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PAIN. Certain: Alcibiades reports it; Phrynia and Tymandra had gold of him: he likewife enrich'd poor ftraggling foldiers with great quantity: 'Tis faid, he gave unto his fteward a mighty fum. POET. Then this breaking of his has been but a try for his friends.

PAIN. Nothing else: you fhall fee him a palm in Athens again, and flourish with the highest. Therefore, 'tis not amifs, we tender our loves to him, in this fuppofed diftrefs of his: it will fhow 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 vifitation: only I will promise him an excellent piece.

POET. I muft ferve him fo too; tell him of an intent that's coming toward him.

PAIN. Good as the best. Promifing 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 fimpler kind of people, the deed of faying is quite out of ufe. To promife is most courtly and fashionable: performance is a kind of

2a palm-and flourish &c.] This allufion is fcriptural, and occurs in Pfalm xcii. 11: "The righteous fhall flourish like a palm-tree." STEEVENS.

3

the deed of faying is quite out of use.] The doing of that which we have faid we would do, the accomplishment and performance of our promife, is, except among the lower claffes of mankind, quite out of ufe. So, in King Lear:

*

In my true heart

"I find the names my very deed of love."

Again, more appofitely, in Hamlet:

"As he, in his peculiar act and force,

"May give his faying deed."

will, or teftament, which argues a great sickness in his judgement that makes it.

TIM. Excellent workman! Thou canst not paint a man fo bad as is thyself.

POET. I am thinking, what I fhall fay I have provided for him: It must be a perfonating of himfelf: a fatire against the foftnefs of profperity; with a discovery of the infinite flatteries, that follow youth and opulency.

TIM. Muft thou needs ftand for a villain in thine own work? Wilt thou whip thine own faults in other men? Do fo, I have gold for thee.

POET. Nay, let's feek him:

Then do we fin against our own estate,

When we may profit meet, and come too late.
PAIN. True;

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

Mr. Pope rejected the words of faying, and the four following editors adopted his licentious regulation. MALONE.

I claim the merit of having restored the old reading. STEEVENS, 3 It must be a perfonating of himself:] Perfonating, for reprefenting fimply. For the fubject of this projected fatire was Timon's cafe, not his perfon. WARBURTON.

4 When the day ferves, &c.] Theobald with fome probability affigns thefe two lines to the Poet. MALONE.

before black-corner'd night,] An anonymous correfpondent fent me this obfervation: "As the fhadow of the earth's body, which is round, muft be neceffarily conical over the hemifphere which is oppofite to the fun, fhould we not read black-coned? See Paradife Loft, Book IV."

To this obfervation I might add a fentence from Philemon Holland's tranflation of Pliny's Natural Hiftory, B. II: "Neither is the night any thing elfe but the fhade of the earth. Now the figure of this fhadow refembleth a pyramis pointed forward, or a top turned upfide down."

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

gold,

That he is worshipp'd in a baser temple,

Than where fwine feed!

'Tis thou that rigg'st the bark, and plough'st the foam;

Settleft admired reverence in a flave:

To thee be worship! and thy faints for aye

Be crown'd with plagues, that thee alone obey! 'Fit I do meet them."

POET. Hail, worthy Timon!

PAIN.

[Advancing.

Our late noble master.

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

Having often of your open bounty tasted,

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

Whofe ftar-like noblenefs gave life and influence To their whole being! I'm rapt, and cannot cover The monftrous bulk of this ingratitude

With any fize of words.

TIM. Let it go naked, men may see't the better: You, that are honeft, by being what you are, Make them best seen, and known.

ΡΑΙΝ.

He, and myself,

In

I believe, nevertheless, that Shakspeare, by this expreffion, meant only, Night which is as obfcure as a dark corner. Meafure for Meajure, Lucio calls the Duke, "a duke of dark corners." Mr. M. Mafon proposes to read, " black-crown'd night;" another correfpondent, black-cover'd night." STEEVENS.

66

6 'Fit I do meet them.] For the fake of harmony in this hemiftich, I have fupplied the auxiliary verb. STEEVENS.

Have travell❜d in the great shower of your gifts, And fweetly felt it.

TIM.

Ay, you are honeft men.

PAIN. We are hither come to offer you our fervice.

TIM. Most honeft men! Why, how fhall I requite you?

Can you eat roots, and drink cold water? no.

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

TIM. You are honeft men: You have heard that I have gold;

I am fure, you have: fpeak truth: you are honest

men.

PAIN. So it is faid, my noble lord: but therefore Came not my friend, nor I.

TIM. Good honeft men:-Thou draw'ft a coun

terfeit 6

Best in all Athens: thou art, indeed, the best;
Thou counterfeit'st most lively.

PAIN.

So, fo, my lord. TIM. Even fo, fir, as I fay :-And, for thy fiction, [To the Poet. Why, thy verfe fwells with ftuff fo fine and smooth, That thou art even natural in thine art.But, for all this, my honeft-natur'd friends, I must needs fay, you have a little fault:

Marry, 'tis not monftrous in you; neither wish I, You take much pains to mend.

❝a counterfeit-] It has been already obferved, that a portrait was fo called in our author's time:

What find I here?

"Fair Portia's counterfeit !" Merchant of Venice.

STEEVENS,

[blocks in formation]

BOTH. Doubt it not, worthy lord.

TIM. There's ne'er a one of you but trufts a

knave,

That mightily deceives you.

Вотн.

Do we, my lord?

TIM. Ay, and you hear him cog, fee him diffemble,

Know his grofs patchery, love him, feed him,
Keep in your bofom: yet remain affur'd,

That he's a made-up villain.'

PAIN. I know none fuch, my lord.

POET.

Nor I.s

TIM. Look you, I love you well; I'll give you

gold,

Rid me these villains from your companies:
Hang them, or ftab them, drown them in a draught,

7 — a made-up villain.] That is, a villain that adopts qualities and characters not properly belonging to him; a hypocrite.

JOHNSON.

A made-up villain, may mean a complete, a finished villain.
M. MASON.

Nor I.] As it may be fuppofed (perhaps I am repeating a remark already made on a fimilar occafion) that our author defigned his Poet's address to be not lefs refpectful than that of his Painter, he might originally have finished this defective verfe, by writing: Nor I, my lord. STEEVENS.

9- in a draught,] That is, in the jakes. JOHNSON.

So, in Holinfbed, Vol. II. p. 735: "he was then fitting on a draught." STEEVENS.

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