What! all in motion? henceforth be no feaft, 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. 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; On Athens, ripe for ftroke! thou cold Sciatica, Take thou that too, with multiplying banns: (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 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, 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! Flav. Good fellows all, The latest of my wealth I'll fhare amongst you. [He gives them money; they embrace, and part feveral ways. Oh, Oh, the fierce wretchednefs that glory brings us! To have his pomp, and all what ftate compounds, I'll ever ferve his mind with my best will; 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, It is the pasture lards the weather's fides, (23) And fay, this man's a flatterer: if one be, and defpoil that Lord of all his pomp and ornaments, &c. which fenfet 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 |