That lies on Dian's lap! thou vifible god, And mak'ft them kifs! that speak'ft with every tongue, Apem. 'Would 'twere fo; But not till I am dead !-I'll fay, thou haft gold: Tim. Throng'd to? Apem. Ay. Tim. Thy back, I pr'ythee. Apem. Live, and love thy mifery! Tim. Long live fo, and to die!-I am quit. [Exit APEMANTUS. More things like men 4?-Eat, Timon, and abhor them. Enter Thieves". 1. Thief. Where should he have this gold? It is fome poor fragment, fome flender ort of his remainder: The meer want of gold, and the falling-from of his friends, drove him into this melancholy. 2. Thief. It is nois'd, he hath a mass of treasure. 2 Whose blush doth thaw the confecrated Snow That lies on Dian's lap !] The imagery is here exquifitely beautiful and fublime. WARBURTON. Dr. Warburton might have faid-Here is a very elegant turn given to a thought more coarfely expreffed in King Lear : yon fimpering dame, "Whole face between ber forks prefages fnow." STEEVENS. 3- O thou touch of bearts!] Touch, for touchftone. STEEVENS. 4 More things like men?] This line, in the old edition, is given to Apemantus, but it apparently belongs to Timon. Sir T. Hanmer has tranfpofed the foregoing dialogue according to his own mind, not unfkilfully, but with unwarrantable licence. JOHNSON. I believe, as the name of Apemantus was prefixed to this line, inftead of Timon, fo the name of Timon was prefixed to the preceding line by a fimilar mistake. That line feems more proper in the mouth of Apemantus; and the words I am quit, feem to mark his exit. MALONE. 5 Enter Thieves.] The old copy reads, Enter the Banditti. STEEV. 3. Thief. 3. Thief. Let us make the affay upon him; if he care not for't, he will fupply us eafily; If he covetously referve it, how fhall's get it? 2. Thief. True; for he bears it not about him, 'tis hid. 1. Thief. Is not this he? Thieves. Where? 2. Thief. 'Tis his defcription. 3. Thief. He; I know him. Thieves. Save thee, Timon. Tim. Now, thieves? Thieves. Soldiers, not thieves. Tim. Both too; and women's fons. Thieves. We are not thieves, but men that much do want, Tim. Your greatest want is, you want much of meat*. Why should you want? Behold, the earth hath roots?? you want much of meat.] Thus both the player and poetical editors have given us this paffage; quite fand-blind, as honeft Launcelot fays, to our author's meaning. If thefe poor thieves wanted meat, what greater want could they be curfed with, as they could not live on grafs, and berries, and water? but I dare warrant the poet wrote, -you want much of meet. i. e. Much of what you ought to be; much of the qualities befitting you as human creatures. THEOBALD. Such is Mr. Theobald's emendation, in which he is followed by Dr. Warburton. Sir T. Hanmer reads, quant. -you want much of men. They have been all bufy without neceffity. Obferve the series of the converfation. The thieves tell him, that they are men that much do Here is an ambiguity between much want and want of much. Timon takes it on the wrong fide, and tells them that their greatest want is, that, like other men, they want much of meat; then telling shem where meat may be had, he asks, Want? why want? JOHNSON. Perhaps we should read,-your greatest want is, you want much of me ;-rejecting the two laft letters of the word. The fenfe will then be-your greatest want is that you expect fupplies of me from whom you can reasonably expect nothing. Your neceffities are indeed defperate, when you apply for relief to one in my fituation, STEEVENS. -The earth bath roots, &c.] Vile olus, et duris bærentia mora rubetis I do not fuppofe thefe to be imitations, but only to be fimilar thoughts en fimilar occafions. JOHNSON. Within Within this mile break forth an hundred fprings: Tim. Nor on the beafts themselves, the birds, and fishes; Here's gold: Go, fuck the fubtle blood o' the grape, More than you rob': take wealth and lives together; Do 8 Yet thanks I must you con,] To con thanks is a very common expreffion among our old dramatick writers. So, in the Story of King Darius, 1565, an interlude: "Yea and well faid, I con you no thanke." Again, in Pierce Penniless bis Supplication to the Devil, by Nash, 1592: "It is well done to practife thy wit; but I believe our lord will con thee little thanks for it." STEEVENS. 9 In limited profeffions.] Regular, orderly, profeffions. So, in Macbeth: "For 'tis my limited fervice." 1. e. my appointed fervice, prefcribed by the neceffary duty and rules of my office. MALONE. 1-truft not the physician; His antidotes are poifon, and be plays More than you rob :] Our authour's favourite daughter who marri ed a physician, three years I believe before this play was written, could not have been much pleafed with this paffage. MALONE. 