ACT IV. SCENE I.

123. "Do't in your parents' eyes !"

The pronoun "it," as well as the verb "to do" is often used in an obscene sense; as in King Lear:

"To it luxury, pel mel," &c.

"With it beat out his brains! piety and fear." We should read, metrically,

"Beat out his brains with't! piety and fear." "And yet confusion live."

Let confusion be the only thing that is not perverted or destroyed.

124. "Take thou that too."

I suppose Timon strips and throws his cloaths

away.

"Amen"

Is interpolated.

SCENE II.

Enter Flavius, with Servants.

125. "Hear you, master steward."

Nobody ever began a metrical line in this manner: a preceding syllable is wanting:

"But hear you, master steward, where's our master."

Again:

"Let me be recorded," &c.

Mr. Steevens's expedient to restore the metre by elliptically reading:

"Let be recorded," &c.

might stand; or else:

"Be it recorded by the righteous gods."
"And go along with him."

2d Serv. "

As we do turn our backs."

Something must be removed, here, either the words "with him," in the first hemistic, or "do," in the second:

As we do turn our backs."

This speech, in sentiment and expression, appears too elevated for the second servant: I believe it was assigned to Flavius.

126. "That see I by our faces; (we are) fellows

still."

This line might stand, elliptically, very well without the hypermetrical words within the parenthesis, and also in the next verse:

Serving alike in sorrow, leak'd (is) our bark." And again:

"Let's yet be fellows, (let's) shake our heads and say."

127. "But in a dream of friendship?"

Something has been lost from this hemistic: I suspect the rhyme was continued: and perhaps it was:

"Who'd be so mock'd with glory, or would live "But in a dream of friendship?-Still to give, "To have his state, and all state comprehends "But only painted like his varnish'd friends: "Poor honest lord, brought low by his own heart; "Denied all bounty he was wont t' impart; "Undone by goodness; strange, unusual mood "When man's worst sin is, he does too much good."

"Who, then, will dare be half so kind again?" &c.

I have the more confidence in mood, for blood, as I find that Dr. Johnson coincides with an emendation which I had offered before I saw his remark.

128. "I'll follow, and enquire him out." I suppose it was:

"But I will follow and enquire him out. "Serve his most noble mind with my best will, "And whilst I've gold I'll be his steward still,"

SCENE III.

"O blessed breeding sun, draw from the earth "Rotten humidity; below thy sister's orb

Infect the air!"

I suppose the

metre:

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poet wrote, contractedly, for the

'Neath thy sister's orb."

Twinn'd brothers

"Whose procreation, &c.

"Scarce is dividant,-touch them with several

fortunes."

The word" them" has been obtruded into the text to disturb both grammar and the metre. "The greater scorns the lesser: Not nature.”

This is no verse except in counting ten syllables; and the next but one is deficient by a foot and half. I suppose there is corruption, and would regulate:

"The greater scorns the lesser; our base nature, "To whom all sores lay siege, cannot sustain "Great fortune, but by the contempt of nature."

129. "Raise me this beggar, and denude that lord;

"The senator shall bear contempt heredi

tary,

"The beggar native honour."

The denuded senator shall incur the contempt entailed on ruined greatness, and the beggar shall receive the honours that are inherent to prosperity. The deficient quantity in the last verse shews that some words have been lost; perhaps these :

130.

"The beggar native honour, all his own.”

It is the pasture lards the brother's sides." I have not the least hesitation, after all that has been suggested on this passage, in adopting Dr. Warburton's emendation, the "weather's' sides; the word "brother" having recently occured in an apposite application; the transcriber's ear misled him into the error of repetition.

134. "His semblable, yea, himself, Timon disdains."

I believe we should read, either,

"His semblance, yea, himself," &c. Or, dismissing "yea,"

"His semblable, himself, Timon disdains." 135. "Ha, you gods," &c.

"Ha" is interpolated, superfluous, and unmetrical:

"Ye gods! why this? what's this, ye gods? why this

"Will lug your priests and servants from your sides;

"Pluck stout men's pillows from below their heads:

"This yellow slave."

Something has been lost; perhaps like this: “And baffle their repose; this yellow slave." The wappen'd widow."

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The sense of the word "wappen'd" seems to be sufficiently explained by the critics: but is it not, probably, a corruption of " vapid”—the powers of and are continually confounded in vulgar language, and the wappen'd, vapen'd, or vapid widow may be the widow from whom the fire and spirit of amorous inclinations has departed; one in whom "the heyday of the blood

is tame.'

140. "Speak."

This is idle interpolation.

"I am misanthropos, and hate mankind.” The tautology and hypermeter, here, point out the right reading: