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Shall top the legitimate:—I grow, I prosper;

Now, gods, stand up for bastards!

Glo. Kent banished thus! And France in choler parted!

And the king gone to-night! subscrib'd his power!

Confin'd to exhibition! All this done

Upon the gad! Edmund, how now! what news?

Edm. So please your lordship, none.

[Putting up the letter.]

Glo. Why so earnestly seek you to put up

that letter?

Edm. I know no news, my lord.

Glo. What paper were you reading?

Edm. 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 itself. Let's

see; come; if it be nothing, I shall not need

spectacles.

Edm. 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 perused, I find

it not fit for your o'er-looking.

Glo. Give me the letter, sir.

Edm. 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.

Edm. I hope, for my brother's justification,

he wrote this but as an essay or taste of my

virtue.

 24 subscrib'd: transferred

25 exhibition: allowance, maintenance

26 gad: spur

48 essay: trial