2-take wealth and lives together;]Why any attempt has been made to amend this paffage, it is difficult to guefs. After having counfelled the thieves to endanger their own lives by intemperance, which may deftroy them and fo fave them from the gallows, he proceeds to warn them not to trust the phyfician, when attacked by the fever brought on by a diffolute life, becaufe be is a greater master of the art of killing than even the thief. Timon then diverts to a new fubje&t, and exhorts the thieves" to do villainy like workmen;" whenever they rob, to kill alío. So afterwards: Cut throats; All that you meet are thieves." TIMON OF ATHENS. Do villainy, do, fince you profefs to do't, 113 That thieves." Sir T. Hanmer changed lives to life, from his ignorance of our authour's phrafeology. "Do not our lives confift of the four elements?" fays Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night: for which in the modern editions is fubftituted-" Does not our life," &c. MALONE. 3 fince you profefs to do't,] The old copy has proteft. The correction was made by Mr. Theobald. MALONE. 4 The fea's a thief, whose liquid furge refolves The moon into falt tears;] The moon is fuppofed to be humid, and perhaps a fource of humidity, but cannot be refolved by the furges of the fea. Yet I think moon is the true reading. Here is a circulation of thievery described: The fun, moon, and sea, all rob, and are robbed. JOHNSON, He fays fimply, that the fun, the moon, and the fea, rob one another by turns, but the earth robs them all: the fea, i.e. liquid furge, by fupplying the moon with moisture, robs her in turn of the foft tears of dew which the poets always fetch from this planet. Soft for falt is an eafy change. In this fenfe Milton fpeaks of ber moist continent, Par. Loft, b. v. l. 422. And, in Hamlet, Horatio fays: 66 -the moist star "Upon whofe influence Neptune's empire ftands." STEEVENS. Shakspeare knew that the moon was the caufe of the tides, [See The Tempeft, p. 99,] and in that respect the liquid furge, that is, the waves of the fea, rifing one upon another, in the progrefs of the tide, may be faid to refolve the moon into falt tears; the moon, as the poet chooses to ftate the matter, lofing fome part of her humidity, and the accretion to the fea, in confequence of her tears, being the caufe of the liquid furge. Add to this the popular notion, yet prevailing, of the moon's influence on the weather; which, together with what has been already stated, probably induced our authour here and in other places to allude to the warry quality of that planet. In Romeo and Julier, he speaks of her " watry beams." Again, in Macbeth: "Upon the corner of the moon "Hangs a vaporous drop profound." Again, in A Midfummer Night's Dream: Quench'd in the chafte beams of the watry moon." Agaiu, more appofitely in K. Richard III. "That I, being govern'd by the watry moon, "May bring forth plenteous tears, to drown the world." Salt is fo often applied by Shakspeare to tears, that there can be I ΠΟ That feeds and breeds by a compofture ftolen no doubt that the original reading is the true one: nor had the poet, as I conceive, dew, at all in his thoughts. So, in All's well that ends "well: " your falt tears' head." Again, in Troilus and Creffida: "Diftafted with the jalt of broken tears." Again, in K. Richard III. "Thofe eyes of thine from mine have drawn falt tears." Again, more appofitely, in K. Henry VI. P. II. to drain "Upon his face an ocean of falt tears." Mr. Tollet idly conjectures, (for conjecture is always idle where there is little difficulty,) that we fhould read-The main, i. e. the main land or continent. So, in King Henry IV. P. II. A&t III. fc. i. "The continent melt itfelf into the fea."An obfervation made by this gentleman in Love's Labour's Left, p. 391, had he recollected it, might have prevented him from attempting to disturb the text here: "No alteration fhould be made in these lines that deftroys the artificial ftructure of them."-In the first line the fun is the rbief in the fecond he The moon is fubjected is himself plundered by that thief, the moon. to the fame fate, and, from being a plunderer, is herself robbed of moisture (line 4th and 5th) by the fea. MALONE. Puttenham, in his Arte of English Pofie, 1589, quotes fome one of a "reasonable good facilitie in tranflation, who finding certaine of Anacreon's odes very well tranflated by Ronfard the French poet-comes our minion, and tranflates the fame out of French into English:" and his ftrictures upon him evince the publication. Now this identical ode is to be met with in Ronfard; and as his works are in few hands, I will take the liberty of tranfcribing it. Edit. fol. p. 507. "La terre les eaux va boivant; "Et le foleil boit la marine. "Le foleil eft beu de la lune, "Tout boit foit en haut ou en bas : Suivant cefte reigle commune, "Pourquoy donc ne boirons-nous pas ?" FARMER. by a compofture-] i. e. compofition, compoft. STEEVENS. The laws, your curb and whip,] So, in Meafure for Measure: most biting laws, "The needful bites and curbs for headstrong steeds." MALONE. But |