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Hath a distracted and moft wretched being,
Worfe than the worst, content.2

Thou should'ft defire to die, being miferable.
TIM. Not by his breath,' that is more mifera-
ble.

Thou art a flave, whom Fortune's tender arm
With favour never clasp'd; but bred a dog.

2 Worfe than the worst, content.] Beft ftates contentlefs have a wretched being, a being worse than that of the worst ftates that are content. JOHNSON.

3

by his breath,] It means, I believe, by his counsel, by his direction. JOHNSON.

By his breath, I believe, is meant his fentence. To breathe is as licentiously used by Shakspeare in the following inftance from Hamlet:

"Having ever feen, in the prenominate crimes,

"The youth you breathe of, guilty," &c. STEEVENS.

By his breath means in our author's language, by his voice or Speech, and fo in fact by his fentence. Shakspeare frequently ufes the word in this fenfe. It has been twice so used in this play. See p. 560, n. 5. MALONE.

4 Thou art a flave, whom Fortune's tender arm

With favour never clafp'd;] In a Collection of Sonnets entitled Chloris, or the Complaint of the paffionate defpifed Shepheard, by William Smith, 1596, a fimilar image is found:

"Doth any live that ever had fuch hap,

"That all their actions are of none effect?

"Whom Fortune never dandled in her lap,

"But as an abject still doth me reject." MALONE.

but bred a dog.] Alluding to the word Cynick, of which fect Apemantus was. WARBURTON.

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For the etymology of Cynick our author was not obliged to have recourfe to the Greek language. The dictionaries of his time furnished him with it. See Cawdrey's Dictionary of bard English words, octavo, 1604: "CYNICAL, Doggih, froward." Again, in Bullokar's English Expofitor, 1616: CYNICAL, Doggi, or currifh. There was in Greece an old fect of philofophers fo called, because they did ever fharply barke at men's vices," &c. After all, however, I believe Shakspeare only meant, thou wert born in a low state, and used from thy infancy to hardships. MALONE.

Hadft thou, like us, from our first swath," proceeded The sweet degrees that this brief world affords

8

6 Hadft thou, like us,] There is in this fpeech a fullen haughtinefs, and malignant dignity, fuitable at once to the lord and the man-hater. The impatience with which he bears to have his luxury reproached by one that never had luxury within his reach, is natural and graceful.

There is in a letter, written by the Earl of Effex, just before his execution, to another nobleman, a paffage fomewhat resembling this, with which, I believe every reader will be pleafed, though it is fo ferious and folemn that it can scarcely be inferted without irreverence:

"God grant your lordship may quickly feel the comfort I now enjoy in my unfeigned converfion, but that you may never feel the torments I have fuffered for my long delaying it. I had none but deceivers to call upon me, to whom I said, if my ambition could have entered into their narrow breafts, they would not have been fo bumble; or if my delights had been once tafted by them, they would not have been fo precife. But your lordship hath one to call upon you, that knoweth what it is you now enjoy; and what the greatest fruit and end is of all contentment that this world can afford. Think, therefore, dear earl, that I have ftaked and buoyed all the ways of pleasure unto you, and left them as fea-marks for you to keep the channel of religious virtue. For fhut your eyes never fo long, they must be open at the laft, and then you must fay with me, there is no peace to the ungodly." JOHNSON.

A fimilar thought occurs in a MS. metrical translation of an ancient French romance, preferved in the Library of King's College, Cambridge. [See note on Antony and Cleopatra, A& IV. fc. x:] "For heretofore of hardneffe hadeft thou never;

"But were brought forth in bliffe, as fwich a burde ought, Wyth alle maner gode metes, and to miffe them now

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"It were a botles bale," &c. p. 26, b. STEEVENS. "first fwath,] From infancy. Swath is the drefs of a new-born child. JOHNSON.

So, in Heywood's Golden Age, 1611:

"No more their cradles fhall be made their tombs,
"Nor their foft fwaths become their winding-fheets."

STEEVENS.

The feet degrees-] Thus the folio. The modern editors have, without authority, read-Through &c. but this neglect of the prepofition was common to many other writers of the age of Shakspeare. STEEVENS.

To fuch as may the paffive drugs of it
Freely command,' thou would'st have plung'd thy-
felf

In general riot; melted down thy youth
In different beds of luft; and never learn'd
The icy precepts of refpect, but follow'd
The fugar'd game before thee. But myself,

-command,] Old copy-command'ft. Corrected by Mr. Rowe. MALONE.

2-precepts of refpea,] Of obedience to laws. JOHNSON. Refped, I believe, means the qu'en dira't on? the regard of Athens, that strongest restraint on licentioufnefs: the icy precepts, i. e. that cool hot blood; what Mr. Burke, in his admirable Reflections on the Revolution in France, has emphatically styled "one of the greateft controuling powers on earth, the fenfe of fame and eftimation." STEEVENS.

