Which now the public body, (which doth feldom
Play the recanter) feeling in itself

A lack of Timon's aid, hath sense withal
Of its own fall, reftraining aid to Timon;
And fends forth us to make their forrowed tender,
Together with a recompence more fruitful

Than their offence can weigh down by the dram;
Ay, ev'n fuch heaps and fums of love and wealth,
As fhall to thee blot out what wrongs were theirs;
And write in thee the figures of their love,
Ever to read them thine.

Tim. You witch me in it,

Surprize me to the very brink of tears:

Lend me a fool's heart, and a woman's eyes,
And I'll beweep thefe comforts, worthy fenators.

1 Sen. Therefore so please thee to return with us,
And of our Athens, thine and ours, to take
The captainfhip: thou fhalt be met with thanks,
Allow'd with abfolute power, and thy good name
Live with authority: foon we fhall drive back
Of Alcibiades th' approaches wild,

Who, like a boar too favage, doth root up
His country's peace.

2 Sen. And thakes his threatning fword Against the walls of Athens.

1 Sen. Therefore, Timon

Tim. Well, Sir, I will; therefore I will, Sir; thus

If Alcibiades kill my countrymen,

Let Alcibiades know this of Timon,

That Timon cares not. If he fack fair Athens,

And take our goodly aged men by th' beards,
Giving our holy virgins to the ftain

Of contumelious, beaftly, mad-brain'd war;

Then let him know,-and tell him, Timon speaks it ; In pity of our aged, and our youth,

I cannot chufe but tell him, that I care not.

|___And let him take't at worst; for their knives care not, While you have throats to anfwer. For myself,

There's not a whittle in th' unruly camp,

But I do prize it at my love, before

VOL. VI.

I

The

The reverend'st throat in Athens. So I leave you
To the protection of the profp'rous gods,
As thieves to keepers.

Flav. Stay not, all's in vain.

Tim. Why, I was writing of my epitaph,
It will be feen to-morrow. My long fickness
Of health and living now begins to mend,
And nothing brings me all things. Go, live ftill;
Be Alcibiades your plague; you his;

And laft fo long enough!

1 Sen. We speak in vain.

Tim. But yet I love my country, and am not One that rejoices in the common wrack,

As common bruite doth put it.

1 Sen. That's well spoke.

Tim. Commend me to my loving countrymen.

1 Sen. These words become your lips, as they pafs thro' them.

2 Sen. And enter in our ears, like great triumphers In their applauding gates.

Tim. Commend me to them,

And tell them, that to ease them of their griefs,
Their fears of hoftile ftrokes, their aches, loffes,
Their pangs of love, with other incident throes,
That nature's fragile veffel doth sustain
In life's uncertain voyage, I will do

Some kindness to them, teach them to prevent
Wild Alcibiades' wrath.

2 Sen. I like this well, he will return again.
Tim. I have a tree, which grows here in my clofe,
That mine own ufe invites me to cut down,

And fhortly muft I fell it. Tell my friends,
Tell Athens, in the frequence of degree,
From high to low throughout, that whofo please
To stop affliction, let him take his hafte; (38)

Come

(38)-let bim take his tafte;] I don't know, upon what authority Mr. Pope in both his editions has given us this reading; I have reftor'd the text from the old books, and, I am perfuaded, as the author wrote. Timon's whole harangue is copied from this paffage of Plutarch in the life of M. Antony: "Ye men of Athens, in a court-yard " belonging

Come hither, ere my tree hath felt the ax,
And hang himself-I pray you, do my greeting.
Flav. Vex him no further, thus you ftill fhall find him.
Tim. Come not to me again, but say to Athens,
Timon hath made his everlasting mansion
Upon the beached verge of the falt flood;
Which once a-day with his emboffed froth
The turbulent furge fhall cover: Thither come,
And let my grave-ftone be your
oracle.
Lips, let four words go by, and language end:
What is amifs, plague and infection mend!
Graves only be mens works, and death their gain!
Sun, hide thy beams! Timon hath done his reign.

[Exit Timon. 1 Sen. His difcontents are unremoveably coupled to

his nature.

2 Sen. Our hope in him is dead; let us return, And strain what other means is left unto us

In our dear peril. (39)

1 Sen. It requires fwift foot.

[Exeunt.

