153. "And ditches grave you all."

I suppose some words have been lost; perhaps, "Do your foul course; and ditches grave you all."

"I never did thee harm.”

I suppose Alcibiades had first asked, "Wherefore good Timon? I ne'er did thee harm." 154. "And take thy beagles with thee." "With thee" might be spared, and the metre mended:

"And take thy beagles."

Alcib. "

We but offend him-strike."

"Teems, and feeds all; whose self-same mettle.” This is defective: I suppose it was,

"Teems and feeds all upon't, whose self-same

156.

mettle."

With liquorish draughts, "And morcels unctuous, greases his pure mind,

"That from it all consideration slips.'

That, by drunkenness and gluttony his mind may be utterly unretentive of rational reflection. "More man? plague! plague!"

Perhaps, as Apemantus advances:

"What's here? another yet! more man? plague! plague!"

158.

Call these creatures, "Whose naked natures live in all the spite

"Of wreakful heaven; whose bare un-
housed trunks,

"To the conflicting elements expos'd,
66 Answer mere nature.”

A passage much resembling this we find in King

Lear:

"Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er ye are, "That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm; "How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides, "Your loop'd and window'd raggedness defend

you

"Gainst seasons such as this."

159.

Thou flatter'st misery.”

This will not give the measure: I would read: Tim. "I hate thee worse."

Арет.

Tim.

Why?"

That thou flatter'st misery.”

"To ver thee."

Sir T. Hanmer's offered emendation ought to be received:

"Dost it enforc'd; thoud'st courtier be again."

160. "

Best state, contentless,

"Hath a distracted and most wretched being,

"Worse than the worst, content."

"Worse than the worst, contented to be worst."

A similar reflection is made by Iago:

"Poor and content is rich, and rich enough; "But riches fineless is as poor as winter "To him that ever fears he shall be poor."

66 Thou art a slave," &c.

Dr. Johnson has justly distinguished the parenthesis, here, which suspends the sense; but there is an apparent want of concord in what follows, which, whether studied or casual, is very natural in a passionate and desultory speech.

161. "Hadst thou, like us, from our first swath, proceeded."

This appears, at first, to be ungrammaticalhadst thou (like us) from our first swath proceeded-but this is not the construction; it is, hadst thou (like us, from our first swath) proceeded, &c.

162. "The icy precepts of respect.” The cold and rigid rules of morality. 164"

Have, with one winter's brush, "Fell from their boughs," &c.

"Have fell" (fallen) has no proper nominative case; for the construction, as it stands, is this, but myself, who had the world as my confectionary; who had the mouths, &c. of men, that numberless upon me stuck, as leaves do on the oak, have fallen, &c. "Myself," as yet, holds, legitimately, the station of the governing noun; but, in the passionate allusion to the leaves on the oak, disorder and anarchy intrude; and what was employed as an auxiliary usurps the domi- nion.

165. "

Art thou proud yet."

For the sake of the metre thou should be withdrawn.

66

Ay, that I am not thee.”

"Thee" should be corrected, thou." Ay" was written I, and so follows,

"I that I was no prodigal."

166. "If not, I would it were."

Tim.

"Where ly'st o'nights, Timon ?"

Why under, that's above me. "And where feed'st thou o'days, sour Ape

mantus ?"

But, presently, we have cureless prose.

168. "Wert thou a bear, thou would'st be killed by the horse."

This I do not understand.

"Thou wert german to the lion.”

There is, in this argument, no just sequence of offence or odium, so as to make either the spots of the leopard, or his relationship to the lion, a cause of condemnation. The page, I suppose, has been adulterated.

169. "When there is nothing living but thee." (thou)

Errors of grammar so gross as this, whether of

the poet himself or his transcriber, ought, certainly, to be corrected, without any scruple, in the text. The mistake, which is common enough, proceeds from confounding "but" (only) with except," which must be followed by the accu

sative case.

170. All villains that do stand by thee are pure.

Posthumus says,

"It is I

"That all th' abhorred things o' the earth amend, "By being worse than they."

172. "Long live so, and so die !-I am quit." I suppose, "at length I'm quit."

173. "How shall's get it?"

This ungrammatical expression occurs in Cymbeline:

174.

"Shall's have a play of this?"

66

Limited professions."

Legal professions, says Dr. Warburton; but is it not, prescribed professions?

178. "Amen."

This, I suppose, was added by the actor.

The exclamation "O" is superfluous, here, but might be prefixed to supply the measure, in the line a little lower down:

"O what an alteratíón of honour

"Has desperate want made in my noble master!"