Complete Works of Samuel Johnson

by Samuel Johnson

  I.v.25 (359,2) I did her wrong] He is musing on Cordelia.

  I.v.42 (359,3) To take it again perforce!] He is meditating on the resumption of his royalty.

  II.i.9 (360,1) ear-kissing arguments] Subjects of discourse; topics.

  II.i.19 (361,2) queazy question] Something of a suspicious, questionable, and uncertain nature. This is, I think, the meaning.

  II.i.27 (361,4) have you nothing said/Upon his party ‘gainst the duke of Albany?] I cannot but think the line corrupted, and would read,

  Against his party, for the duke of Albany?

  II.i.57 (363,7) gasted] Frighted.

  II.i.59 (363,8) Not in this land shall he remain uncaught;/And found — Dispatch] [Not in this land shall he remain uncaught; And found dispatch — the noble duke, &c.]

  [W: found, dispatch’d.] I do not see how this change mends the sense: I think it may be better regulated as in the page above. The sense is interrupted. He shall be caught — and found, he shall be punished. Dispatch.

  II.i.67 (363,2) And found him pight to do it, with curst speech] Pight is pitched, fixed, settled. Curst is severe, harsh, vehemently angry.

  II.i.122 (366,7) Occasions, noble Glo’ster, of some prize] [W: poize] Prize, or price, for value. (1773)

  II.i.126 (366,8) from our home] Not at home, but at some other place.

  II.ii.9 (367,1) Lipsbury pinfold] The allusion which seems to be contained in this line I do not understand. In the violent eruption of reproaches which bursts from Kent in this dialogue, there are some epithets which the commentators have left unexpounded, and which I am not very able to make clear. Of a three-suited knave I know not the meaning, unless it be that he has different dresses for different occupations. Lilly-liver’d is cowardly; white-blooded and white-liver’d are still in vulgar use. An one-trunk-inheriting slave, I take to be a wearer of old cast-off cloaths, an inheritor of torn breeches.

  II.ii.36 (368,4) barber-monger] Of this word I do not clearly see the force.

  II.ii.39 (368,5) Vanity the puppet’s] Alluding to the mysteries or allegorical shews, in which vanity, iniquity, and other vices, were personified.

  II.ii.45 (369,6) neat slave] You mere slave, you very slave.

  II.ii.69 (369,8) Thou whoreson zed; thou unnecessary letter!] I do not well understand how a man is reproached by being called zed, nor how Z is an unnecessary letter. Scarron compares his deformity to the shape of Z, and it may be a proper word of insult to a crook-backed man; but why should Gonerill’s steward be crooked, unless the allusion be to his bending or cringing posture in the presence of his superiors. Perhaps it was written, thou whoreson C (for cuckold) thou unnecessary letter. C is a letter unnecessary in our alphabet, one of its two sounds being represented by S, and one by K. But all the copies concur in the common reading.

  II.ii.87 (371,3) epileptic visage!] The frighted countenance of a man ready to fall in a fit.

  II.ii.103 (372,5) constrains the garb/Quite from his nature] Forces his outside or his appearance to something totally different from his natural disposition.

  II.ii.109 (372,8) Than twenty silly ducking observants] [W: silky] The alteration is more ingenious than the arguments by which it is supported.

  II.ii.119 (373,8) though I should win your displeasure to intreat me to’t] Though I should win you, displeased as you now are, to like me so well as to intreat me to be a knave.

  II.ii.167 (375,3)

  Good king, that must approve the common saw!

  Thou out of heaven’s benediction com’at

  To the warm sun!]

  That art now to exemplify the common proverb, That out of, &c. That changest better for worse. Hanmer observes, that it is a proverbial saying, applied to those who are turned out of house and home to the open weather. It was perhaps first used of men dismissed from an hospital, or house of charity, such as was erected formerly in many places for travellers. Those houses had names properly enough alluded to by heaven’s benediction.

  II.ii.173 (376,4)

  I know ’tis from Cordelia;

  Who hath most fortunately been inform’d

  Of my obscur’d coarse, and shall find time

  From this enormous state, seeking to give

  Losses their remedies]

  This passage, which some of the editors have degraded, as spurious, to the margin, and others have silently altered, I have faithfully printed according to the quarto, from which the folio differs only in punctuation. The passage is very obscure, if not corrupt. Perhaps it may be read thus:

  — Cordelia — has been — informed.

