Enter Cæfar and Attendants.

All. A way there, make way for Cæfar! Dol. Oh, fir, you are too fure an augurer; That, you did fear, is done.

Gaf. Braveft at the last:

She levell'd at our purposes, and, being royal,
Took her own way.-The manner of their deaths?--
I do not fee them bleed.

Dol. Who was last with them?

I Guard. A fimple countryman, that brought her figs :

This was the basket.
Caf. Poifon'd then!

1 Guard. Oh Cæfar!

This Charmian liv'd but now; fhe ftood and fpake:
I found her trimming up the diadem

On her dead mistress; tremblingly she stood,
And on the fudden dropt.

Caf. Oh noble weakness!

If they had fwallow'd poifon, 'twould appear
By external swelling; but fhe looks like fleep;
As fhe would catch another Antony

In her ftrong toil of grace.

Dol. Here on her breast,

5

There is a vent of blood, and fomething blown: The like is on her arm.

1 Guard. This is an aspick's trail: and these figleaves

Have flime upon them, fuch as the afpick leaves
Upon the caves of Nile.

Caf. Moft probable,

That fo fhe dy'd: for her phyfician tells me,

She has purfu'd conclufions infinite

Of eafy ways to die.-Take up her bed,

5 fomething blown ;] The flesh is fomewhat puffed or fwoln.

JOHNSON.

And

And bear her women from the monument:-
She fhall be buried by her Antony.

No grave upon the earth fhall clip in it
A pair fo famous. High events as these
Strike those that make them: and their story is
No lefs in pity, than his glory, which

Brought them to be lamented. Our army fhall,
In folemn fhew, attend this funeral;

And then to Rome. Come, Dolabella, fee
High order in this great folemnity.

[Exeunt omnes.

THIS play keeps curiofity always bufy, and the paffions always interested. The continual hurry of the action, the variety of incidents, and the quick fucceffion of one perfonage to another, call the mind forward without intermission from the first act to the Jaft. But the power of delighting is derived principally from the frequent changes of the fcene; for, except the feminine arts, fome of which are too low, which diftinguish Cleopatra, no character is very strongly difcriminated. Upton, who did not eafily mifs what he defired to find, has difcovered that the language of Antony is, with great skill and learning, made pompous and fuperb, according to his real practice. But I think his diction not diftinguishable from that of others: the moft tumid fpeech in the play is that which Cæfar makes to Octavia.

The events, of which the principal 'are defcribed according to history, are produced without any art of connexion or care of dif pofition.

JOHNSON.

ΤΙΜΟΝ

TIMON

F

ATHEN S.

Thieves, Senators, Poet, Painter, Jeweller, and Merchant; with Servants and Attendants.

SCENE, Athens; and the Woods not far from it.

O F

A TH E

N S.'

ACT I.

SCENE I.

A Hall in Timon's House.

Enter Poet, Painter, Jeweller, and Merchant,

G

Several doors.

OOD day, fir.

POET.

Pain. I am glad you are well.

2 at

Poet. I have not feen you long. How goes the world?

Pain. It wears, fir, as it

grows.

Poet. Ay, that's well known:

But what particular rarity! what strange,

Which

The ftory of the Mifanthrope is told in almost every collection of the time, and particularly in two books, with which Shakefpeare was intimately acquainted; the Palace of Pleasure, and the English Plutarch. Indeed from a paffage in an old play, called Jack Drums Entertainement, I conjecture that he had before made his appearance on the stage. FARMER.

2 In the old copy, Enter, &c. Merchant and Mercer, &c.

3 But what particular rarity, &c.] Our author, it is obfervable, has made his poet in this play a knave. But that it might not reflect upon the profeffion he has made him only a pretender to it, as appears from his having drawn him, all the way, with a falfe taste and judgment. One infallible mark of which, is a

fondnefs