Into our city with thy banners spread :
By decimation, and a tithed death,
(If thy revenges hunger for that food,

Which nature loaths,) take thou the destin'd tenth;
And by the hazard of the spotted die,

Let die the spotted.

1 Sen. All have not offended;

For those that were, it is not square, to take,
On those that are, revenges: crimes, like lands,
Are not inherited. Then, dear countryman,
Bring in thy ranks, but leave without thy rage:
Spare thy Athenian cradle, and those kin,
Which, in the bluster of thy wrath, must fall
With those that have offended: like a shepherd,
Approach the fold, and cull the infected forth,
But kill not all together.

2 Sen. What thou wilt,

Thou rather shalt enforce it with thy smile,
Than hew to't with thy sword.

1 Sen. Set but thy foot

Against our rampir'd gates, and they shall ope;
So thou wilt send thy gentle heart before,
To say, thou❜lt enter friendly,

2 Sen. Throw thy glove,

Or token of thine honour else,
any

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 seal'd thy full desire.

Alcib. Then there's my glove;

Descend, and open your uncharg'd 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 public laws
At heaviest answer.

Both. 'Tis most nobly spoken.
Alcib. Descend, and keep your words.
[The Senators descend, and open

[4] Not reguluar, not equitable. Uncharged means unattacked.

JOHNSON.
MASON.

the gates.

Not a soldier shall quit his station, or be let loose upon you; and, if any com

mits violence, he shall answer it regularly to the law.

JOHNSON.

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 plague consume you wicked caitiffs 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

gait."

These well express in thee thy latter spirits:

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.

Is noble Timon; of whose memory

Dead

Hereafter more.-Bring me into your city,
And I will use the olive with my sword:
Make war breed peace; make peace
Prescribe to other, as each other's leech.
Let our drums strike.

stint war; make each

[Exeunt.

[7] This epitaph is in sir Thomas North's translation of Plutarch, with the difference of one word only, wretches instead of caitiff's. STEEVENS.

[8] Physician.

STEEVENS.

TITUS ANDRONICUS.

OBSERVATIONS.

TITUS ANDRONICUS.] It is observable, that this play is printed in the quarto of 1611, with exactness equal to that of the other books of those times. The first edition was probably corrected by the author, so that here is very little room for conjecture or emendation; and accordingly none of the editors have much molested this piece with officious criticism. JOHNSON.

The

There is an authority for ascribing this play to Shakespeare, which I think a very strong one, though not made use of, as I remember, by any of his commentators. It is given to him, among other plays, which are undoubtedly his, in a little book, called Palladis Tamia, or the Second Part of Wit's Commonwealth, written by Francis Meres, Maister of Arts, and printed at London in 1598. other tragedies, enumerated as his in that book, are King John, Richard the Second, Henry the Fourth, Richard the Third, and Romeo and Juliet. The commedies are, the Midsummer-Night's Dream, the Gentlemen of Verona, the Comedy of Errors, the Love's Labour's Lost, the Love's Labour Won, and the Merchant of Venice. I have given this list, as it serves so far to ascertain the date of these plays; and also, as it contains a notice of a comedy of Shakespeare, the Love's Labour Won, not included in any collection of his works; nor, as far as I know, attributed to him by any other authority. If there should be a play in being with that title, though without Shakespeare's name, I should be glad to see it; and I think the editor would be sure of the public thanks, even if it should prove no better than the Love's Labour's Lost. TYRWHITT.

The work of criticism on the plays of our author, is, I believe, generally found to extend or contract itself in proportion to the value of the piece under consideration; and we shall always do little where we desire but little should be done. I know not that this piece stands in need of much emendation; though it might be treated as condemned criminals are in some countries,-any experiments might be justifiably made on it.

The author, whoever he was, might have borrowed the story, the names, the characters, &c. from an old ballad,