Timon cannot mean by the word respect, obedience to the laws, as Johnfon fuppofes; for a poor man is more likely to be impressed with a reverence for the laws, than one in a station of nobility and affluence. Refpect may poffibly mean, as Steevens fuppofes, a regard to the opinion of the world: but I think it has a more enlarged fignification, and implies a confideration of consequences, whatever they may be. In this fense it is used by Hamlet:

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There's the refpect

"That makes calamity of fo long life," M. MASON. "The icy precepts of respect" mean the cold admonitions of cautious prudence, that deliberately weighs the confequences of every action. So, in Troilus and Creffida:

Reafon and refpect,

"Makes livers pale, and luftihood deject."

Again, in our poet's Rape of Lucrece:

"Then, childish fear, avaunt! debating die!

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Refpect and reafon wait on wrinkled age!
"Sad paufe and deep regard become the fage."

Hence in King Richard III. the King fays:

3

"I will converse with iron-witted fools,

"And unrespective boys; none are for me,

"That look into me with confiderate eyes." MALONE.

But myfelf,] The connection here requires fome attention. But is here ufed to denote oppofition; but what immediately precedes is not oppofed to that which follows. The adverfative particle refers to the two firft lines:

Who had the world as my confectionary;

The mouths, the tongues, the eyes, and hearts of

men

At duty, more than I could frame employment; *
That numberless upon me ftuck, as leaves
Do on the oak, have with one winter's brush
Fell from their boughs, and left me open, bare ›
For every ftorm that blows;-I, to bear this,
That never knew but better, is fome burden:
Thy nature did commence in fufferance, time
Hath made thee hard in't. Why fhould'ft thou
hate men?

They never flatter'd thee: What hast thou given?
If thou wilt curfe,-thy father, that poor rag,"

Thou art a flave, whom fortune's tender arm
With favour never clafp'd; but bred a dog.
But myself,

Who had the world as my confe&tionary; &c.

The intermediate lines are to be confidered as a parenthesis of paffion. JOHNSON.

than I could frame employment;] i. e. frame employment for. Shakspeare frequently writes thus. See p. 185, n. 2; and Vol. XII. p. 138, n. 8. MALONE.

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Fell from their boughs, and left me open, bare &c.] So, in Maflinger's Maid of Honour:

O fummer friendship,

"Whofe flatt'ring leaves that shadow'd us in our
"Profperity, with the leaft guft drop off

"In the autumn of adverfity." STEEVENS.

Somewhat of the fame imagery is found in our author's 73d Sonnet:

6

"That time of year thou may'st in me behold,

"When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang

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Upon those boughs which thake against the cold,

"Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds fang.”

MALONE.

that poor rag,] If we read-poor rogue, it will correfpond rather better to what follows. JOHNSON.

In King Richard III. Margaret calls Glofter rag of honour; in

Must be thy fubject; who in fpite, put stuff
To fome she beggar, and compounded thee
Poor rogue hereditary. Hence! be gone!-
If thou hadft not been born the worst of men,
Thou hadst been a knave, and flatterer."

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I, that I am one now:

Were all the wealth I have, fhut up in thee,

I'd give thee leave to hang it.
That the whole life of Athens
Thus would I eat it.

Get thee gone.were in this!

[Eating a root.

the fame play, the overweening rags of France are mentioned; and John Florio speaks of a " tara-rag player." STEEVENS.

66

We now use the word ragamuffin in the fame sense.

M. MASON. The term is yet ufed. The lowest of the people are yet denominated-Tag, rag, &c. So, in Julius Cæfar: "—if the tag-rag people did not clap him and hifs him,-I am no true man." MALONE.

7 Thou hadst been a knave, and flatterer.] Dryden has quoted two verfes of Virgil to fhow how well he could have written fatires. Shakspeare has here given a fpecimen of the fame power by a line bitter beyond all bitternefs, in which Timon tells Apemantus, that he had not virtue enough for the vices which he condemns.

Dr. Warburton explains worst by loweft, which fomewhat weakens the fenfe, and yet leaves it fufficiently vigorous.

I have heard Mr. Burke commend the fubtilty of difcrimination with which Shakspeare diftinguishes the prefent character of Timon from that of Apemantus, whom to vulgar eyes he would now refemble. JOHNSON.

Knave is here to be underfood of a man who endeavours to recommend himfelf by a hypocritical appearance of attention, and fuperfluity of fawning officioufnefs; fuch a one as is called in King Lear, a finical fuperferviceable rogue.-If he had had virtue enough to attain the profitable vices, he would have been profitably vicious.

STEEVENS.

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