbury pinfold," etc.-Lipsbury pinfold may, perhaps, like "Lob's pond," be a coined name, but with what allusion does not appear.

"thy ADDITION"-The description of an individual in a legal document is called his addition. Action-taking knave is one who would bring a suit for a beating, instead of defending himself. "Glass-gazing" refers to Oswald's vanity in the frequent use of the mirror. For the rest, we must, with Johnson, confess our inability to explain the epithets, many of which, seem slang phrases of the times.

"nature disclaims IN thee"-We should now say “nature disclaims thee;" but the text was the phraseology of the time, as may be proved by various instances: one from Ben Jonson will be sufficient:

And, then, his father's oft disclaiming in him.

"this UNBOLTED villain"-i. e. this unsifted or coarse villain.-COLLIER.

"— halcyon beaks"-The halcyon is the kingfisher; and there was a popular opinion that the bird, if hung up, would indicate by the turning of its beak the point from which the wind blew. So in Marlowe's "Jew of Malta:"

But how now stands the wind?

Into what corner peers my halcyon's bill ?

"-home to CAMELOT"-In Somersetshire, where the romances say that King Arthur kept his western court. It is mentioned in Drayton's "Polyolbion," song iii. Great quantities of geese were bred on the moors there, but the allusion seems to be to some proverbial speech, perhaps from the old romances of King Arthur.

"GREAT aspect"-The quartos have grand. The change was not made without reason. Although Kent meant to go out of his dialect, the word grand sounded ironically, and was calculated to offend more than was needful.-KNIGHT.

"When he, COMPACT"-" Compact" here means in concert with, having entered into a compact. The word used in the quartos, and many modern editions, is conjunct, which admits a similar explanation.

"the FLESHMENT of this dread exploit"-A young soldier is said to flesh his sword the first time he draws blood with it. Fleshment, therefore, is metaphorically applied to the first act of service, which Kent, in his new capacity, had performed for his master; and, at the same time, in a sarcastic sense, as though he had esteemed it an heroic exploit to trip a man behind who was actually falling.-HENLEY.

"But Ajax is THEIR fool"—Meaning, as we should now express it, Ajax is a fool to them; there are none of these knaves and cowards but if you believe themselves, who are not so brave that Ajax is a fool compared to them. When a man is compared to one who excels him much in any art, it is a vulgar expression to say, "Oh, he is but a fool to him." So, in the TAMING OF THE SHREW,

Tut, she's a lamb, a dove, a fool to him.

"To the warm sun"-The common saw here alluded to is found in Heywood's "Dialogues and Proverbs:"— In your running from him to me,

Ye run out of God's blessing into the warm sun. When Hamlet says "I am too much i' the sun," he refers to the same proverb.

the original copies there are no stage-directions; but in the modern editions which preceded Johnson's, we find several of these explanations which have been rejected of late years. When Kent says―

Approach, thou beacon to this under globethere was formerly inserted in the margin, looking up to the moon. It is now agreed that the beacon is the sun; and that Kent wishes for its rising, that he may read the letter.. But when he says "'tis from Cordelia," a direction was added-opening the letter. Some of the remaining portions of his speech these editors consider as parts of the letter, and give a direction accordingly. We agree with Malone that, although Kent has a letter from Cordelia, and knows that she has been informed of his "obscured course," he is unable to read it in the dim dawning. Tieck says, "The Poet desires here to remind us again of Cordelia, and to give a distant intimation that wholly new events are about to be introduced."-KNIGHT.

Collier rejects the interpolated stage-directions, but interprets the words as broken parts of Cordelia's letter, read by an imperfect light. I do not find any difficulty in the passage, and understand it as well explained by Mr. Singer:

"Its evident meaning appears to me to be as follows: Kent addresses the sun, for whose rising he is impatient, that he may read Cordelia's letter. 'Nothing (says he) almost sees miracles, but misery: I know this letter which I hold in my hand is from Cordelia; who hath most fortunately been informed of my disgrace and wandering in disguise; and who seeking it, shall find time (i. e. opportunity) out of this enormous (i. e. disordered, unnatural) state of things, to give losses their remedies; to restore her father to his kingdom, herself to his love, and me to his favour.'"

SCENE III.

"Enter EDGAR."

Edgar's assumed madness serves the purpose of taking off part of the shock which would otherwise be caused by the true madness of Lear, and further displays the profound difference between the two. In every attempt at representing madness throughout the whole range of dramatic literature, with the single exception of Lear, it is mere light-headedness, as especially in Otway. In Edgar's ravings, Shakespeare all the while lets you see a fixed purpose, a practical end in view;-in Lear's, there is only the brooding of the one anguish, an eddy without progression."-COLERIDge.

