1 Enter certain Senators, and pass over. PAIN. How this lord's follow'd! Happy men! 3 POET. You fee this confluence, this great flood I have, in this rough work, fhap'd out a man, 6 Halts not particularly, but moves itfelf In a wide fea of wax: no levell'd malice 3 Happy men!] Mr. Theobald reads happy man; and certainly the emendation is sufficiently plausible, 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 effe&s of his bounty. RITSON. 4 5 this confluence, this great flood of visitors,] Mane falutantum totis vomit ædibus undum. JOHNSON. this beneath world-] So, in Meafure for Measure, we "This under generation;" and in King Richard II: “—the lower world." STEEVENS. have Halts not particularly, ] My defign does not ftop at any fingle chara&er. JOHNSON. 7 In a wide fea of wax:] Anciently they wrote upon waxen tables with an iron file. HANMER. I once thought with Sir T. Hanmer, that this was only an allufion to the Roman practice of writing with a file 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 eftablishments. See Wartou's Hiftory of English Poetry, Vol. III. p. 151. STEEVENS, Mr. Aftle observes 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; PAIN. How fhall I understand you?. 2 РОЕТ. 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, 3 Subdues and properties to his love and tendance All forts of hearts; yea, from the glafs-fac'd flatterer 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 fhould have had any knowledge of a practice which had been disused 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. 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 person; 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 glih and flippery creatures, ] Sir T. Hanmer, and Dr. Warburton after him, read-natures. Slippery is Smooth, unrefifting. 3 Subdues All forts of hearts;] So, in Othello: "My heart's fubdued JOHNSON. "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 himfelf: even he drops down The knee before him, and returns in peace 5 Moft rich in Timon's nod. 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 7 8 Is rank'd with all deferts, all kind of natures, even he drops down &.] Either Shakspeare meant to put a falfehood into the mouth of his poet, or had not yet thoroughly planned the chara&er of Apemantus; for in the enfuing fcenes, his behaviour is as cynical to Timou 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. I saw them speak together. The word together, which only ferves to interrupt the measure, is, I believe, an interpolation, being occafionally omitted by our author, as unneceffary to fense, on fimilar occafious. Thus, in Measure for Measure: Bring me to hear them speak;" i. e. to speak together, to converfe. Again, in another of our author's plays: "When fpoke you laft?" Nor is the fame phrafeology, even at this hour, out of use. 7 STEEVENS. 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: PAIN. 'Tis conceiv'd to fcope.* This throne, this Fortune, and this hill, methinks, POET. 3 Nay, fir, but hear me on: (Some better than his value,) on the moment PAIN. Ay, marry, what of these? conceiv'd to scope.] Properly imagined, appofitely, to the purpofc. JOHNSON. 3 In our condition. ] Condition for art. WARBURTON. Rain facrificial whisperings in his ears, ] The feufe 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 expreflion, calls facrificial whifp'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. through him Drink the free air.] That is, catch his breath in affeded fond. Defs. JOHNSON, mour: 66 A fimilar phrafe occurs in Ben Jonson's Every Man in his HuBy this air, the most divine tobacco I ever drank!" To drink, in both thefe inftances, fignifies to inhale. STEEVENS. So, in our autho'rs Venus and Adonis: His noftrils drink the air:" Again, in The Tempeft: 1 • I drink the air before me. POET. When Fortune, in her shift and change of mood, Spurns down her late belov'd, all his dependants, Which labour'd after him to the mountain's top, Even on their knees and hands, let him flip down," Not one accompanying his declining foot. PAIN. 'Tis common: A thousand moral paintings I can show," 9 More pregnantly than words. Yet you do well, To fhow lord Timon, that mean eyes have seen The foot above the head. 7 A thousand moral paintings I can show,] Shakspeare seems to intend in this dialogue to express some 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 Shakspeare's time, as I have already obferved in a note on King John, Vol. XI. p. 322, n. 3. The modern editors read, more elegantly, of fortune. The alteration was first made in the fecond folio, from ignorance of Shakspeare's di&ion. MALONE. Though I cannot impute fuch a correction to the ignorance of the perfon who made it, I can cafily fuppofe what is here ftyled the phraseology of Shakspeare, to be only the mistake of a vulgar transcriber 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 spedators. So, in Wotton's Letter to Bacon, dated March the laft, 1613: "Before their majefties, and almoft as many other meaner eyes," &c. TOLLET. 9 |