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my affection to your Honour, and to no other 7 pretence of danger.

you

Gl. Think you fo?

you

Edm. If your Honour judge it meet, I will place where fhall hear us confer of this, and by an auricular affurance have your fatisfaction, and that without any further delay than this very evening. Glo. He cannot be fuch a monster.

Edm. Nor is not, fure.

8

Glo. To his Father, that fo tenderly and entirely loves him--Heav'n and Earth! Edmund, feek him out; wind me into him, I pray you. Frame the bufinefs after your own wifdom; I would unftate myfelf, to be in a due refolution.

Edm. I will feek him, Sir, prefently, 'convey the business as I fhall find means, and acquaint you withal.

2

Glo. These late eclipfes in the fun and moon portend no good to us; tho' the wifdom of nature can reafon it thus and thus, yet nature finds itself scourg'd

7 Pretence is defign. purpose. So afterwards in this play, Pretence and purpose of unkindness.

8 vind me into him.] I once thought it should be read, you into him; but, perhaps, it is a familiar phrafe like, d me this.

9 I would unflate mflf, to be in a due r folution] i. e. I will throw afide all confideration of my relation to him, that I may act as juftice requires.

WARBURTON. Such is this learned man's explanation. I take the meaning to be rather this, Do you frame the bufinef, who can act with lefs emotion; I would undate myself; it would in me be a departure from the paternal character, to

be in a due refolution, to be fet-
tled and composed on fuch an
occafion.

The words would and should
are in old language often con-
founded.

convey the business] Convey, for introduce: but convey is a fine word, as alluding to the practice of clandeftine conveying goods fo as not to be found upon the felon. WARBURTON.

To convey is rather to carry through than to introduce; in this place it is to manage artfully; we fay of a juggler, that he has a clean conveyance.

2 the wifdem of nature] That is, though natural philosophy can give account of eclipfes, yet we feel their confequences.

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by the sequent effects. Love cools, frie ship falls off, brothers divide. In cities, mutinies; in countries, difcord; in palaces, treafon; and the bond crack'd 'twixt fon and facher. This villain of mine comes under the prediction, there's fon agaiaft father; the King falls from biais of nature, there's father against child. We have seen the best of our time. Machinations, hollowness, treachery, and all ruinous diforders follow us difquietly to our graves!--Find out this villan, Edmund; it fhall loofe thee nothing, do it carefully.

and the noble and true-hearted Kent banifh'd! his offence, Honesty. 'Tis ftrange.

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[Exit.

Edm. This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are fick in fortune, (often the furfeits

3 This is the excellent foppery of the world, &c.] In ShakeSpear's best plays, befides the vices that arife from the fubject, there is generally fome peculiar prevailing folly, principally ridiculed, that runs thro' the whole piece Thus, in the Tempeft, the lying difpofition of travellers, and in A you ke it, the fantastick humour of courtiers, is expofed and fari fed with infinite pleafantry. In like manner, in his play of Lear, the dotages of judicial aftrology are feverely ridiculed. If ny, was the date of its first performance well confidered, it would be found that fomething or other happened at that time which gave a more than ordinar run to this deceit, as theie words feem to intimate, I am thinking, brother, of a predic

of

tion I read this other day, what fhould follow thefe ecitjes. However this be, an impious cheat, which had fo little foundation in nature or reafon, fo detestable an original, and fuch fatal confequences on the manners of the people, who were at that time itrangely befotted with it, certainly deferved the fever.it lafh of fatire. It was a fundamental in this noble fcence, that whatever feeds of good difpofitions the infant unborn might be endowed with, either from nature, or traductively from its parents, yet if, at the time of its birth, the delivery was by any cafualty fo accelerated or retaided, as to fall in with the predominancy of a malignant conftellation, that momentary influence would entirely change its nature, and

of our own behaviour) we make guilty of our difafters, the fun, the moon and ftars; as if we were

bias it to all the contrary ill qualities. So wretched and monftrous an opinion did it fet out with. But the Italians, to whom we owe this, as well as molt other unnatural crimes and follies of thefe latter ages, fomented its ori inal impicty to the moft detestable height of extravagance. Perus done fis, an Italian phyfician of the XIith century, affures us that thofe prayers which are made to God when the moon is in conjunction with Jupiter in the Dragon's tail, are infallibly head.

