Note 164 — LECTURE VIII

The connection of these sufferings with the sin of earlier days (not, it should be noticed, of youth) is almost thrust upon our notice by the levity of Gloster's own reference to the subject in the first scene, and by Edgar's often quoted words 'The gods are just,' etc. The following collocation, also, may be intentional (iii. iv. 116):

Fool. Now a little fire in a wild field were like an old lecher's heart; a small spark, all the rest on's body cold. Look, here comes a walking fire. [Enter Gloster with a torch.]

Pope destroyed the collocation by transferring the stage-direction to a point some dozen lines later.