But in a dream of friendship?

To have his pomp and all what state compounds
But only painted, like his varnish'd friends?
Poor honest lord, brought low by his own heart,
Undone by goodness! Strange, unusual blood
When man's worst sin is, he does too much
good!

Who then dares to be half so kind again? 40
For bounty, that makes gods, does still mar men.
My dearest lord, blest to be most accursed,
Rich only to be wretched, thy great fortunes
Are made thy chief afflictions. Alas, kind lord!
He's flung in rage from this ingrateful seat
Of monstrous friends; nor has he with him to
Supply his life, or that which can command it.
I'll follow, and inquire him out:

I'll ever serve his mind with my best will;
Whilst I have gold, I'll be his steward still. 50

[Exit.

there is, we grant) in the use of and revive in this place. The best suggestion we have met with touching the passage is Mr. Singer's, thus:

"Who'd be so mock'd with glory as to live
But in a dream of friendship? or to have
His pomp, and all what state compounds,

But only painted, like his varnish'd friends?"-H. N. H.

35. "what state compounds"; S. Walker conj. "state comprehends"; Grant White conj. "that state compounds"; Watkiss Lloyd conj. "whate'er state comprehends."—I. G.

That which composes state. "State comprehends" has been suggested, rhyming with "friends"; but the rhymes are too irregular to justify any change.-C. H. H.

SCENE III

Woods and cave, near the sea-shore.

Enter Timon, from the cave.

Tim. O blessed breeding sun, draw from the earth
Rotten humidity; below thy sister's orb

Infect the air! Twinn'd brothers of one womb,
Whose procreation, residence and birth

Scarce is dividant, touch them with several for-
tunes,

The greater scorns the lesser: not nature,

To whom all sores lay siege, can bear great fortune

But by contempt of nature.

Raise me this beggar and deny 't that lord,
The senator shall bear contempt hereditary, 10
The beggar native honor.

It is the pasture lards the rother's sides,

2. "thy sister's orb"; that is, the moon's.-H. N. H. 6-8. "not nature of nature"; "Brother, when his fortune is enlarged, will scorn brother; such is the general depravity of mankind. Not even beings besieged with misery can bear good fortune without contemning their fellow-creatures, above whom accident has elevated them." But is here used in its exceptive sense, and signifies without.-H. N. H.

9. "deny't"; Warburton, “denude"; Hanmer, "degrade"; Heath conj. "deprive"; Steevens conj. "devest"; Collier MS., "decline," etc.; the indefinite "it" refers to the implied noun in "raise," i. e. "give elevation to."-I. G.

12. "pasture lards the rother's sides"; "rother," Singer's emendation for Ff. "brothers." F. 1, “Pastour"; Ff. 2, 3, 4, "pastor"; Farmer and Steevens conj. "pasterer": "lards"; Rowe's reading, F. 1, "Lards"; Ff. 2, 3, 4, "Lords."—I. G.

The want that makes him lean. Who dares,

who dares,

In purity of manhood stand upright,

And say "This man's a flatterer'? if one be,
So are they all; for every grise of fortune
Is smooth'd by that below: the learned pate
Ducks to the golden fool: all is oblique;
There's nothing level in our cursed natures
But direct villainy. Therefore be abhorr'd 20
All feasts, societies and throngs of men!
His semblable, yea, himself, Timon disdains:
Destruction fang mankind! Earth, yield me
roots!
[Digging.

Who seeks for better of thee, sauce his palate
With thy most operant poison! What is here?
Gold? yellow, glittering, precious gold? No,
gods,

The reading of the original in this place has caused a deal of perplexity, it being as follows:

"It is the Pastour Lards, the Brothers sides,

The want that makes him leave."

Leave has on all hands been regarded as a misprint for lean; but what to do with "brother's sides," has been the difficulty. Warburton proposed "wether's sides," but the proposal did not take. Rother was suggested by Mr. Singer in a letter published in the Athenæum for April, 1842. A rother is a horned beast, such as oxen and cows. In Golding's translation of Ovid, 1567, is found the expression, "herds of rother-beasts." The word rother is also met with in the statute-book. And Holloway's General Provincial Dictionary informs us of a market in Shakespeare's native town, called the "rother market." It is not easy to conceive of any similar change more satisfactory, or better sustained.-H. N. H.

15. "This man" does not refer to any particular person, but to any supposed individual. So in As You Like It:

"Who can come in, and say that I mean her,

When such a one as she, such is her neighbor."-H. N. H. XXXIII-6

81

I am no idle votarist: roots, you clear heavens! Thus much of this will make black white, foul fair,

Wrong right, base noble, old young, coward valiant.

Ha, you gods! why this? what this, you gods?

Why, this

30

Will lug your priests and servants from your sides,

Pluck stout men's pillows from below their heads:

This yellow slave

Will knit and break religions; bless the ac-
cursed;

Make the hoar leprosy adored; place thieves,
And give them title, knee and approbation
With senators on the bench: this is it

That makes the wappen'd widow wed again;

27. No insincere or inconstant supplicant: gold will not serve me instead of roots.-H. N. H.

31. Aristophanes, in his Plutus, makes the priest of Jupiter desert his service to live with Plutus.-H. N. H.

32. This alludes to an old custom of drawing away the pillow from under the heads of men, in their last agonies, to accelerate their departure.-H. N. H.

38. "wappen'd"; so Ff. 1, 2; Ff. 3, 4, "wapen'd"; Warburton, "waped"; Johnson conj. "wained"; Malone conj. "wapper'd"; Anon. conj. "Wapping"; Steevens conj. "weeping"; Seymour conj. "vapid”; Staunton conj. "woe-pin'd"; Fleay, "wop-eyed"; i. e. having waterish eyes (vide Glossary).-I. G.

It is not clear what is meant by wappen'd in this passage: perhaps worn out, debilitated. In Fletcher's Two Noble Kinsmen, we have unwappered in a contrary sense:

"We prevent

The loathsome misery of age, beguile

The gout, the rheum, that in lag hours attend

For gray approachers: we come toward the gods

She, whom the spital-house and ulcerous sores Would cast the gorge at, this embalms and spices

40

To the April day again. Come, damned earth,

Thou common whore of mankind, that put'st
odds

Among the rout of nations, I will make thee
Do thy right nature. [March afar off.] Ha!
a drum? Thou 'rt quick,

But yet I'll bury thee: thou 'lt go, strong thief,
When gouty keepers of thee cannot stand:
Nay, stay thou out for earnest.

[Keeping some gold.

Enter Alcibiades, with drum and fife, in warlike manner; Phrynia and Timandra.

Alcib.

What art thou there? speak.

Young and unwapper'd, not halting under crimes

Many and stale."

Grose, in his provincial Glossary, cites wapper'd as a Gloucestershire word, and explains it "restless or fatigued, as spoken of a sick person." Steevens cites a passage from Middleton's Roaring Girl, in which wappening and niggling are said to be all one. Niggling, in cant language, was company-keeping with a woman. Wed is used for wedded. "It is gold that induces some one to accept in marriage this 'wappen'd widow,' that the inhabitants of a spitalhouse or those afflicted with ulcerous sores would cast the gorge at, that is, reject with loathing, were she not gilded o'er by wealth."H. N. H.

41. "April day"; youth is called by the old poets the "April of man's life." Young Fenton, in the Merry Wives of Windsor, "smells April and May.”—H. N. H.

44. "Do thy right nature"; that is, lie in the earth, where nature laid thee: "thou'rt quick," means thou hast life and motion in thee.H. N. H.