GLOUCESTER

Give me the letter, sir.

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 half his
revenue for ever, and live the beloved of your
brother, EDGAR.'

Hum–conspiracy!–'Sleep till I waked 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

Hath he never heretofore sounded you in this business?

EDMUND

Never, my lord: but I have heard him oft
maintain it to be fit, that, sons at perfect age,
and fathers declining, the father should be as
ward to the son, and the son manage his revenue.