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"Is not thy kindness subtle, covetous ?
"If not a usuring? as rich men deal gifts,
Expecting," &c.

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184. My most honour'd lord."

No verse could begin in this manner. Flavius might have said,

"O my dear lord, my ever honour'd master !

Give to dogs

"IVhat thou deniest to men," &c.

The metre here is miserably deranged, and without necessity. I would read,

"What thou deniest men: prisons swallow them."

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187. "

ACT V. SCENE I.

An intent that's coming toward him."

A poetical design or invention.

188. "True.

"When the day," &c.

Whether this speech be assigned to the poet or painter, it should not proceed in this awkward manner. The word "true" may easily be accommodated in the following line:

"True, when the day serves, ere black corner'd night."

The affectation and obscurity of the expression would seem to favour Mr. Theobald's conjecture that it belongs to the poetaster, but the painter is not free from the same impertinencies. Come,"

Is another idle interpolation.

189.

Than where swine feed."

Something has been lost; perhaps, like this:

"Potent artificer,

""Tis thou that rigg'st the bark," &c.

"Fit I do meet them."

Mr. Steevens very properly supplied the auxiliary verb do, in this hemistic. But why should the critic's care be confined to a hemistic, when it might reform the verse. The following fragment, as it stands, is as lame as the former: I would read, by an easy transposition only,

"Fit I (do) meet them."
Worthy Timon, hail."

Poet. "

I suppose a part of the Painter's speech has

been lost:

"Our late and ever honour'd noble master."

"Sir,

"Having often," &c.

Again "Sir" occupies, without any necessity, the place of a line:

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"Not all the whips of Heaven are large enough

"What! to you!

"Whose," &c.

This abruptness in the Poet's speech, and the metrical irregularity, was studied.

Whose star-like nobleness.”

Thus in Macbeth:

Signs of nobleness like stars shall shine."

190. "With any size of words."

Some words are wanting. I would regulate

here:

"With any size of words."

Tim."

Let it go naked;

"Men may the better see and know it then."

Again an awkward hemistic. I suppose, after the Painter's words,

"Came not my friend nor I,"

the Poet added,

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This is, indeed, so so; for so alone will give the metre.

"Thou counterfeit'st most lively."
So, my lord."

Paint.."

191. "

Marry, 'tis not monstrous in you; neither wish I.”

How could such a disposition of words be put for a verse?-by dismissing ('tis,) which is elliptically implied, we have the metre.

"Doubt it not, worthy lord."

I take this to be the conclusion of a line begun by another speaker, whose words are lost. Timon asks,

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Will you, indeed ?"

Poet. "Indeed, my lord."

Paint. "

Doubt it not, worthy lord."

"Know his gross patchery, love him, feed him."

We may here, indeed, reckon ten syllables, but find no metre: the argument is defective too, and manifests corruption. I would read,

"Ay, and you hear him cog, see him dissemble, "Know his gross patchery, yet love him, feed him,

Keep in your bosom; but remain assur'd, "He is a made-up villain."

What follows is defective. I suppose the measure proceeded thus:

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These words have been obtruded, to spoil the metre. "Name them, my lord," completes both the meaning and the verse.

193. If, where thou art, two villains shall not

be,

"Come not near him.-If thou would'st

not reside

"But where one villain is, then him abandon."

The commentators have sufficiently explained the double villany, but none of them has attempted to reconcile that explanation with the sequel of Timon's speech: as the Painter and Poet are each two villains, Timon's argument is defective: it should be, after having shewn that each man was a double villain.

"If where thou art, four villains shall not be, "Come not near him: if thou would'st not reside "But where two villains are, then him abandon."

SCENE II.

200. "Their pangs of love."

Thus in Hamlet:

"The pangs of despis'd love."

"In life's uncertain voyage.

The metre again falls into disorder:

"In life's uncertain voyage, I will do "Some kindness to them; I will teach them how "They may prevent wild Alcibiades' wrath."

202. "His discontents are unremoveably

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Coupled to nature."

His vexations have laid such hold on him, as to be now incorporated with his nature and constitution.

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