20. "Therefore he will be, Timon." This certainly affords the meaning, therefore he will continue to be honest; but the deficient measure shews that something has been lostperhaps, Therefore, in this, he will be honest, Timon." 21. "She is young and apt." Further deficiency and disorder :-perhaps, "Alack, my noble lord, she's young and apt. Again: Tim. " "And dispossess her all." How shall she be "Endow'd, if mated with an equal husband ?" Your jewel "Hath suffer'd under praise." Hath (I suppose) endured a load or burthen of commendation. Your jewel "Hath suffer'd under praise.” The praise which has been so lavishly bestowed on your jewel has proved of disservice to it, viz. by preventing its sale: the idea raised of its excessive costliness having deterred people from offering themselves as purchasers. LORD CHEDWORTH. More disorder in the metre. Tim. "Which all men speak with him.” Look who comes here, "Sour Apemantus; will ye now be chid ?" Enter Apemantus. "We'll bear e'en with your lordship; he'll spare none." Jer. Tim. Why, are they not Athenians ?" Yes." "Repent not." You do know me, Apemantus." "Thou art proud, Apemantus; passing proud." Apem. "Of nought so much as that I'm not like Timon." Most of the speeches following are inveterate prose. 26. "How likest thou this picture?" Apem. "The best, for the innocence. By innocence, I believe, Apemantus would intimate that the picture was destitute of spirit and expression. 27. Apem. "That I had no angry wit to be a lord." I do not perceive that any of the attempts to explain this passage has been successful; the best I can make is this:-Apemantus, who is unrestrained by any rules of decorum or respect, to this question of Timon's, "Wherefore should you hate yourself, being a lord ?" replies, "Because, being a lord, I should of course be destitute of that wit which I can now apply, with due indignation, against so despicable a distinction." Apemantus would infer that sense and title are incompatible things. "To be a lord," for by being, or in being, a lord. 29. I am joyful of your sights." Timon seems here to have adopted the quaint style of the poet in expressing thus the common compliment, I am glad to see you; in the same manner as Hamlet amuses himself, with conforming to the diction of Osrick. Apem. "Most welcome, sir." 66 (They salute.) So so; there, bravely carried. "Aches contract," &c. "And all this court'sy! The strain of man's bred out "Into baboon and monkey." What sort of a line and half have we here? I would regulate: "And all this courtesy! The strain of man "Is bred out into a baboon, and a monkey." And again: "Most hungrily on your sight." 66 This is no metre: we might read, "Most hungrily upon your sight." Tim." 31. No meed, but he repays.” As "meed" stands here for merit, so is introduced, in another place, for meed. "All use of quittance." "merit" 66 cus "Use," here, I believe, implies something more than Dr. Warburton's interpretation, tomary return in discharge of obligation:" it means, I think, usance, in the utmost latitude, i. e. usury; for the gift "breeds the giver an excessive return." "I'll keep you company." This hemistic I take to be interpolated by the player, who was resolved to say something at his exit. "Can truly say, he gives, if he receives: If our betters play at that game, we must not dare "To imitate them; faults that are rich, are fair." There is here, I believe, a scriptural allusion"the Lord giveth, and he taketh away." The dignity of him who commits a fault, makes the fault itself look graceful:-but if the sense be clear the metre is corrupt: we might order it thus: "If that our betters play that game, we must "Not dare to imitate them in it: faults "That rich are, fair are." Vent. " ǎ noble spirit!" "Your ceremony was but devis'd at first comes." 34. "Than my fortunes to me." This unmetrical hemistic and the other following it want regulation.-Will this be accepted? "Than are my fortunes unto me." 1st Lord." Again: My lord, "We are deeply yours and always have confess'd it." "You shall not make me welcome; I hate wel come: "I come," &c. Again too: "But yon man's ever angry, and with all.” Unless we place the accent, contrary to all usage, upon the first syllable of "affect," the metre is not to be found in the first of these lines; and something has dropped from the second: we might thus correct: "For he does neither company affect, "Nor is he, at all, fit for it indeed." Apem. "Well, let me stay at thine own peril, Timon." 36. "It grieves me, to see so many dip their meat "In one man's blood; and all the madness is, "He cheers them up, too." If the sense is disputable, the metre is, incontestably, depraved: I would propose, by a com mon ellipsis in the first line, "It grieves me, see so many dip their meat "In one man's blood; and all the madness is, "He cheers them up too; urges them unto't." Dr. Johnson's application of the practice in the |