EDMUND.
I shall offend, either to detain or give it. The contents, as in part I understand them, are to blame.
GLOUCESTER.
Let’s see, let’s see!
EDMUND.
I hope, for my brother’s justification, he wrote this but as an essay, or taste of my virtue.
GLOUCESTER.
[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; who 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 waked 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 brain to breed it in? When came this to you? Who brought it?
EDMUND.
It was not brought me, my lord, there’s the cunning of it. I found it thrown in at the casement of my closet.
GLOUCESTER.
You know the character to be your brother’s?
EDMUND.
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.
GLOUCESTER.
It is his.
EDMUND.
It is his hand, my lord; but I hope his heart is not in the contents.
GLOUCESTER.
Has he never before sounded you in this business?