with the highest. Therefore, 't is not amiss we tender our loves to him, in this supposed distress of his: it will show honestly in us; and is very likely to load our purposes with what they travel for, if it be a just and true report that goes of his having.

POET. What have you now to present unto him?

PAIN. Nothing at this time but my visitation: only I will promise him an excellent piece.

POET. I must serve him so too; tell him of an intent that's coming toward hima. PAIN. Good as the best.

Promising is the very air o' the time;

It opens the eyes of expectation:

Performance is ever the duller for his act;

And, but in the plainer and simpler kind of people,

The deed of saying is quite out of use.

To promise is most courtly and fashionable;
Performance is a kind of will, or testament,

Which argues a great sickness in his judgment
That makes it.

TIM. Excellent workman! Thou canst not paint a man so bad as is thyself.
POET. I am thinking

What I shall say I have provided for him:

It must be a personating of himself:

A satire against the softness of prosperity;

With a discovery of the infinite flatteries

That follow youth and opulency.

TIM. Must thou needs stand for a villain in thine own work? Wilt thou whip thine own faults in other men? Do so, I have gold for thee.

POET. Nay, let's seek him:

Then do we sin against our own estate,

When we may profit meet, and come too late.

PAIN. True;

When the day serves, before black-corner'd night,
Find what thou want'st by free and offer'd light.
Come.

TIM. I'll meet you at the turn. What a god's gold,

That he is worshipp'd in a baser temple

Than where swine feed!

a It is difficult to say whether this scene, which in the original is printed as verse, ought to retain that form. In all the modern editions it is given as prose. It is certainly impossible to render some of the speeches metrical; but yet lines occur in them which would appear to have as much claim to be considered metrical as many others in this play. For example

"Poor straggling soldiers, with great quantity."

"Therefore, 't is not amiss we tender our loves

To him in this supposed distress of his."

We have no doubt that the speeches of the Poet and the Painter, beginning " Good as the best" are intended to be metrical, however rugged they may appear.

"T is thou that rigg'st the bark, and plough'st the foam: Settlest admired reverence in a slave:

To thee be worship! and thy saints for aye

Be crown'd with plagues, that thee alone obey!

'Fit I meet them.

POET. Hail, worthy Timon!

PAIN.

[Advancing.

Our late noble master.

TIM. Have I once liv'd to see two honest men?
POET. Sir,

Having often of your open bounty tasted,

Hearing you were retir'd, your friends fall'n off,
Whose thankless natures-O abhorred spirits!
Not all the whips of heaven are large enough-
What! to you!

Whose star-like nobleness gave life and influence
To their whole being! I'm rapt, and cannot cover
The monstrous bulk of this ingratitude

PAIN. We are hither come to offer you our service.
TIM. Most honest men! Why, how shall I requite you?
Can you eat roots, and drink cold water? no.

BOTH. What we can do, we 'll do, to do you service.

TIM. You are honest men: You have heard that I have gold;
I am sure you have: speak truth: you 're honest men.

PAIN. So it is said, my noble lord: but therefore

Came not my friend, nor I.

TIM. Good, honest men :-Thou draw'st a counterfeit
Best in all Athens: thou art, indeed, the best;

Thou counterfeit'st most lively.

PAIN.
So, so, my lord.
TIM. Even so, sir, as I say:—And, for thy fiction,
Why, thy verse swells with stuff so fine and smooth,
That thou art even natural in thine art.-
But, for all this, my honest-natur'd friends,
I must needs say you have a little fault :

Marry, 't is not monstrous in you; neither wish I
You take much pains to mend.

Вотн.

TRAGEDIES.-VOL. I.

Beseech your honour

[To the Poet.

D D

Will you, indeed?

BOTH. Most thankfully, my lord.
TIM.

BOTH. Doubt it not, worthy lord.

TIM. There's never a one of you but trusts a knave,
That mightily deceives you.

TIM. Look you, I love you well; I'll give you gold,
Rid me these villains from your companies :

Hang them, or stab them, drown them in a draught,
Confound them by some course, and come to me,
I'll give you gold enough.

BOTH. Name them, my lord; let's know them.

TIM. You that way, and you this, but two in company :

Each man apart, all single and alone,

Yet an arch-villain keeps him company.

If where thou art, two villains shall not be,

Come not near him,-If thou wouldst not reside

But where one villain is, then him abandon.

Hence! pack! there 's gold, ye came for gold, ye slaves:
You have work for me, there's payment: Hence b!
You are an alchymist, make gold of that:-
Out, rascal dogs!

[To the Painter. [To the Poet.

[Exit, beating and driving them out.

a Mason, in his usual literal and prosaic manner, proposed to read, "not two in company." The meaning is amplified in the subsequent lines-go apart, you that way, and you this; still there are two in company-yourself and the "made-up villain."

"Rid me these villains from your companies."

The ordinary reading is "you have done work for me." Malone says, "For the insertion of the word done, which it is manifest was omitted by the negligence of the compositor, I am answerable. Timon in this line addresses the Painter, whom he before called 'excellent workman;' in the next the Poet." It appears to us that this is a hasty correction. Timon has overheard both the Poet and the Painter declaring that they have nothing to present to him at that time but promises, and it is with bitter irony that he says "excellent workman." In the same sarcastic spirit he now says, "You have work for me-there 's payment."

SCENE II.-The same.

Enter FLAVIUS, and Two Senators.

FLAV. It is vain that you would speak with Timon;

For he is set so only to himself,

That nothing but himself, which looks like man,
Is friendly with him.

TIM. Thou sun, that comfort'st, burn!-Speak, and be hang'd:
For each true word a blister! and each false

Be as a caut'rising to the root o' the tongue,
Consuming it with speaking!

1 SEN.

Worthy Timon,

TIM. Of none but such as you, and you of Timon.

2 SEN. The senators of Athens greet thee, Timon.

TIM. I thank them; and would send them back the plague, Could I but catch it for them.

TIM.

And send forth us, to make their sorrowed render,
Together with a recompense more fruitful

Than their offence can weigh down by the dram;
Ay, even such heaps and sums of love and wealth,
As shall to thee blot out what wrongs were theirs,
And write in thee the figures of their love,

Ever to read them thine.

You witch me in it;

Surprise me to the very brink of tears:

Lend me a fool's heart, and a woman's eyes,

And I'll beweep these comforts, worthy senators. 1 SEN. Therefore, so please thee to return with us, And of our Athens (thine, and ours) to take The captainship, thou shalt be met with thanks, Allow'd with absolute power, and thy good name Live with authority ::-so soon we shall drive back

Of Alcibiades the approaches wild;

Who, like a boar too savage, doth root up

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. But if he sack fair Athens,

And take our goodly aged men by the beards,

Giving our holy virgins to the stain

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

Then, let him know,-and tell him, Timon speaks it,

In pity of our aged, and our youth,

I cannot choose but tell him, that I care not,

And let him take 't at worst; for their knives care not,

While you have throats to answer: for myself,

There's not a whittle in the unruly camp,

But I do prize it at my love, before

The reverend'st throat in Athens.

So I leave you

To the protection of the prosperous gods,
As thieves to keepers.

FLAV.

Stay not, all 's in vain.
TIM. Why, I was writing of my epitaph;

It will be seen to-morrow: my long sickness
Of health, and living, now begins to mend,
And nothing brings me all things. Go, live still;
Be Alcibiades your plague, you his,