What! all in motion? henceforth be no feaft,
Whereat a villain's not a welcome gueft.
Burn houfe, fink Athens, henceforth hated be
Of Timon, man, and all humanity!

Re-enter the Senators.

1 Sen. How now, my Lords?

[Exit.

2 Sen. Know you the quality of Lord Timon's fury! 3 Sen. Pha! did you fee my cap?

4 Sen. I've loft my gown.

i Sen. He's but a mad Lord, and nought but humour fways him. He gave me a jewel th' other day, and now he has beat it out of my cap. Did you fee my jewel? 2 Sen. Did you fee my cap?

3 Sen. Here 'tis.

4 Sen. Here lyes my gown.
i Sen. Let's make no ftay.
2 Sen. Lord Timon's mad.

3 Sen. I feel't upon my bones.

4 Sex. One day he gives us diamonds, next day ftones.

[Exeunt.

ACT

V.

SCENE, Without the walls of Athens.

L

Enter TIM o N.

ET me look back upon thee, O thou wall,

That girdleft in thofe wolves! dive in the earth, And fence not Athens! matrons, turn incontinent; Obedience fail in children; slaves and fools Pluck the grave wrinkled fenate from the bench, And minifter in their fteads: To general filths (21) Convert o' th' inftant, green virginity!

(21) To general filths

Convert o' th' inftant, &c.] This paffage was very faulty in the pointing, till I first reform'd it in my SHAKESPEARE reftor'd; and Mr. Pope vouchfaf'd to copy my correction in his last edition.

Do't

Do't in your parents eyes. Bankrupts, hold faft;
Rather than render back, out with your knives, (22)
And cut your trufters throats. Bound fervants, fteal;
Large-handed robbers your grave masters are,
And pill by law. Maid, to thy master's bed;
Thy miftrefs is o' th' brothel. Son of fixteen,
Pluck the lin'd crutch from thy old limping fire,
And with it beat his brains out! fear and piety,
Religion to the gods, peace, juftice, truth,
Domestick awe, night-reft, and neighbourhood,
Inftruction, manners, myfteries and trades,
Degrees, obfervances, cuftoms and laws,
Decline to your confounding contraries!
And yet confufion live!-plagues, incident to men,
Your potent and infectious fevers heap

On Athens, ripe for ftroke! thou cold Sciatica,
Cripple our fenators, that their limbs may halt
As lamely as their manners. Luft and liberty
Creep in the minds and marrows of our youth,
That 'gainst the ftream of virtue they may ftrive,
And drown themselves in riot! itches, blains,
Sow all the Athenian bofoms, and their crop
Be general leprofy: breath infect breath,
That their fociety (as their friendship) may
Be merely poifon. Nothing I'll bear from thee,
But nakedness, thou deteftable town!

Take thou that too, with multiplying banns:
Timon will to the woods, where he fhall find
Th' unkindeft beaft much kinder than mankind.
The gods confound (hear me, ye good gods all)
Th' Athenians both within and out that wall;
And grant, as Timon grows, his hate may grow,
To the whole race of mankind, high and low! [Exit.

(22)

Bankrupts, bold faft, Rather than render back; out with your knives,

And cut your trifters throats.] Thus has this paffage hitherto been moft abfurdly pointed; even by the poetical editors, Mr. Rowe, and Mr. Pope. I had reform'd the pointing; but am, however, to make my acknowledgments to fome anonymous gentleman, who by letter advifed me to point it as I have done in the text.

SCENE

SCENE changes to Timon's Houfe.

Ser.

Enter Flavius, with two or three Servants.

H

Ear you, good mafter steward, where's our mafter?

Are we undone, caft off, nothing remaining?

Flav. Alack, my fellows, what fhould I fay to you? Let me be recorded by the righteous gods,

I am as poor as you.

1 Ser. Such a house broke!

So noble a master fall'n! all gone! and not
One friend to take his fortune by the arm,
And go along with him?

2 Ser. As we do turn our backs From our companion, thrown into his So his familiars to his buried fortunes

grave,

Slink all away; leave their falfe vows with him,
Like empty purfes pick'd: and his poor felf,
A dedicated beggar to the 'air,

With his disease of all-fhunn'd poverty,

Walks, like contempt, alone.-More of our fellows.

Enter other Servants.

Flav. All broken implements of a ruin'd house!
3 Ser. Yet do our hearts wear Timon's livery,
That fee I by our faces; we are fellows, ftill,
Serving alike in forrow. Leak'd is our bark,
And we, poor mates, ftand on the dying deck,
Hearing the furges threat: we must all part
Into the fea of air.