“belonging to my house grows a large fig-tree; on which many an "honeft citizen has been pleafed to hang himself: Now, as I have "thoughts of building upon that spot, I could not omit giving you "this public notice; to the end, that if any more among you have a mind to make the fame use of my tree, they may do it speedily "before it is deftroy'd." And Rabelais, who, in the oldest prologue to his fourth brok, has inferted this story from Plutarch, thus renders the clofe of the fentence.

-Pourtant quiconque de Vous autres, et de toute la ville aura a fe pendre, s'en depefche promptement.

(39) In our dead peril. Thus Mr. Rowe and Mr. Pope have given us this paffage; but is it not ftrange that the Athenians' peril fhould be dead, because one of their hopes was dead? Such a difappointment muft naturally give fresh life and ftrength to their danger. We must certainly read with the old Folio's; In our dear peril.

i.

e. dread, deep. So in As you like it ;.

For my father hated his father dearly.

So in Jul. Caf

Would it not grieve thee dearer than thy death, &.

And in Hamlet;

Would I had met my deareft foe in heav'n, &c.

And in an hundred other paffages, that might be quoted from our

author.

SCENE changes to the Walls of Athens. Enter two other Senators, with a Messenger.

Sen.

TH

Hou haft painfully discover'd; are his files
As full as thy report?

Mef. I have spoke the least.

Befides, his expedition promifes
Prefent approach.

2 Sen. We stand much hazard, if they bring not Timon. Mef. I met a courier, one mine ancient friend; Who, though in general part we were oppos'd,

Yet our old love made a particular force,

And made us fpeak like friends.

This man was riding

From Alcibiades to Timon's cave,
With letters of intreaty, which imported
His fellowship i' th' caufe against your city,
In part for his fake mov'd.

Enter the other Senators.

1 Sen. Here come our brothers.

3 Sen. No talk of Timon, nothing of him expect.The enemies drum is heard, and fearful fcouring Doth choak the air with duft. In, and prepare ; Ours is the fall, I fear, our foes the snare.

[Exeunt.

Enter a Soldier in the woods, seeking Timon. Sol. By all defcription this fhould be the place. Who's here? fpeak, ho.-No answer ?

this?

What is

Timon is dead, who hath out-ftretcht his fpan ;—
Some beaft rear'd this; here does not live a man. (40)
Dead,

(40) Some beaft read this: bere does not live a man.] Some beast read what? The foldier had yet only feen the rude pile of earth heap'd up for Timon's grave, and not the infcription upon it. My friend Mr. Warburton ingeniously advis'd me to amend the text, as I have done; and a paffage occurs to me, (from Beaumont and Fletcher's Cupid's Revenge that seems very strong in fupport of his conjecture:

Comfort was never here;

Here is no food, nor beds; nor any bouse
Built by a better architect than beafts.

The

Dead, fure, and this his grave; what's on this tomb ?
I cannot read; the character I'll take with wax;
Our captain hath in every figure skill,

An ag'd interpreter, tho' young in days:
Before proud Athens he's fet down by this,
Whofe fall the mark of his ambition is.

[Exit.

SCENE, before the Walls of Athens.

Trumpets found. Enter Alcibiades with his powers. Ound to this coward and lafcivious town

Ale. Our terrible approach.

[Sound a parley. The Senators appear upon the walls. 'Till now you have gone on, and fill'd the time With all licentious measure, making your wills The fcope of juftice. 'Till now myfelf, and fuch As flept within the fhadow of your power, Have wander'd with our traverst arms, and breath'd Our fufferance vainly. Now the time is flush, When crouching marrow in the bearer ftrong Cries, of itself, no more: now breathless wrong Shall fit and pant in your great chairs of ease, And purfy infolence fhall break his wind With fear and horrid flight.

1 Sen. Noble and

young,

When thy first griefs were but a mere conceit,
Ere thou hadst power, or we had cause to fear;
We fent to thee, to give thy rages balm,

To wipe out our ingratitude, with loves
Above their quantity.

2 Sen. So did we woo (41) Transformed Timon to our city's love

By

The foldier, feeking by order for Timon, fees fuch an irregular mole, as he concludes must have been the workmanship of fome beast inhabiting the woods; and fuch a cavity, as either must have been fo over-arch'd, or happened by the cafual falling in of the ground. This latter fpecies of caverns, produced by nature, fchylus, I remember, in his Prometheus, elegantly calls duród.r' ävτga, felf-built dens. (41) So did we woo Transformed Timon to our city's love