Infects one comma in the course I hold; PAIN. How shall I understand you? I'll unbolt to you. РОЕТ. You see how all conditions, how all minds, (As well of glib and slippery creatures,' as Of grave and austere quality,) tender down Their services to lord Timon: his large fortune, Upon his good and gracious nature hanging, Subdues and properties to his love and tendance All sorts of hearts; yea, from the glass-fac'd flat terer2 To Apemantus, that few things loves better the shot at a mark. Shakspeare's meaning is, my poem is not a satire written with any particular view, or levelled at any single person; I fly like an eagle into the general expanse of life, and leave not, by any private mischief, the trace of my passage. " I'll unbolt-] I'll open, I'll explain. JOHNSON. JOHNSON. 9 glib and slippery creatures,] Sir T. Hanmer, and Dr. Warburton after him, read-natures. Slippery is smooth, unresisting. JOHNSON. 1 Subdues. All sorts of hearts;] So, in Othello: "My heart's subdued "Even to the very quality of my lord." STEEVENS. -glass-fac'd flatterer-] That shows in his look, as by reflection, the looks of his patron. JOHNSON. —even he drops down &c.] Either Shakspeare meant to put a falsehood into the mouth of his Poet, or had not yet thoroughly planned the character of Apemantus; for in the ensuing scenes, his behaviour is as cynical to Timon as to his followers. STEEVENS. The Poet, seeing that Apemantus paid frequent visits to I saw them speak together. Most rich in Timon's nod. PAIN. POET. Sir, I have upon a high and pleasant hill, Feign'd Fortune to be thron'd: The base o'the mount 6 Is rank'd with all deserts,5 all kind of natures, PAIN. 'Tis conceiv'd to scope." This throne, this Fortune, and this hill, methinks, With one man beckon'd from the rest below, Bowing his head against the steepy mount Timon, naturally concluded that he was equally courteous with his other guests. RITSON. *I saw them speak together.] The word-together, which only serves to interrupt the measure, is, I believe, an interpolation, being occasionally omitted by our author, as unnecessary to sense, on similar occasions. Thus, in Measure for Measure: "-Bring me to hear them speak;" i. e. to speak together, to converse. Again, in another of our author's plays: "When spoke you last?" Nor is the same phraseology, at this hour, out of use. STEEVENS. -rank'd with all deserts,] Cover'd with ranks of all kinds of men. JOHNSON. "To propagate their states:] To advance or improve their various conditions of life. JOHNSON. "Feign'd Fortune to be thron'd: 66 -on this sovereign lady &c.] So, in The Tempest: -bountiful fortune, "Now my dear lady," &c. MALOne. -conceiv'd to scope.] Properly imagined, appositely, to the purpose. JOHNSON. To climb his happiness, would be well express'd In our condition." POET. Nay, sir, but hear me on: All those which were his fellows but of late, (Some better than his value,) on the moment Follow his strides, his lobbies fill with tendance, Rain sacrificial whisperings in his ear,' Make sacred even his stirrop, and through him Drink the free air.2 9 In our condition.] Condition for art. WARBURTon. Rain sacrificial whisperings in his ear,] The sense is obvious, and means, in general, flattering him. The particular kind of flattery may be collected from the circumstance of its being offered up in whispers: which shows it was the calumniating those whom Timon hated or envied, or whose vices were opposite to his own. This offering up, to the person flattered, the murdered reputation of others, Shakspeare, with the utmost beauty of thought and expression, calls sacrificial whisperings, alluding to the victims offered up to idols. WARBURTON. Whisperings attended with such respect and veneration as accompany sacrifices to the gods. Such, I suppose, is the meaning. MALONE. By sacrificial whisperings, I should simply understand whisperings of officious servility, the incense of the worshipping parasite to the patron as to a god. These whisperings might probably immolate reputations for the most part, but I should not reduce the epithet in question to that notion here. Mr. Gray has excellently expressed in his Elegy these sacrificial offerings to the great from the poetick tribe: "To heap the shrine of luxury and pride "With incense kindled at the muse's flame." through him WAKEFIELD. Drink the free air.] That is, catch his breath in affected fondness. JOHNSON. A similar phrase occurs in Ben Jonson's Every Man in his Humour: "By this air, the most divine tobacco I ever drank!” To drink, in both these instances, signifies to inhale. STEEVENS. PAIN. Ay, marry, what of these? 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 slip down, Not one accompanying his declining foot. PAIN. 'Tis common: A thousand moral paintings I can show,* That shall demonstrate these quick blows of fortune 5 Dr. Johnson's explanation appears to me highly unnatural and unsatisfactory. "To drink the air," like the haustus ætherios of Virgil, is merely a poetical phrase for draw the air, or breathe. To "drink the free air," therefore, "through another," is to breathe freely at his will only; so as to depend on him for the privilege of life: not even to breathe freely without his permission. Wakefield. So, in our author's Venus and Adonis: "His nostrils drink the air." Again, in The Tempest: "I drink the air before me." let him slip down,] The old - let him sit down. MALONE. The emendation was made by Mr. Rowe. STEEvens. • 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. —these quick blows of fortune-] [Old copy-fortune's-] This was the phraseology of Shakspeare's time, as I have already observed in a note on King John, Vol. X. p. 372, n. 8. The modern editors read, more elegantly,-of fortune. The alteration was first made in the second folio, from ignorance of Shakspeare's diction. MALONE. Though I cannot impute such a correction to the ignorance of the person who made it, I can easily suppose what is here styled the phraseology of Shakspeare, to be only the mistake of a vulgar More pregnantly than words. Yet you do well, To show lord Timon, that mean eyes have seen The foot above the head. Trumpets sound. Enter TIMON, attended; the Servant of VENTIDIUS talking with him. TIM. Imprison'd is he, say you?" VEN. SERV. Ay, my good lord: five talents is his debt; His means most short, his creditors most strait: Your honourable letter he desires To those have shut him up; which failing to him,8 Periods his comfort." TIM. Noble Ventidius! Well; transcriber or printer. Had our author been constant in his use of this mode of speech (which is not the case) the propriety of Mr. Malone's remark would have been readily admitted. 6 STEEVENS. ·mean eyes-] i. e. inferior spectators. So, in Wotton's Letter to Bacon, dated March the last, 1613: "Before their majesties, and almost as many other meaner eyes," &c. 7 TOLLET. Imprison'd is he, say you?] Here we have another interpolation destructive to the metre. Omitting-is he, we ought to read: 8 Imprison'd, say you. STEEVENS. which failing to him,] Thus the second folio. The first omits to him, and consequently mutilates the verse. STEEVENS. • Periods his comfort.] To period is, perhaps, a verb of Shakspeare's introduction into the English language. I find it, however, used by Heywood, after him, in A Maidenhead well lost, 1634: "How easy could I period all my care." Again, in The Country Girl, by T. B. 1647: "To period our vain-grievings." STEEVENS. |