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: