Infects one comma in the course I hold;

But flies an eagle flight, bold, and forth on,
Leaving no tract behind.

PAIN. How shall I understand you?

8 I'll unbolt to you. POET. You see how all conditions, how all minds, (As well of glib and slippery creatures, as Of grave and austere quality,) tender down Their services to lord Timon: his large fortune, Upon his good and gracious nature hanging, Subdues and properties to his love and tendance All sorts of hearts'; yea, from the glass-fac'd flatterer 2

speare. It seems also to be pointed out by implication in many of our old collegiate establishments. See Warton's History of English Poetry, vol. iii. p. 151. STEEVENS.

As

Mr. Astle observes in his very ingenious work On the Origin and Progress of Writing, quarto, 1784, that "the practice of writing on table-books covered with wax was not entirely laid aside till the commencement of the fourteenth century." Shakspeare, I believe, was not a very profound English antiquary, it is surely improbable that he should have had any knowledge of a practice which had been disused for more than two centuries before he was born. The Roman practice he might have learned from Golding's translation of the ninth book of Ovid's Metamorphoses :

7

"Her right hand holds the pen, her left doth hold the emptie waxe," &c. MALONE.

-no LEVELL'D malice, &c.] To level is to aim, to point the shot at a mark. Shakspeare's meaning is, my poem is not a satire written with any particular view, or levelled at any single person; I fly like an eagle into the general expanse of life, and leave not, by any private mischief, the trace of my passage.

JOHNSON.

Sir T. Hanmer, and Dr.
Slippery is smooth, unre-

8 I'll unbolt-] I'll open, I'll explain. JOHNSON. 9 - glib and slippery creatures,] Warburton after him, read-natures. sisting. JOHNSON.

I SUBDUES

Even to the very quality of my lord." STEEVENS.

To Apemantus, that few things loves better
Than to abhor himself: even he drops down
The knee before him3, and returns in peace
Most rich in Timon's nod.

PAIN.

I saw them speak together". POET. Sir, I have upon a high and pleasant

hill,

Feign'd Fortune to be thron'd: The base o' the

mount

Is rank'd with all deserts", all kind of natures,
That labour on the bosom of this sphere
To propagate their states: amongst them all,
Whose eyes are on this sovereign lady' fix'd,
One do I personate of lord Timon's frame,

Whom Fortune with her ivory hand wafts to her;

2

-glass-fac'd flatterer-] That shows in his look, as by reflection, the looks of his patron. JOHNSON.

3 even he drops down, &c.] Either Shakspeare meant to put a falsehood into the mouth of his poet, or had not yet thoroughly planned the character of Apemantus; for in the ensuing scenes, his behaviour is as cynical to Timon as to his followers. STEEVENS.

The Poet, seeing that Apemantus paid frequent visits to Timon, naturally concluded that he was equally courteous with his other guests. RITSON.

I saw them speak TOGETHER.] The word-together, which only serves to interrupt the measure, is, I believe, an interpolation, being occasionally omitted by our author, as unnecessary to sense, on similar occasions. Thus, in Measure for Measure : Bring me to hear them speak;" i. e. to speak together, to "When converse. Again, in another of our author's plays: spoke you last?" Nor is the same phraseology, at this hour, out of use. STEEVENS.

·rank'd with all deserts,] Cover'd with ranks of all kinds of men. JOHNSON.

6 TO PROPAGATE their states:] To advance or improve their various conditions of life.

JOHNSON.

7 Feign'd FORTUNE to be thron'd :——

on this SOVEREIGN LADY, &c.] So, in The Tempest : bountiful fortune,

66

66 Now

my

dear lady," &c. MALONE.

Whose present grace to present slaves and servants Translates his rivals.

PAIN.

'Tis conceiv'd to scope

This throne, this Fortune, and this hill, methinks,
With one man beckon'd from the rest below,
Bowing his head against the steepy mount
To climb his happiness, would be well express'd
In our condition 9.

POET.

Nay, sir, but hear me on:
All those which were his fellows but of late,
(Some better than his value,) on the moment
Follow his strides, his lobbies fill with tendance,
Rain sacrificial whisperings in his ear1,

Make sacred even his stirrup, and through him
Drink the free air 2.

8

conceiv'd to scope.] Properly imagined, appositely, to the purpose. JOHNSON.

9 In our CONDITION.] Condition, for art. WARburton.

Rain SACRIFICIAL whisperings in his ear,] The sense is obvious, and means, in general, flattering him. The particular kind of flattery may be collected from the circumstance of its being offered up in whispers: which shows it was the calumniating those whom Timon hated or envied, or whose vices were opposite to his own. This offering up, to the person flattered, the murdered reputation of others, Shakspeare, with the utmost beauty of thought and expression, calls sacrificial whisperings, alluding to the victims offered up to idols. WARBURTON.

Whisperings attended with such respect and veneration as accompany sacrifices to the gods. Such, I suppose, is the meaning. MALONE.

By sacrificial whisperings, I should simply understand whisperings of officious fervility, the incense of the worshipping parasite to the patron as to a god. These whisperings might probably immolate reputations for the most part, but I should not reduce the epithet in question to that notion here. Mr. Gray has excellently expressed in his Elegy these sacrificial offerings to the great from the poetick tribe:

"To heap the shine of luxury and pride

"With incense kindled at the muse's flame." WAKEfield. 2-Through him

DRINK the free air.] That is, catch his breath in affected fondness. JOHNSON.

PAIN.

Ay, marry, what of these? POET. When Fortune, in her shift and change of

mood,

Spurns down her late belov'd, all his dependants, Which labour'd after him to the mountain's top, Even on their knees and hands, let him slip down3, Not one accompanying his declining foot.

PAIN. "Tis common:

A thousand moral paintings I can show *,

That shall demonstrate these quick blows of fortune's 5

A similar phrase occurs in Ben Jonson's Every Man in his Humour : 66 By this air, the most divine tobacco I ever drank !" To drink, in both these instances, signifies to inhale. STEEVENS. Dr. Johnson's explanation appears to me highly unnatural and unsatisfactory. "To drink the air," like the haustos ætherios of Virgil, is merely a poetical phrase for draw the air, or breathe. To" drink the free air," therefore, " through another," is to breathe freely at his will only; so as to depend on him for the privilege of life: not even to breathe freely without his permission. WAKEFIELD.

So, in our author's Venus and Adonis :

"His nostrils drink the air.”

The emendation was made by Mr. Rowe. STEEVENS.

4 A thousand moral paintings I can show,] Shakspeare seems to intend in this dialogue to express some competition between the two great arts of imitation. Whatever the poet declares himself to have shown, the painter thinks he could have shown better. JOHNSON.

5

these quick blows of FORTUNE's-] This was the phraseology of Shakspeare's time, as I have observed in a note on King John, Act II. Sc. I. The modern editors read, more elegantly, of fortune. The alteration was first made in the second folio, from ignorance of Shakspeare's diction.

MALONE.

Though I cannot impute such a correction to the ignorance of the person who made it, I can easily suppose what is here styled the phraseology of Shakspeare, to be only the mistake of a vulgar transcriber or printer. Had our author been constant in his use

More pregnantly than words. Yet you do well,

6

To show lord Timon, that mean eyes have seen The foot above the head.

Trumpets sound. Enter TIMON, attended; the Servant of VENTIDIUS talking with him.

TIM.

Imprison'd is he, say you"? VEN. SERV. Ay, my good lord: five talents is his

debt;

His means most short, his creditors most strait:
Your honourable letter he desires

To those have shut him up; which failing,
Periods his comfort 9.

TIM.

Noble Ventidius! Well;

I am not of that feather, to shake off

My friend when he must need me1. I do know him

A gentleman, that well deserves a help,

of this mode of speech (which is not the case) the propriety of Mr. Malone's remark would have been readily admitted.

STEEVENS.

6 mean eyes ]i. e. inferior spectators. So, in Wotton's Letter to Bacon, dated March the last, 1613: "Before their majesties, and almost as many other meaner eyes," &c. TOLLET. 7 Imprison'd Is HE, say you?] Here we have another interpolation destructive to the metre. Omitting-is he, we ought to read:

8

66

Imprison'd, say you." STEEVENS.

which failing TO HIM,] Thus the second folio. The first omits—to him, and consequently mutilates the verse.

STEEVENS.

9 PERIODS his comfort.] To period is, perhaps, a verb of Shakspeare's introduction into the English language. I find it, however, used by Heywood, after him, in A Maidenhead Well Lost, 1634:

of

"How easy could I period all my care." Again, in The Country Girl, by T. B. 1647:

I

"To period our vain-grievings." STEEVENS.

MUST need me.] i. e. when he is compelled to have need my assistance; or, as Mr. Malone has more happily explained the phrase," cannot but want my assistance." STEEVENS