Descend, and open your uncharged 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,
But shall be remedied, to your publick laws
At heaviest answer.
Both.

'Tis most nobly spoken. Alcib. Descend, and keep your words.

The Senators descend, and

open

the gates.

Enter a Soldier.

Sol. My noble general, Timon is dead; Entomb’d upon the very hem o'the sea: And, on his grave-stone, this insculpture; which With wax I brought away, whose soft impression Interprets for my poor ignorance. Alcib. [Reads.] Here lies a wretched corse, of

wretched soul bereft: Seek not my name: A plugue consume you wicked

caitiff's left! Here lie I Timon; who, alive, all living men did hate: Pass by, and curse thy fill; but pass, and stay not here

thy guit. These well express in thee thy latter spirits :

51

Though thou abhorr'dst in us our human griefs,
Scorn'dst our brain's flow, and those our droplets

which
From niggard nature fall, yet rich conceit
Taught thee to make vast Neptune weep for aye
On thy low grave, on faults forgiven. Dead
Is noble Timon; of whose memory
Hereafter more.-Bring me into your city,
And I will use the olive with my sword:
Make war breed

peace;
make peace

stint

war; make each Prescribe to other, as each other's leech.Let our drunis strike,

[Exeunt.

BREATH'D as it were-] Breath'd is inured by constant practice; số trained as not to be wearied. To breathe a horse, is to exercise him for the course.

JOHNSON. ? When we for recompence, &c.] We must here suppose the poet busy in reading his own work; and that these three lines are the introduction of the poem addressed to Timon, which he afterwards gives the painter an account of.

WARBURTON. $ In a wide sea of war :) In ancient times men wrote upon tablets of wax with a graver or stile. This custom does not seem to have ceased in England till as late as the reign of Richard II.

4 I'll unbolt to you.] I'll explain; i'll unlock my mind.

properties–) Appropriates, makes his own. o even he drops down, &c.) Either Shakspeare meant to put a falshood into the mouth of his poet, or VOL. X.

I

5

STEEVENS.

8

had not yet thoroughly planned the character of Apemantus;

for in the ensuing scenes, his behaviour is as cynical to Timon as to the rest. i-conceived to scope.] Imagined properly.

our condition.] Our art; The subject would be well expressed in a picture.

9 A thousand moral paintings I can shew.] 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 shewn, the painter thinks he could have sbewn better.

JOHNSON. 10 'Tis not enough, &c.] This thought is better expressed by Dr. Madden in his elegy on archbishop Boulter.

-He thought it mean Only to help the poor to breg again. JOHNSON. Mr. Steevens hints, that Madden paid ten guineas to Johnson for correcting this Blegy.

u Therefore he will be, Timon:] The thought is closely expressed, and obscure : but this seems the meaning, If the man be honest, my lord, for that reuson he will be so in this; and not endeavour at the injustice of gaining my daughter without my consent.

WAR BURTON. 12 It would unclew mem] To unclew, is to unwind a ball of thread. To unclew a man, is to draw out the whole mass of his fortunes.

JOHNSON. 13 Enter APEMANTUS.) See this character of a cynic