Enter certain Senators, and pass over. PAIN. How this lord's follow'd! POET. The fenators of Athens ;-Happy men!' PAIN. Look, more! POET. You fee this confluence, this great flood of visitors.+ I have, in this rough work, fhap'd out a man, In a wide fea of wax: no levell'd malice 3 -Happy men!] Mr. Theobald reads-happy man; and certainly the emendation is fufficiently plaufible, though the old reading may well ftand. MALONE. The text is right. The poet envies or admires the felicity of the fenators in being Timon's friends, and familiarly admitted to his table, to partake of his good cheer, and experience the effects of his bounty. RITSON. 4 this confluence, this great flood of vifitors.] Mane falutantum totis vomit ædibus undam. JOHNSON. this beneath world-] So, in Measure for Measure, we have "This under generation;" and in King Richard II: “ — the lower world." STEEVENS. 6 Halts not particularly,] My defign does not stop at any fingle character. JOHNSON. 7 In a wide fea of wax:] Anciently they wrote upon waxen tables with an iron ftile. HANMER. I once thought with Sir T. Hanmer, that this was only an allufion to the Roman practice of writing with a ftyle on waxen tablets; but it appears that the fame cuftom prevailed in England about the year 1395, and might have been heard of by Shakspeare. It seems alfo to be pointed out by implication in many of our old collegiate establishments. See Warton's Hiftory of English Poetry, Vol. III. p. 151. STEEVENS. Mr. Aftle obferves in his very ingenious work On the Origin and Progress of Writing, quarto, 1784, that" the practice of writing on Infects one comma in the courfe I hold; But flies an eagle flight, bold, and forth on, PAIN. How fhall I understand you? POET. I'll unbolt to you." You fee how all conditions, how all minds, (As well of glib and flippery creatures, as Of grave and auftere quality,) tender down Their fervices to lord Timon: his large fortune, Upon his good and gracious nature hanging, Subdues and properties to his love and tendance All forts of hearts; yea, from the glass-fac'd flat terer 4 To Apemantus, that few things loves better table-books covered with wax was not entirely laid afide till the commencement of the fourteenth century." As Shakspeare, I believe, was not a very profound English antiquary, it is furely improbable that he should have had any knowledge of a practice which had been difufed for more than two centuries before he was born. The Roman practice he might have learned from Golding's Tranflation of the ninth book of Ovid's Metamorphofes: "Her right hand holds the pen, her left doth hold the emptie waxe," &c. MALONE. 8 no levell'd malice &c.] To level is to aim, to point the fhot at a mark. Shakspeare's meaning is, my poem is not a fatire written with any particular view, or levelled at any fingle perfon; I fly like an eagle into the general expanfe of life, and leave not, by any private mifchief, the trace of my paffage. JOHNSON. 9 I'll unbolt-] I'll open, I'll explain. JOHNSON. 2 glib and flippery creatures,] Sir T. Hanmer, and Dr. Warburton after him, read-natures. Slippery is fmooth, unrefifting. JOHNSON. My heart's fubdued "Even to the very quality of my lord." STEEVENS. -glass-fac'd flatterer-] That fhows in his look, as by reflection, the looks of his patron. JOHNSON. Than to abhor himself: even he drops down PAIN. I faw them fpeak together." POET. Sir, I have upon a high and pleasant hill, Feign'd Fortune to be thron'd: The bafe o'the mount 8 Is rank'd with all deferts, all kind of natures, 5 —even he drops down &c.] Either Shakspeare meant to put a falfehood into the mouth of his poet, or had not yet thoroughly planned the character of Apemantus; for in the enfuing fcenes, his behaviour is as cynical to Timon as to his followers. STEEVENS. The Poet, feeing that Apemantus paid frequent vifits to Timon, naturally concluded that he was equally courteous with his other guefts. RITSON. 6 I faw them fpeak together.] The word-together, which only ferves to interrupt the meafure, is, I believe, an interpolation, being occafionally omitted by our author, as unneceflary to fenfe, on fimilar occafions. Thus, in Meafure for Measure: Bring me to hear them fpeak;" i. e. to speak together, to converfe. Again, in another of our author's plays: "When spoke you laft?" Nor is the fame phrafeology, even at this hour, out of ufe. STEEVENS. 66 7 ·rank'd with all deferts,] Cover'd with ranks of all kinds of men. JOHNSON. 8 To propagate their fates:] To advance or improve their various conditions of life. JOHNSON. 9 Feign'd Fortune to be thron'd: 66 on this fovereign lady &c.] So, in The Tempeft: bountiful fortune, "Now my dear lady," &c. MALONE. PAIN. 'Tis conceiv'd to scope.2 This throne, this Fortune, and this hill, methinks, With one man beckon'd from the reft below, Bowing his head against the steepy mount To climb his happinefs, would be well exprefs'd In our condition.3 POET. Nay, fir, but hear me on: All thofe which were his fellows but of late, Make facred even his ftirrop, and through him PAIN. Ay, marry, what of these? 2 conceiv'd to fcope.] Properly imagined, appofitely, to the purpose. JOHNSON. 3 In our condition.] Condition for art. WARBURTON. 4 Rain facrificial whisperings in his car,] The fenfe is obvious, and means, in general, flattering him. The particular kind of flattery may be collected from the circumftance of its being offered up in whispers: which fhows it was the calumniating those whom Timon hated or envied, or whofe vices were oppofite to his own. This offering up, to the perfon flattered, the murdered reputation of others, Shakspeare, with the utmost beauty of thought and expreffion, calls facrificial whip'rings, alluding to the victims offered up to idols. WARBURTON. Whisperings attended with fuch refpect and veneration as accompany facrifices to the gods. Such, I fuppofe, is the meaning. MALONE. 5 through him Drink the free air.] That is, catch his breath in affected fondnefs. JOHNSON. A fimilar phrafe occurs in Ben Jonfon's Every Man in his Humour: "By this air, the most divine tobacco I ever drank !” To drink, in both thefe inftances, fignifies to inhale. STEEVENS, So, in our author's Venus and Adonis: "His noftrils drink the air." Again, in The Tempeft: “ I drink the air before me." MALONE, POET. When Fortune, in her shift and change of Spurns down her late belov'd, all his dependants, PAIN. 'Tis common: A thousand moral paintings I can fhow," That shall demonftrate these quick blows of for- More pregnantly than words. Yet you do well, The emendation was made by Mr. Rowe. STEEVENS. "A thousand moral paintings I can fhow,] Shakspeare feems to intend in this dialogue to exprefs fome competition between the two great arts of imitation. Whatever the poet declares himself to have shown, the painter thinks he could have shown better. JOHNSON. 8 thefe quick blows of fortune-] [Old copy-fortune's -] This was the phrafeology of Shakfpeare's time, as I have already obferved in a note on King John, Vol. VIII. p. 32, n. 3. The modern editors read, more elegantly,-of fortune. The alteration was first made in the fecond folio, from ignorance of Shakspeare's diction. MALONE. Though I cannot impute fuch a correction to the ignorance of the perfon who made it, I can eafily fuppofe what is here ftyled the phrafeology of Shakspeare, to be only the miftake of a vulgar tranfcriber or printer. Had our author been conftant in his ufe of this mode of fpeech (which is not the cafe) the propriety of Mr. Malone's remark would have been readily admitted. STEEVENS. mean eyes] i. e. inferior fpectators. So, in Wotton's Letter to Bacon, dated March the laft, 1613: "Before their majefties, and almost as many other meaner eyes," &c. TOLLET. 9 |