P. 204. (1) The folio has " "Our poesy is as a gum, which oozes," &c. as a Gowne which vses," &c.:-"gum" is the reading of Pope; "oozes" of Johnson. P. 204. (2) "Pain. How this lord is follow'd! Poet. The senators of Athens:-happy man !” So Theobald.-The folio has "- happy men;" which (though Ritson asserts that it "is right. The Poet envies or admires the felicity of the senators in being Timon's friends," &c.) the whole context proclaims to be wrong. The preceding plural, “senators,” led the transcriber or printer into the mistake. P. 206. (3) "Even on their knees and hands, let him slip down," &c. The folio has " and hand, let him sit downe," &c.-The editor of the sec. folio substituted "hands," and Rowe "slip." Here the second folio has "blows of Fortune," &c. - Malone defends the former reading as the phraseology of Shakespeare's time; while Steevens observes that our poet is not constant in using that mode of speech.-Compare, at p. 272, "Those enemies of Timon's," &c.-It is, however, certain that in the first folio the final s is frequently very suspicious, and sometimes manifestly wrong. The editor of the second folio gives "which failing to him," &c. -Capell prints "which failing him," &c. P. 206. (6) 66 to shake off My friend when he must need me.” The words "when he must need me" are well explained by Malone, "when he cannot but want my assistance." But, since the text of this play is dreadfully corrupt, the reading of the third folio may be the true one,-" when he most needs me." So corrected in the third folio.-The earlier folios have "will not cast," &c. P. 210. (8) "That I had no angry wit to be a lord." Warburton's reading is, "That I had so hungry a wit to be a lord;" Mason's, “That I had an angry wish to be a lord;" Mr. Collier's Ms. Corrector's, "That I had so hungry a wish to be a lord;" and (worst of all) Mr. Singer's Ms. Corrector's, "That I had an empty wit to be a lord."-Johnson explains the old text to mean, “I should hate myself for patiently enduring to be a lord." P. 210. (9) "go not you hence Till I have thank'd you :—when dinner's done, Here the modern editors print, with the second folio, "Till I have thank'd you; and when dinner's done," &c. But though the line is slightly mutilated (for here the author would hardly have written "thankèd"), the context renders the "and" very questionable. Qy. (as Hanmer printed) " The more accursed," &c.? Capell observes:-"By all modern ones [copies] are the two 'Lords' that enter to Apemantus at l. 27 [see the preceding page] christen'd by names specific-Lucius and Lucullus, and under those names are brought on again in the scene that comes next [the present scene]: letters denoting one of their names are found before a speech of that scene in old copies [which, in p. 215, have "Luc. You see, my lord, how ample," &c.], and are the sole authorities from them for their appearance in either: and from reason we have as little; they are address'd no where, and the only mention there is of them [see p. 217] proves them absent; but for this, the parties that bring them in, have found a salvo, by a well-tim'd dismission of them some nine lines before the mention comes in [i.e. to the speech in p. 217,“ All. So are we all," they add "Exe. Lucius and Lucullus."]. A servant coming from them with presents the moment they are withdrawn, according to these editors, will be allow'd an oddness," &c. Notes, &c. vol. ii. P. iv. p. 76. Here the more recent editors mark the entrance of “ Lucius" and " Lucullus" (and of " Sempronius" too): but at p. 217 they do not adopt from their predecessors the “Exe. Lucius and Lucullus ;" and they therefore suppose Lucius and Lucullus to be on the stage when the Second and Third Servants bring in the messages about the presents, which, to use Capell's language, "will be allow'd an oddness." P. 212. (13) 66 "Most honour'd Timon, It hath pleas'd the gods to remember my father's age, Mr. Knight observes, "This is one of the many instances in which we adhere to the metrical arrangement of the original," &c. Here I also do the same : but I have no doubt that in the present passage, as in many others throughout the play, the text is corrupted. (This has been altered to, The folio gives only three lines of this speech (“I wonder men,” &c., and the next two lines) as verse. Mr. Collier, I apprehend, is quite right in supposing that the whole speech was originally measure, but that much of it has lost that character in passing from one manuscript to another, and ultimately from manuscript to print:-" the same remark," he adds, "will apply to various other portions of this play." “The ear, taste, touch, smell, pleas'd from thy table rise,” &c. Warburton's excellent emendation.-The folio has "There tast, touch all, pleas'd from thy Table rise," &c. P. 216. (19) "You have added worth unto 't and lustre," &c. The editor of the second folio, to complete the measure, printed " and lively luster," &c. Has been altered to "I'll call on you,"-unnecessarily. Mr. Sandys remarks (Shakespeare Soc. Papers, vol. iii. 23) that the expression, "I'll call to (i.e. at) your house," is still common in the West. In my uncertainty about the proper regulation of this speech (as of many others throughout the present play), I give it as it stands in the folio: with respect to the last two lines,—I have already noticed that frequently, when our early dramatists introduce a couplet, they make the first line shorter (sometimes much shorter) than the second: see the concluding couplet of act ii. sc. 2 of Measure for Measure, and note. P. 219. (24) "If I would sell my horse, and buy twenty more Better than he, why, give my horse to Timon, Ask nothing, give it him, it foals me, straight, In the last line the third folio has "An able Horse."-Theobald printed, "and buy ten more Ten able horse," the first of these alterations being Pope's, the second his own.-Here Mr. Collier's Ms. Corrector makes only one change, "A stable o' horses," which I cannot think, with Mr. Collier, "was in all probability the poet's language."-Mr. Singer has just suggested to me as the true readings, Two able horses." "and buy two more He supposes that "in the Ms. the number, for brevity, was written 2, which was mistaken in the one instance for 20, and in the second for &." But would not the munificent Timon have given more than two horses in return for one? P. 220. (25) "no meed, but he repays Sevenfold above itself; no gift to him, But breeds the giver a return exceeding "Can found his state in safety." p. 211. The folio has "Can sound his state," &c.,-an obvious error, yet retained and defended by Mr. Knight and Mr. Collier. (Afterwards, p. 224, the folio has the very same mistake,— "you would throw them off, And say you sound them in mine honestie.") |