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-cornered night,
Find what thou want'st by free and offered light.
Come.

Tim. I'll meet you at the turn. What a god's gold, That he is worshipped in a baser temple Than where swine feed!

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

Settlest admiréd reverence in a slave:
To thee be worship! and thy saints for aye
Be crowned with plagues, that thee alone obey!
'Fit I meet them.

Poet. Hail, worthy Timon!
Pain.

[Advancing.

Our late noble master.

Tim. Have I once lived to see two honest men? Poet. Sir,

Having often of your open bounty tasted,
Hearing you were retired, your friends fall'n off,
Whose thankless natures-O, abhorred spirits!
Not all the whips of heaven are large enough—
What! to you!

Whose starlike nobleness gave life and influence
To their whole being! I am rapt, and cannot cover
The monstrous bulk of this ingratitude
With any size of words.

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

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, [To the Painter. Come not near him.-If thou wouldst not reside [To the Poet. But where one villain is, then him abandon.— Hence! pack! there's gold; ye came for gold, ye slaves:

Of its own fall, restraining aid to Timon;
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.

Tim.

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.
1st 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,
Allowed 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
His country's peace.

2nd Sen. And shakes his threat'ning sword Against the walls of Athens.

And tell them that, to ease them of their griefs,
Their fears of hostile strokes, their achés, losses,
Their pangs of love, with other incident throes
That nature's fragile vessel doth sustain
In life's uncertain voyage, I will some kindness do
them :

I'll teach them to prevent wild Alcibiades' wrath. 2nd Sen. I like this well; he will return again.

Tim. I have a tree which grows here in my close, That mine own use invites me to cut down, And shortly must I fell it: tell my friends, Tell Athens, in the sequence of degree, From high to low throughout, that whoso please To stop affliction, let him take his haste, Come hither, ere my tree hath felt the axe, And hang himself. I pray you, do my greeting. Flav. Trouble him no further; thus you still

shall find him.

Tim. Come not to me again: but say to Athens, Timon hath made his everlasting mansion Upon the beachéd verge of the salt flood; Which once a day with his embosséd froth The turbulent surge shall cover; thither come, And let my gravestone be your oracle.— Lips, let sour words go by, and language end: What is amiss, plague and infection mend! Graves only be men's works; and death their gain!

Sun, hide thy beams! Timon hath done his reign. [Exit TIMON. 1st Sen. His discontents are unremoveably Coupled to nature.

2nd Sen. Our hope in him is dead : let us return, And strain what other means is left unto us In our dear peril.

Enter a Soldier, seeking TIMON.

Sol. By all description this should be the place. Who's here? speak, ho!-No answer?-What is this?

Timon is dead, who hath outstretched his span: Some beast reared this; there does not live a man. Dead, sure; and this his grave.—

What's on this tomb I cannot read; the character
I'll take with wax:

Our captain hath in every figure skill;
An aged interpreter, though young in days:
Before proud Athens he's set down by this,
Whose fall the mark of his ambition is. [Exit.

SCENE V.-Before the Walls of Athens. Trumpets sound. Enter ALCIBIADES and Forces. Alcib. Sound to this coward and lascivious town

Our terrible approach. [A parley sounded.

Enter Senators, on the walls.

Till now you have gone on, and filled the time
With all licentious measure, making your wills
The scope of justice; till now, myself and such
As slept within the shadow of your power,
Have wandered with our traversed arms, and
breathed

Our sufferance vainly now the time is flush,
When crouching marrow, in the bearer strong,
Cries of itself, “No more :" now breathless wrong
Shall sit and pant in your great chairs of ease;
And pursy indolence shall break his wind,
With fear and horrid flight.

1st Sen.

Noble and young,

Against our rampired gates, and they shall ope;
So thou wilt send thy gentle heart before,
To say, thou 'lt enter friendly.
2nd Sen. Throw thy glove,
Or any token of thine honour else,

That thou wilt use the wars as thy redress,
And not as our confusion, all thy powers
Shall make their harbour in our town, till we
Have sealed thy full desire.

Alcib. Then there's my glove: Descend, and open your unchargéd ports. Those enemies of Timon's, and mine own, Whom you yourselves shall set out for reproof, Fall, and no more: and (to atone your fears With my more noble meaning) not a man Shall pass his quarter, or offend the stream Of regular justice in your city's bounds,