The

great Milton with a juft indigiation of this impiety, hath, in his Parade Re aine, atirized it in a very beautiful manner, by putting hete reveries into the mouth of the Devil. Nor could the licentious Rabelais him.elf for bear to ridicule this

impious dotage, which he does with exquifite addrefs and humour, where, in the fable which he fo agreeably tells from

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of the man who applied to Jupier for the lofs of his hatchet, he makes thofe, who, on the poor man's good fuccefs, had projected to trick Jupiter by the fame petition, a kind of aftrologick atheists, who afcribed this good fortune, that they imagined they were now all going to partake of, to the influence of fome rare conjunction and configuration of the flars. Hen, ben, djent ils-Et doncques, telle eft au temps prifint la revolution des Cie lx, la confiellation des Af tres, affect des Planetes, que

quiconque Coignée perdra, foubdan deviendra ai fi ricle?Nou. Prol. du IV. Livre.

but to return to Shakespear. So blafphemous a delufion, therefore, it became the honesty of our poet to expofe. But it was a tender point, and required managing. For this impious juggle had in his time a kind of religious reverence paid to it. It was therefore to be done obliquely; and the circumflances of the fcene furnished him with as good an opportunity as he could with. The perfons in the drama are all fo that as, pagans, in compliance to custom, his good characters were not to speak il of judicial Aftrology, they could on account of their religion give no reputation to it. But in order to expofe it the more, he, with great judgment, makes thefe pagans Fatalifts; as appears by these words of Lear, By all the operations of the orbs, From whom we do exift and ceafe to be.

For the doctrine of fate is the true foundation of judicial ALtrology. Having thus difcredited it by the very commendations given to it, he was in no danger of having his direct fatire againft it miftaken, by its being put (as he was obliged, both in paying regard to cuftom, and in following nature) into the mouth of the villain and atheit, efpecially when he has added fuch force of reafon to his ridicule, in the words referred to in the beginning of the note. WARB.

villains

villains on neceffity; fools, by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and treacherous, by fpherical predominice; drunkards, lyars, and adulterers, by an inforc'd obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrufting on. 4 An admirable evafion of whore mafter Man, to lay his goatish difpofition on the charge of a ftar! my father compounded with my mother under the Dragon's tail, and my nativity was under Urfa major; fo that it follows, I am rough and lecherous. I fhould have been what I am, had the maidenlicft ftar in the firmament twinkled on my baftardizing.

Pat!

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To him, Enter Edgar.

5 he comes, like the Cataftrophe of the

old comedy; my cue is villainous Melancholy, with a

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troduction of the perfons of the Drama into the icene, jutt in the nick of time, or fat, as our autor fays, makes the fimilitu ie very proper. This, without doubt, is the fupreme beauty of Comedy, con ered as an action. And as it depends folely on a ftrict obfervance of the Un ne, it fheas that the fe Urities are in nature, and in the 1 afon of things, and not in a meer arbitrary invention of the Greeks, as foine of our own count y critics, of a low mechanic genius, have, by their works, perfuade! our it to believe. For common fenfe requring that the fubje& of ene comedy fhould be one ali n, aud that that action fhould be contained nearly within the period of time which the reprefentation

of

figh like Tom o' Bedlam—

-O, thefe eclipfes portend

thefe divifions! fa, fol, la, me

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

Edm. I am thinking, brother, of a prediction I read this other day, what fhould follow thefe eclipfes. Edg. Do you bufy yourfelf with that?

Edm. I promile you, the effects, he writes of, fucceed unhappily. When faw you my father last? Edg.

of it takes up; hence we have the unities of Time and Action; and, from thefe, unavoidably arifes the third, which is that of Place. For when the whole of one action is included within a proportionable fall face of time, there is no room to change the fene, but all must be done upon one pot of ground. Now from this laft unity (the neceflary illue of the two other, which de rive immediately from nature) proceeds all that beauty of the catajirophe, or the winding up the plot in the ancient comedy. For all the perfons of the Drama being to appear and act on one limited fpot, and being by their feveral interefts to embarras, and at length to conduct the action to its deftin'd period, there is need of confummate kill to bring thenon, and take them off, naturally and nearly for the grace of action requires the one, and the perfection of it the other. Which conduct of the action, muit needs produce a beauty that will give a judicious mind the highest leafure. On the other hand, when a comic writer has a whole country to range in, nothing is eafier than to find the

perfons of the Drama juft where he would have them; and this requiring no art, the beauty we fpeak of is not to be found. Confequently a violation of the unities deprives the Drama of one of its greatest beauties; which proves what I afferted, that the three unities are no arbitrary mechanic invention, but founded in reafon and the nature of things. The Tempest of Shake

ear fufficiently proves him to be well acquainted with these unities; and the paflage in queftion fhews him to have been ftruck with the beauty that results from them. WARBURTON,

61promife you,] The folio edition commonly differs from the first quarto, by augmentations or infertions, but in this place it varies by omiffion, and by the omiffion of fomething which naturally introduces the following dialogue. The quarto has the paffage thus:

I promife you, the effects, he writes of, Jucceed unhappily, as of unnaturalnefs between the child and parent, death, dearth, difjolutions of ancient amities, divifons in ftate, minces and maledictions against kng and nobles,

nced

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