Glo.
Kent banish'd thus! and France in choler parted!
And the King gone to-night! subscrib'd his pow'r,
Confin'd to exhibition! all is gone
Upon the gad!—Edmund, how now? what news?

Bast.
So please your lordship, none. [Putting up the letter.

Glo.
Why so earnestly seek you to put up that letter?

Bast.
I know no news, my lord.

Glo.
What paper were you reading?

Bast.
Nothing, my lord.

Glo.

No! what needed then that terrible dispatch of it into your pocket? the quality of nothing hath not such need to hide it self. Let's see; come, if it be nothing, I shall not need spectacles.

Bast.

I beseech you Sir, pardon me; it is a letter from my brother, that I have not all o'er-read; and for so much as I have perus'd, I find it not fit for your o'er-looking.

Glo.

Give me the letter, Sir.

Bast.

I shall offend, either to detain, or give it; the contents, as in part I understand them, are to blame.

Glo.

Let's see, let's see.

Bast.

I hope, for my brother's justification, he wrote this but as an essay, or taste of my virtue.

Glo. reads.]

This policy and reverence of age makes the world bitter to the best of our times; keeps our fortunes from us, 'till our oldness cannot relish them. I begin to find an idle and fond bondage in the oppression of aged tyranny; which sways, not as it hath power, but as it is suffered. Come to me, that of this I may speak more. If our father would sleep 'till I wak'd him, you should enjoy half his revenue for ever, and live the beloved of your brother. Edgar.—Hum—Conspiracy!—sleep 'till I wake him—you should enjoy half his revenue—My son Edgar! had he a hand to write this! a heart and a brain to breed it in! When came this to you? who brought it?

Bast.

It was not brought me, my lord; there's the cunning of it. I found it thrown in at the casement of my closet.

Glo.

You know the character to be your brother's?

Bast.

If the matter were good, my lord, I durst swear it were his; but in respect of that, I would fain think it were not.

Glo.

It is his.

Bast.

It is his hand, my lord; I hope his heart is not in the contents.

Glo.

Has he never before sounded you in this business?

Bast.

Never, my lord. But I have heard him oft maintain it to be fit, that sons at perfect age, and fathers declining, the father should be as a ward to the son, and the son manage his revenue.

Glo.

O villain, villain! his very opinion in the letter. Abhorred villain! unnatural, detested, bruitish villain! worse than bruitish! Go, sirrah, seek him; I'll apprehend him. Abominable villain! where is he?

Bast.

I do not well know, my lord; if it shall please you to suspend your indignation against my brother, 'till you can derive from him better testimony of his intent, you should run a certain course; where, if you violently proceed against him, mistaking his purpose, it would make a great gap in your honour, and shake in pieces the heart of his obedience. I dare pawn down my life for him, that he hath writ this to feel my Affection to your honour, and to no other pretence of danger.

Glo.

Think you so?

Bast.

If your honour judge it meet, I will place you where you shall hear us confer of this, and by an auricular assurance have your satisfaction, and that without any further delay than this very evening.

Glo.

He cannot be such a monster. Edmund, seek him out; wind me into him, I pray you; frame the business after your own wisdom. I would unstate my self, to be in a due resolution.

Bast.

I will seek him, Sir, presently; convey the business as I shall find means, and acquaint you withal.

Glo.

These late eclipses in the sun and moon portend no good to us; though the wisdom of nature can reason it thus and thus, yet nature finds it self scourg'd by the sequent effects. Love cools, friendship falls off, brothers divide. In cities, mutinies; in countries, discord; in palaces, treason; and the bond crack'd 'twixt son and father. This villain of mine comes under the prediction, there's son against father; the King falls from biass

of nature, there's father against child. We have seen the best of our time. Machinations, hollowness, treachery, and all ruinous disorders follow us disquietly to our graves! Find out this villain, Edmund; it shall lose thee nothing, do it carefully—and the noble and true-hearted Kent banish'd! his offence, Honesty. 'Tis strange.