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Pins, wooden pricks, nails, sprigs of rosemary;] In The Bellman of London, by Decker, 5th edit. 1640, is the following account of one of these characters, under the title of an Abraham-Man. he sweares he hath been in Bedlam, and will talke frantickely of purpose: you see pinnes stuck in sundry places of his naked flesh, especially in his armes, which paine he gladly puts bimselfe to, only to make you believe he is out of his wits. He calles himselfe by the name of Poore Tom, and comming near any body cries out, Poor Tom is a-cold. Of these Abraham-men, some be ex-ceeding merry, and doe nothing but sing songs fashioned out of their owne braines; some will dance, others will doe nothing but either laugh or weepe': others are dogged, and so sullen both in Joke 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."

To sham Abraham, a cant term, still in use among sailors and the vulgar, may have this origin. STEEVENS.

Wooden pricks, i. e. skewers. STEEVENS. Steevens is right: the euonymus, of which the best skewers are made, is called prick-wood. M. MASON.

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P. 45, 1. 26. Poor pelting villages,] Pelting is used by Shakspeare in the sense of beggarly: I suppose from pelt a skin. The poor being generally cloathed in leather. WARBURTON.

Pelting is, I believe, only an accidential depravation of petty. JOHNSON.

P. 45, I. 27. To ban, is to curse. JOHNSON.

P. 45, last 1. -Poor Turlygood! poor Tom! That's something yet; - Edgar I nothing am.] Turlygood! We should read Turlupin. In the fourteenth century there was a new species of gipsies, called Turlupins, a fraternity of naked beggars, which ran up and down Europe. However, the church of Rome hath dignified them with the name of heretics, and actually burned some of them at Paris. But what sort of religionists they were, appears from Genebrard's account of them. "Turlapin Cyni→ corum sectam suscitantes, de nuditate pudendorum, & publico coitu." Plainly, nothing but a band of Tom-o'-Bedlams. WARBURTON.

Hanmer reads poor Turluru. It is probable the word Turlygood was the common corrupt pronunciation. JOHNSON.

Edgar I nothing am, As Edgar I am outlawed, dead in law; I have no longer any political existence. JOHNSON.

The critick's idea is both too complex and too puerile for one in Edgar's situation. He is pursued, it seems, and proclaimed, i. e. a reward has been offered for taking or killing him. In assuming this character, says he, I may preserve myself; as Edgar I am inevitably gone. RITSON.

Perhaps the meaning is, As poor Tom, I may exist: appearing as Edgar, I am lost. MALONE.

P. 46, 1. 2-6. Before Gloster's Castle. Enter Lear, &c.] It is not very clearly discovered why Lear comes hither. In the foregoing part he sent a letter to Gloster; but no hint is given of its contents. He seems to have gone to visit Gloster while Cornwall and Regan might prepare to entertain him. JOHNSON.

It is plain, I think, that Lear comes to the Earl of Glocester's in consequence of his having been at the Duke of Cornwall's and having heard there, that his son and daughter were gone to the Earl of Glocester's. His first words show this: "Tis strange that they (Cornwall and Regan) should so depart from home, and not send back my messenger (Kent)." It is clear also from Kent's speech in this scene, that he went directly from Lear to the Duke of Cornwall's, and delivered his letters, but, instead of being sent back with any answer, was ordered to follow the Duke aud Duchess to the Earl of Glocester's. But what then is the meaning of Lear's order to Kent in the pie ceding act, scene v. Go you before to Glocester with these letters. The obvious meaning, and what will agree best with the course of the subsequent events, is, that the Duke of Cornwall and his wife were then residing at Glocester. Why Shak→ speare should choose to suppose them at Glocester, rather than at any other city, is a different question. Perhaps he might think, that Gloster implied such a neighbourhood to the Earl of Glocester's castle, as his story required. TYRWHITT.

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P. 46, 1. 14. he wears cruel garters!] I believe a quibble was here intended. Crewel signifies worsted, of which stockings, garters, nightcaps, &c. are made. STEEVENS.

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P. 46, 1. 17. 18. when a man is over-lusty at legs, then he wears wooden nether-stocks.] Over-lusty in this place has a double signification. Lústiness anciently meant sauciness. STEEVENS.

Nether-stocks is the old word for stockings. Breeches were at that time called "men's overstockes."

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The stockings were formerly sewed to the breeches. STEEVENS.

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P. 47, 1. 1-3.-'tis worse than murder,

To do upon respect such violent outrage:] To violate the publick and venerable character of a messenger from the King. JOHNSON.

To do an outrage upon respect, does not, I believe, primarily mean, to behave outrageously to persons of a respectable character, (though that in substance is the sense of the words,) but rather, to be grossly deficient in respect to those who are entitled to it, considering respect as personified. MALONE.`

P. 47, 1. 13. 14. Delivered letters, spite of intermission,

Which presently they read] Intermission, for another message, which they had then before them, to consider of; called intermission, because it came between their leisure and the steward's message. WARBURTON.

Spite of intermission is without pause, without suffering time to intervene. STEEVENS.

Spite of intermission, perhaps means in spite of, or without regarding, that message which intervened, and which was entitled to precedent attention.

Spite of intermission, however, may mean, in spite of being obliged to pause and take breath, after having panted forth the salutation from his mistress. MALONE.

P. 47, 1. 15. They summon'd up their meiny, straight took horse;]

Meiny, i. e. people. P'OPE. Though the word meiny be now obsolete, the word menial, which is derived from it, is still

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in use. Ốn whose contents, means the contents of which. M. MASON.

Menial is by some derived from servants being intra moenia or domesticks. An etymology fa voured by the Roman termination of the word. Many, in Kent's sense, for train or retinue was used so late as Dryden's time. HOLT WHITE.

P. 47, 1. 26. Winter's not gone yet, ] If this be their behaviour, the King's troubles are not yet at an end. JOHNSON.

P. 47, last 1. But, for all this, thou shalt have as many dolours for thy daughters, as thou can'st tell in a year.] Quibble intended between dolours and dollars. HANMER.

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- for thy daughters, ] i. e. on account of thy daughters ingratitude. In the first part of the sentence dolours is understood in its true sense; in the latter part it is taken for dollars. Malone. P. 48, 1. 1- 4. Lear. O, how this mother swells up toward my heart! Hysterica passio! down, thou climbing

sorrow,

Thy element's below!] 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 only. In Harsnet's Declaration of Popish Impostures, Richard Mainy, Gent. one of the pretended demoniacs, deposes, p. 236, that the first night that he came to Denham, the seat of Mr. Peckham, where these impostures were managed, he was somewhat evill at ease, and he grew worse and worse with an old disease that he had, and which the priests persuaded him was from the posVOL. XIX.

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