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And purfy infolence fhall break his wind
With fear and horrid flight.

1 Sen. Noble and young,

When thy first griefs were but a mere conceit,
Ere thou hadft power, or we had cause to fear,
We fent to thee, to give thy rages balm,
To wipe out our ingratitude, with loves
Above their quantity.

2 Sen, So did we woo (43)
Transformed Timon to our city's love
By humble meffage, and by promised 'mends:
We were not all unkind, nor all deferve
The common stroke of war.

1 Sen. Thefe walls of ours

Were not erected by their hands from whom
You have received your griefs: nor are they fuch,
That these great tow'rs, trophies, and schools fhould
For private faults in them.

2 Sex. Nor are they living,

[fall

Who were the motives that you first went out: Shame, that they wanted cunning, in excess (44) (43)

So did we wone

Transformed Timon to our city's love.

By humble mejage, and by promised means :] Promifed means muft import a supply of fubftance, the recruiting his funk fortunes; but that is not all, in my mind, that the Poet would aim at. The fenate had wooed him with humble meffage, and promife of general reparation for their injuries and ingratitude. This feems included in the flight change which I have made and by promijed 'mends and this word, apostrophy'd, or otherwife, is ufed in common with amends. So in Troilus and Creffida:

Let her be as he is; if he be fair, 'tis the better for her: an the be not, he has the mends in her own hands. And fo B. Johnson in his Every Man out of his Humour : Pardon me, gentle friends, I'll make fair menos For my foul errors past

(44) Shame that they wanted cunning in excess,

Hath broke their hearts.] i. e. in other terms,-Shame, that VOL. X.

I

Hath broke their hearts. March on, oh, noble Lord,
Into our city with thy banners spread:
By decimation and a tithed death,
If thy revenges hunger for that food

Which nature loaths, take thou the deftin'd tenth;
And by the hazard of the spotted dye,
Let die the fpotted.

1 Sen. All have not offended:

For thofe that were, it is not square to take
On those that are, revenge: crimes, like to lands,
Are not inherited. Then, dear countryman,
Bring in thy ranks, but leave without thy rage;
Spare thy Athenian cradle, and those kin,
Which in the blufter of thy wrath must fall
With thofe that have offended; like a fhepherd,
Approach the fold, and cull the infected forth;
But kill not all together.

2 Sen. What thou wilt,

Thou rather fhalt enforce it with thy fmile,
Than hew to't with thy fword.

1 Sen. Set but thy foot

Against our rampired gates, and they fhall ope;
So thou wilt fend thy gentle heart before,
To fay, thou'lt enter friendly.

2 Sen. Throw thy glove,

Or any token of thine honour elfe,

That thou wilt ufe the wars as thy redress,

they were not the cunningefl men alive, hath been the caufe of their death. For cunning in exce's must mean this or nothing. O brave editors! They had heard it faid, that too much wit in fome cafes might be dangerous, and why not an abfolute want of it? But had they the fkill or courage to remove one perplexing comma, the eafy and genuine fenfe would immediately arife. Shame in excefs (i. c. "extremity of fhame) that they wanted cunning (ie that "they were not wife enough not to banish you;) hath "broke their hearts."

And not as our confufion: all thy powers
Shall make their harbour in our town, till we
Have feal'd thy full defire.

Alc. Then there's my glove;

Descend, and open your discharged ports;
Thofe enemies of Timon's and mine own,
Whom you yourselves fhall fet out for reproof,
Fall, and no more; and to atone your fears
With my more noble meaning, not a man
Shall pafs his quarter, or offend the ftream
Of regular juftice in your city's bounds;
But fhall be remedied by public laws
At heaviest answer.

Both. 'Tis moft nobly spoken.

Ale. Defcend, and keep your words.

Enter a Soldier.

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Sol. My noble General, Timon is dead; Entomb'd upon the very hem o' th' fea; And on the grave-ftone this infculpture, which With wax I brought away; whofe foft impreffion Interpreteth for my poor ignorance.

Alcibiades reads the Epitaph.

"Here lyes a wretched corfe, of wretched foul be

"reft: (45)

"Seek not my name: a plague confound

"tiffs left!

you cai

・(45) Here lyes a wretched corfe.] This epitaph the Poet has formed out of two feparate diftichs quoted by Plutarch in his life of M. Antony: the firft, faid to have been compofed by Timon himself; the other is an epitaph on him made by Callimachus, and extant among his epigrams. The verfion of the latter, as our Author has tranfiuitted it to us, avoids those blunders which Leonard Aretine, the Latin tranflator of the above-quoted life in Plutarch, commitsed in it. I once imagined that Shakespeare might poflibly

"Here ly I Timon, who all living men did hate; "Pafs by, and curfe thy fill, but ftay not here thy gaite."

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Thefe well exprefs in thee thy latter spirits:

Though thou abhorr'ft in us our human griefs, Scorn'dft our brains flow, and thofe our droplets, which

From niggard nature fall; yet rich conceit (46) Taught thee to make vaft Neptune weep for aye. On thy low grave.---On: faults forgiven.----Dead Is noble Timon, of whofe memory

have corrected this tranflator's blunder from his own ac quaintance with the Greek original but I find he has tranfcribed the four lines from an old English verfion of Plutarch, extant in his time. I have not been able to trace the time when this play of our Author's made its first appearance; but I believe it was written before the death of QElifabeth; becaufe I take it to be hinted at in a piece called Jack Drum's Entertainment; or, the Comedy of Pafquil and Katharine, played by the children of Powles, and printed in 1601.

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-Come, come, now I'll be as fociable as Timon of

Athens.

(46)

--yet rich conceit

Taught thee to make vaft Neptune weep for aye
On thy low grave, on faults forgiven. Dead
Is noble Timon, of whofe memory

Hereafter more. All the editors, in their learning and fagacity, have fuffered an unaccountable abfurdity to pafs them in this paffage. Why was Neptune to weep on Timon's faults forgiven? Or, indeed, what faults had Timon committed, except against his own fortune and happy fituation in life? But the corruption of the text lyes only in the bad pointing, which I have difengaged and restored to the true meaning. Alcibiades's whole fpeech, as the editors might have obferved, is in breaks, betwixt his reflections on Timon's death, and his addreffes to the Athenian fenators and as foon as he has commented on the place of Timon's grave, he bids the fenate fet forward; tells them, he has forgiven their faults; and promises to use them with

Hereafter more----Bring me into your city,
And I will ufe the olive with my fword;

Make war breed peace; make
Prefcribe to other, as each other's leach.

Let our drums ftrike.

peace ftint war;

make

[each

[Exeunt.

mercy. The very fame manner of expreffion occurs in Antony and Cleopatra.

Anto. Well; what worst?

Meff. The nature of bad news infects the teller.
Auto. When it concerns the fool or coward:-
Things that are paft, are done with me..

-On ;

13

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