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We were not all unkind, nor all deserve
The common stroke of war.

1 Sen.

These walls of ours

Were not erected by their hands, from whom
You have receiv'd your griefs: nor are they such,
That these great towers, trophies, and schools should

fall

For private faults in them.

2 Sen.

Nor are they living, Who were the motives that you first went out 5; Shame, that they wanted cunning, in excess

Hath broke their hearts.

March, noble lord,

Into our city with thy banners spread:

By decimation, and a tithed death

(If thy revenges hunger for that food,

Which nature loathes), 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 square7, 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

5 The motives that you first went out,' i. e. those who made the motion for your exile. This word is used in the same manner in Troilus and Cressida :

:

her wanton spirits look out

At every joint and motive of her body.'

6 Cunning is used in its old sense of skill or wisdom, extremity of shame that they wanted wisdom in procuring your banishment hath broke their hearts. Theobald had nearly thus interpreted the passage; and Johnson thought he could improve it by reading

Shame that they wanted, coming in excess

Hath broke their hearts.'

Johnson perhaps was not aware of the old meaning of cunning. 7 i. e. not regular, not equitable.

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Ovid Metam. viii. 99.

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 any token of thine honour else,

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 uncharged ports9;
Those enemies of Timon's, and mine own,
Whom you yourself shall set out for reproof,
Fall, and no more: and,-to atone 10 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 11.

9 i. e. Unattacked gates.

10 i. e. to reconcile them to it. The general sense of this word in Shakspeare. Thus in Cymbeline: I was glad I did atone my countryman and you.'

All attempts to extract a meaning from this passage as it stands must be vain. We should certainly read:

'But shall be remitted to your public laws

At heaviest answer.'

It is evident that the context requires a word of this import: remanded might serve. The comma at remedied is not in the old copy. Remedied to, as Steevens observes, is nonsense. Johnson's explanation will then serve, Not a soldier shall quit his station, or commit any violence, but he shall answer it regularly to the law.'

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 gravestone, 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 12.

These well express in thee thy latter spirits:
Though thou abhorr❜dst in us our human griefs,
Scorn'dst our brains flow 13, 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,

12 This epitaph is formed out of two distinct epitaphs in North's Plutarch. The first couplet is there said to have been composed by Timon himself; the second by the poet Callimachus. The epithet caitiffs was probably suggested by another epitaph, to be found in Kendal's Flowers of Epigrammes, 1577, and in the Palace of Pleasure, vol. i. Nov. 28.

13 So in Drayton's Miracles of Moses :

But he from rocks that fountains can command,
Cannot yet stay the fountains of his brain.'

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And I will use the olive with my sword:

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Prescribe to other, as each other's leech 15
Let our drums strike.

14 Stop.

[Exeunt.

15 Physician.

THE play of TIMON is a domestick tragedy, and therefore strongly fastens on the attention of the reader. In the plan there is not much art, but the incidents are natural, and the characters various and exact. The catastrophe affords a very powerful warning against that ostentatious liberality, which scatters bounty, but confers no benefits; and buys flattery, but not friendship.

In this tragedy are many passages perplexed, obscure, and probably corrupt, which I have endeavoured to rectify, or explain with due diligence; but having only one copy, cannot promise myself that my endeavours shall be much applauded.

JOHNSON.

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