Our means seduce us:—­

Our powers of body or fortune draw us into evils.  Or,

  Our maims secure us.—­

That hurt or deprivation which makes us defenceless, proves our safeguard.  This is very proper in Glo’ster, newly maimed by the evulsion of his eyes.

IV.i.59-64 (431,8) [Five fiends have been in poor Tom at once; of lust, as Obidicut; Hobbididance, prince of dumbness; Mahu, of stealing; Modo, of murder; and Flibbertigibbet, of mopping and mowing; who since possesses chamber-maids and waiting-women.  So bless thee, master!]] The passage in crotchets is omitted in the folio, because I suppose as the story was forgotten, the jest was lost.

IV.i.68 (432,1) Let the superfluous and lust-dieted man] Lear has before uttered the same sentiment, which indeed cannot be too strongly impressed, tho’ it may be too often repeated.

IV.i.69 (432,2) That slaves your ordinance] [W:  braves] The emendation is plausible, yet I doubt whether it be right.  The language of Shakespeare is very licentious, and his words have often meanings remote from the proper and original use.  To slave or beslave another is to treat him with terms of indignity; in a kindred sense, to slave the ordinance, may be, to slight or ridicule it.

IV.ii.1 (433,1) our mild husband] It must be remembered that Albany, the husband of Gonerill, disliked, in the end of the first act, the scheme of oppression and ingratitude.

IV.ii.29 (434,5) I have been worth the whistle] This expression is a reproach to Albany for having neglected her; though you disregard me thus, I have been worth the whistle, I have found one that thinks me worth calling. (1773)

IV.ii.35 (435,9) From her maternal sap] [W:  material] I suppose no reader doubts but the word should be maternal.  Dr. Warburton has taken great pains without much success, and indeed without much exactness of attention, to prove that material has a more proper sense than maternal, and yet seemed glad at last to infer from an apparent error of another press that material and maternal meant the same.

IV.ii.45 (436,2) A man, a prince by him so benefited?] [After this line I suspect a line or two to be wanting, which upbraids her for her sister’s cruelty to Glo’ster.  WARBURTON.] Here is a pompous note to support a conjecture apparently erroneous, and confuted by the next scene, in which the account is given for the first time to Albany of Glo’ster’s sufferings.

IV.ii.50 (436,3) Like monsters of the deep] Fishes are the only animals that are known to prey upon their own species.

IV.ii.62 (437,5) Thou changed, and self-cover’d thing] Of these lines there is but one copy, and the editors are forced open conjecture.  They have published this line thus;

  Thou chang’d, and self-converted thing;