  Of my obscur’d course, and shall find time

  From this enormous state-seeking, to give

  Losses their remedies. —

  Cordelia is informed of our affairs, and when the enormous care of seeking her fortune will allow her time, she will employ it in remedying losses. This is harsh; perhaps something better may be found. I have at least supplied the genuine reading of the old copies. Enormous is unwonted, out of rule, out of the ordinary course of things.

  II.iii.18 (377,2) Poor pelting villages] Pelting is, I believe, only an accidental depravation of petty. Shakespeare uses it in the Midsummer-Night’s Dream of small brooks.

  II.iii.20 (378,3) Poor Turlygood! poor Tom!] [W: Turlupin] Hanmer reads, poor Turlurd. It is probable the word Turlygood was the common corrupt pronunciation.

  II.iii.21 (378,4) Edgar I nothing am] As Edgar I am out-lawed, dead in law; I have no longer any political existence.

  II.iv (378,1) Changes again to the earl of Glo’ster’s castle] It is not very clearly discovered why Lear comes hither. In the foregoing part he sent a letter to Glo’ster; but no hint is given of its contents. He seems to have gone to visit Glo’ster while Cornwall and Regan might prepare to entertain him.

  II.iv.24 (380,4) To do upon respect such violent outrage] To violate the public and venerable character of a messenger from the king.

  II.iv.46 (380,7) Winter’s not gone yet, if the wild geese fly that way] If this be their behaviour, the king’s troubles are not yet at an end.

  II.iv.70 (381,9) All that follow their noses are led by their eyes, but blind men; and there’s not a nose among twenty, but can smell him that’s stinking] There is in this sentence no clear series of thought. If he that follows his nose is led or guided by his eyes, he wants no information from his nose. I persuade myself, but know not whether I can persuade others, that our author wrote thus:— “All men are led by their eyes, but blind men, and they follow their noses; and there’s not a nose among twenty but can smell him that’s stinking.” — Here is a succession of reasoning. You ask, why the king has no more in his train? why, because men who are led by their eyes see that he is ruined; and if there were any blind among them, who, for want of eyes, followed their noses, they might by their noses discover that it was no longer fit to follow the king.

  II.iv.83 (382,2)

  But I will tarry; the fool will stay,

  And let the wise man fly;

  The knave turns fool, that runs away;

  The fool no knave, perdy]

  I think this passage erroneous, though both the copies concur. The sense mill be mended if we read,

  But I will tarry; the fool will stay,

  And let the wise man fly;

  The fool turns knave, that runs away;

  The knave no fool, —

  That I stay with the king is a proof that I am a fool, the wise men are deserting him. There is knavery in this desertion, but there is no folly.

  II.iv.116 (383,3) Is practice only] Practice is in Shakespeare, and other old writers, used commonly in an ill sense for unlawful artifice.

  II.iv.122 (384,4) Cry to it, nuncle, as the cockney did to the eels, when she put them i’ the paste alive] Hinting that the eel and Lear are in the same danger.

  II.iv.142 (384,7) Than she to scant her duty] The word scant is directly contrary to the sense intended. The quarto reads,

  — slack her duty,

 
; which is no better. May we not change it thus:

  You less know bow to value her desert,

  Than she to scan her duty.

  To scan may be to measure or proportion. Yet our author uses his negatives with such licentiousness, that it is hardly safe to make any alteration. — Scant may mean to adapt, to fit, to proportion; which sense seems still to be retained in the mechanical term scantling. (see 1765, VI, 67, 4)

  II.iv.155 (385,1) Do you but mark how this becomes the house?] [T: the use?] [Warburton called “becomes the house” “a most expressive phrase”] with this most expressive phrase I believe no reader is satisfied. I suspect that it has been written originally,

  Ask her forgiveness?

  Do you but mark how this becometh — thus.

  Dear daughter, I confess, &c.

  Becomes the house, and becometh thus, might be easily confounded by readers so unskilful as the original printers.

  II.iv.157 (386,2) Age is unnecessary] i.e. Old age has few wants.