"Of BEDLAM BEGGARS"-Mr. D'Israeli, in his "Curiosities of Literature," thus speaks of "Bedlam beggars:"

"The fullest account that I have obtained of these singular persons is drawn from a manuscript note, from some of Aubrey's papers :

"Till the breaking out of the civil wars, Tom o' Bedlams did travel about the country; they had been poor distracted men, that had been put into Bedlam, where recovering some soberness, they were licentiated to go a begging; i. e. they had on their left arm an armilla, an iron ring for the arm, about four inches long, as printed in some works. They could not get it off: they wore about their necks a great horn of an ox, in a string or bawdrick, which, when they came to a house, they did wind, and they put the drink given to them into this horn, whereto they put a stopple. Since the wars, I do not remember to have seen any one of them.""

Stevens has gleaned from other old books the follow ing notices of these vagabonds :

"Randle Holme, in his Academy of Arms and Blazon,' has the following passage:-'The Bedlam is in the same garb, with a long staff, and a cow or ox horn by his side; but his cloathing is more fantastick and ridiculous; for, being a madman, he is madly decked and dressed all over with rubins, feathers, cuttings of cloth, and what not? to make him seem a madman, or one

distracted, when he is no other than a dissembling knave.'

"In 'The Bellman of London,' by Decker, 1640, is another account of one of these characters, under the title of what he calls an Abraham Man :-' He sweares he hath been in Bedlam, and will talk frantickely of purpose: you see pinnes stuck in sundry places of his naked flesh, especially in his armes, which paine he gladly puts himself to, only to make you believe he is out of his wits. He calls himself by the name of Poore Tom, and comming near any body cries out Poore Tom is a-cold. Of these Abraham men, some be exceeding merry, and doe nothing but sing songs fashioned out of their own braines: some will dance, others will doe nothing but either laugh or weepe: others are dogged, and so sullen both in loke and speech, that spying but a small company in a house, they boldly and bluntly enter, compelling the servants through feare to give them what they demand.'"

"Poor PELTING villages"--Petty, of little worth. "Lunatic BANS"--i. e. Curses.

"Poor Turly good"--Warburton would read Turlupin, and Hanmer Turluru; but there is a better reason for rejecting both these terms than for preferring either, namely, that Turly good is the corrupted word in our language. The Turlupins were a fanatical sect that over-ran France, Italy, and Germany, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. They were at first known by the names of Beghards or Beghins, and brethren and sisters of the free spirit. Their manners and appearance exhibited the strongest indications of lunacy and distraction. The common people alone called them Turlupins; a name which, though it has excited much doubt and controversy, seems obviously to be connected with the wolvish howlings which these people in all probability would make when influenced by their religious ravings. Their subsequent appellation of the fraternity of Poor Men might have been the cause why the wandering rogues called Bedlam beggars, and one of whom Edgar personates, assumed or obtained the title of Turlupins or Turly goods, especially if their mode of asking alms was accompanied by the gesticulations of madmen. Turlupino and Turluru are old Italian terms for a fool or madman; and the Flemings had a proverb, "As unfortunate as Turlupin and his children."-DOUCE.

Collier conjectures ingeniously but without any anthority of old authors, that "Turly good is a corruption of Thoroughly good."

SCENE IV.

wooden NETHER-STOCKS"-" Nether-stocks" were stockings, and were distinguished from upper-stocks, or over-stocks, as breeches were called.-COLLIER.

"They summon'd up their MEINY"-i. e. their retinue, or menials. The word is sometimes used for a family or retinue, and sometimes in the sense of the multitude; therefore there is good reason for thinking it the ancient mode of spelling "many," and of the same original meaning. Some etymologists resolve it into the old French "mesnie" or "maisonic," a household, from maison.

"Thou shalt have as many DOLOURS"--There is a quibble here between dolours and dollars.--KNIGHT.

"O, how this MOTHER swells," etc.-Lear here affects to pass off the swelling of his heart ready to burst with grief and indignation, for the disease called the mother, or hysterica passio, which, in our author's time, was not thought peculiar to women.-JOHNSON.

In Harsnet's "Declaration of Popish Impostures," Richard Mainy, gentleman, one of the pretended demoniacs, deposes that the first night that he came to the seat of Mr. Peckham, where these impostures were managed, he was somewhat evil at ease, and he grew worse and worse with an old disease that he had, and