Flav. Good fellows all,

The latest of my wealth I'll fhare amongst you.
Where-ever we shall meet, for Timon's fake,
Let's yet be fellows: fhake our heads, and fay,
(As 'twere a knell unto our master's fortunes)
We have seen better days. Let each take fome;
Nay, put out all your hands; not one word more,
Thus part we rich in forrow, parting poor.

[He gives them money; they embrace, and part feveral ways.

Oh,

Oh, the fierce wretchednefs that glory brings us!
Who would not wish to be from wealth exempt,
Since riches point to mifery and contempt?
Who'd be fo mock'd with glory, as to live
But in a dream of friendship?

To have his pomp, and all what ftate compounds,
But only painted, like his varnish'd friends!
Poor honest Lord! brought low by his own heart,
Undone by goodness: ftrange unusual blood,
When man's worft fin is, he does too much good.
Who then dares to be half fo kind again?
For bounty, that makes gods, does still mar men.
My dearest Lord, bleft to be most accurs'd,
Rich only to be wretched; thy great fortunes
Are made thy chief afflictions. Alas, kind Lord!
He's flung in rage from this ungrateful feat
Of monftrous friends: nor has he with him to
Supply his life, or that which can command it:
I'll follow, and enquire him out.

I'll ever ferve his mind with my best will;
Whilft I have gold, I'll be his steward still.

Tim.

SCENE, the Woods.

Enter Timon.

[Exit.

Bleffed, breeding fun, draw from the earth Rotten humidity: below thy fister's orb Infect the air. Twinn'd brothers of one womb, Whofe procreation, refidence, and birth Scarce is dividant, touch with feveral fortunes; The greater fcorns the leffer. Not ev'n nature, To whom all fores lay fiege, can bear great fortune But by contempt of nature.

Raife me this beggar, and denude that Lord, (22)

The

(22) Raife me this beggar and deny't that Lord,] Where is the Senfe and English of deny't that Lord? Deny him what? What preceding noun is there, to which the pronoun it is to be referr'd? And it would be abfurd to think the poet meant, deny to raise that Lord. The antithefis must be, let fortune raise this beggar, and let her ftrip,

and

The fenator fhall bear contempt hereditary,
The beggar native honour:

It is the pasture lards the weather's fides, (23)
The want that makes him lean. Who dares, who dares,
In purity of manhood stand upright,

And fay, this man's a flatterer: if one be,
So are they all, for every greeze of fortune
Is fmooth'd by that below. The learned pate
Ducks to the golden fool: All is oblique ;
There's nothing level in our curfed natures,
But direct villany. Then be abhorr'd,
All feafts, focieties, and throngs of men!
His femblable, yea himself, Timon difdains.-
Deftruction phang mankind! earth, yield me roots!
[Digging the earth.

and defpoil that Lord of all his pomp and ornaments, &c. which fenfet
is compleated by this flight alteration,
and denude that Lord.

Mr. Warburton.

I will beg leave to add, in confirmation of my friend's fine conjecture, that our author has contraited the fame thought, only varying the terms, in his Venus and Adonis, Stanz. 192.

Pluck down the rich, enrich the poor with treasures.

(23) It is the pafture lards the beggar's fides,] This, as the editors have order'd it, is an idle repetition at the beft; fuppofing it did, indeed, contain the fame fentiment as the foregoing lines. But ShakeSpeare meant a quite different thing: and having, like a fenfible wri ter, made a fmart obfervation, he illuftrates it by a fimilitude thus: It is the pafture lards the weather's fides,

The want that makes him lean.

And the fimilitude is extremely beautiful, as conveying this satirical reflection; there is no more difference between man and man in the efteem of fuperficial or corrupt judgments, than between a fat sheep and a lean one. Mr. Warburton.

I cannot better praise the fagacity of my friend's emendation, than by producing the reading of the first folio edition, (which, I know, he had not seen,) where we find it thus exhibited;

It is the pasture lards the brother's fides, &c.

Every knowing reader will agree, that this corruption might much more naturally be deriv'd from weather's, than from beggar's, as far as the traces of the letters are concern'd; especially, in the old secretary handwriting, the univerfal character in our author's time. I will only add, that our poet, in his As you like it, makes a clown fay the very fame thing in a more ludicrous manner.

That the property of rain is to wet, and fire to burn; that good pafture makes fat fheep; &c.

VOL. VI.

H

Who