  II.iv.162 (386,3) Look’d black upon me] To look black, may easily be explained to look cloudy or gloomy. See Milton:

  “So frown’d the mighty combatants, that hell

  Grew darker at their frown.” —

  II.iv.170 (386,4) To fall, and blast her pride!] Thus the quarto: the folio reads not so well, to fall and blister. I think there is still a fault, which may be easily mended by changing a letter:

  — Infect her beauty,

  Ye fen-suck’d fogs, drawn by the powerful sun,

  Do, fall, and blast her pride!

  II.iv.174 (387.6) Thy tender-hested nature shall not give/Thee o’er to harshness] This word, though its general meaning be plain, I do not critically understand.

  II.iv.178 (387,7) to scant my sizes] To contract my allowances or proportions settled.

  II.iv.203 (388,9) much less advancement] The word advancement is ironically used here for conspicuousness of punishment; as we now say, a man is advanced to the pillory. We should read,

  — but his own disorders

  Deserv’d much more advancement.

  II.iv.204 (388,1) I pray you, father, being weak, seem so] [W: deem’t so] The meaning is, since you are weak, be content to think yourself weak. No change is needed.

  II.iv.218 (389,3) base life] i.e. In a servile state.

  II.iv.227 (390,5) embossed carbuncle] Embossed is swelling, protuberant.

  II.iv.259 (391,6) Those wicked creatures yet do look well-favour’d:/ When others are more wicked] Dr. Warburton would exchange the repeated epithet wicked into wrinkled in both places. The commentator’s only objection to the lines as they now stand, is the discrepancy of the metaphor, the want of opposition between wicked and well-favoured. But he might have remembered what he says in his own preface concerning mixed modes. Shakespeare, whose mind was more intent upon notions than words, had in his thoughts the pulchritude of virtue, and the deformity of wickedness; and though he had mentioned wickedness, made the correlative answer to deformity.

  III.i.7 (394,1) That things might change, or cease: tears his white hair] The first folio ends the speech at change, or cease, and begins again with Kent’s question, But who is with him? The whole speech is forcible, but too long for the occasion, and properly retrenched.

  III.i.18 (395,3) my note] My observation of your character.

  III.i.29 (395,6) are but furnishings] Furnishings are what we now call colours, external pretences. (1773)

  III.i.19 (395,8)

  There is division,

  Although as yet the face of it is cover’d

  with mutual cunning, ‘twixt Albany and Cornwall;

  Who have (as who have not, whom their great stars

  Throne and set high?) servants, who seem no less;

  Which are to France the spies and speculations

  Intelligent of our state. What hath been seen,

  Either in snuffs and packings of the dukes;

  Or the hard rein, which both of them have borne

  Against the old kind king; or something deeper,

  Whereof, perchance, these are but furnishings.

  [But, true it is, from France there comes a power

  Into this scatter’d kingdom; who already,

  Wise in our negligence, have secret fee

  In some of our best ports, and are at point

  To shew their open banner. — Now to you:]]

  The true state of this speech cannot from all these notes be discovered. As it now stands it is collected from two editions: the lines which I have distinguished by Italics are found in the folio, not in the quarto; the following lines inclosed in crotchets are in the quarto, not in the folio. So that if the speech be read with omissions of the Italics, it will stand according to the first edition; and if the Italics are read, and the lines that follow them omitted, it will then stand according to the second. The speech is now tedious, because it is formed by a coalition of both. The second edition is generally best, and was probably nearest to Shakespeare’s last copy, but in this passage the first is preferable; for in the folio, the messenger is sent, he knows not why, he knows not whither. I suppose Shakespeare thought his plot opened rather too early, and made the alteration to veil the event from the audience; but trusting too much to himself, and full of a single purpose, he did not accommodate his new lines to the rest of the scene. — The learned critic’s [Warburton] emendations are now to be examined. Scattered he has changed to scathed; for scattered, he says, gives the idea of an anarchy, which was not the case. It may be replied that scathed gives the idea of ruin, waste, and desolation, which was not the case. It is unworthy a lover of truth, in questions of great or little moment, to exaggerate or extenuate for mere convenience, or for vanity yet less than convenience. Scattered naturally means divided, unsettled, disunited. — Next is offered with great pomp a change of sea to seize; but in the first edition the word is fee, for hire, in the sense of having any one in fee, that is, at devotion for money. Fee is in the second quarto changed to see, from which one made sea and another seize.

  III.ii.4 (398,1) thought-executing] Doing execution with rapidity equal to thought.

  III.ii.19 (399,4) Here I stand, your slave] [W: brave] The meaning is plain enough, he was not their slave by right or compact, but by necessity and compulsion. Why should a passage be darkened for the sake of changing it? Besides, of brave in that sense I remember no example.

  III.ii.24 (399,5) ’tis foul] Shameful; dishonourable.

  III.ii.30 (399,6) So beggars marry many] i.e. A beggar marries a wife and lice.

  III.ii.46 (400,1) Man’s nature cannot carry/The affliction, nor the fear] So the folio: the later editions read, with the quarto, force for fear, less elegantly.

  III.ii.56 (401,3) That under covert and convenient seeming] Convenient needs not be understood in any other than its usual and proper sense; accommodate to the present purpose; suitable to a design. Convenient seeming is appearance such as may promote his purpose to destroy.

  III.ii.53 (401,4) concealing continents] Continent stands for that which contains or incloses.

  III.ii.72 (401,(5) Poor fool and knave, I have one part in my heart,/ That’s sorry yet for thee] Some editions read,

  — thing in my heart;

  from which Hanmer, and Dr. Warburton after him, have made string, very unnecessarily; both the copies have part.

  III.ii.74 (402,7)

  He that has a little tiny wit, —

  With heigh ho, the wind and the rain;

  Must make content with his fortunes fit,

  Though the rain it raineth every day]

  I fancy that the second line of this stanza had once a termination that rhymed with the fourth; but I can only fancy it; for both the copies agree. It was once perhaps written,

  With heigh ho, the wind and the rain in his way.

  The meaning seems likewise to require this insertion. “He that has wit, however small, and finds wind and rain in his way, must content himself by thinking, that somewhere or
other it raineth every day, and others are therefore suffering like himself.” Yet I am afraid that all this is chimerical, for the burthen appears again in the song at the end of Twelfth Night, and seems to have been an arbitrary supplement, without any reference to the sense of the song. (see 1765, VI, 84, 6)

  III.ii.80 (402,8) I’ll speak a prophecy ere I go] [W: or two ere] The sagacity and acuteness of Dr. Warburton are very conspicuous in this note. He has disentangled the confusion of the passage, and I have inserted his emendation in the text. Or e’er is proved by Mr. Upton to be good English, but the controversy was not necessary, for or is not in the old copies. [Steevens retained “ere”]

  III.ii.84 (403,1) No heretics burnt, but wenches’ suitors] The disease to which wenches’ suitors are particularly exposed, was called in Shakespeare’s time the brenning or burning.

  III.iv.26 (406,1)

  In, boy; go first. [To the Fool.] You houseless poverty —

  Nay, get thee in. I’ll pray, and then I’ll sleep]

  These two lines were added in the author’s revision, and are only in the folio. They are very judiciously intended to represent that humility, or tenderness, or neglect of forms, which affliction forces on the mind.

  III.iv.52 (407,3) led through fire and through flame] Alluding to the ignis fatuus, supposed to be lights kindled by mischievous beings to lead travellers into destruction.

  III.iv.54 (407,4) laid knives under his pillow] 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.

  III.iv.60 (407,5) Bless thee from whirlwinds, star-blasting, and taking!] To take is to blast, or strike with malignant influence:

  — strike her young limbs,

  Ye taking airs, with lameness.

  III.iv.77 (408,6) pelican daughters] The young pelican is fabled to suck the mother’s blood.

  III.iv.95 (408,8) light of ear] [i.e. Credulous. WARBURTON.] Not merely credulous, but credulous of evil, ready to receive malicious reports. (1773)

  III.iv.103 (409,1) says suum, mun, ha no nonny, dolphin my boy, boy, Sessy: let him trot by] Of this passage I can make nothing. I believe it corrupt: for wildness, not nonsense, is the effect of a disordered imagination. The quarto reads, hay no on ny, dolphins, my boy, cease, let him trot by. Of interpreting this there is not much hope or much need. But any thing may be tried. The madman, now counterfeiting a proud fit, supposes himself met on the road by some one that disputes the way, and cries Hey! — No — but altering his mind, condescends to let him pass, and calls to his boy Dolphin (Rodolph) not to contend with him. On — Dolphin, my boy, cease. Let him trot by.