Arms, take your last embrace! and lips, oh you
The doors of breath, feal with a righteous kiss
A dateless bargain to engroffing death!
Come, bitter conduct! come, unfav'ry guide!
Thou defp'rate pilot, now at once run on
The dafhing rocks, my fea-fick, weary, bark:
Here's to my love! oh, true apothecary!

[Drinks the poifon, Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kifs I die.

[Dies.

Timon

T

Timon of Athens.

ACT I. SCENE II.

PAINTING.

HE painting is almoft the natural man :

For fince difhonour trafficks with man's nature;

He is but outfide: pencil'd figures are

Ev'n fuch as they give out.

SCENE V. The Pleafure of doing good.

Oh, you gods, (think I,) what need we have any friends, if we should never have need of 'em? they would most resemble sweet inftruments hung up in cafes, that keep their founds to themselves. Why, I have often wifh'd myself poorer, that I might come nearer to you: we are born to do benefits. And what better or properer can we call our own, than the riches of our friends? O, what a precious comfort 'tis to have fo many, like brothers, commanding one another's fortunes ?

ACT II. SCENE IV.

A faithful Steward.

So the gods blefs me,

When all our offices have been oppreft

With riotous feeders; when our vaults have wept With drunken fpilth of wine; when every room Hath blaz'd with lights, and bray'd with minstrelfie, I have retir'd me to a wasteful cock (1),

And fet mine eyes at flow.

SCENE V. The Ingratitude of Timon's Friends.

They answer in a joint and corporate voice, That now they are at fall, want treasure, cannot Do what they would; are forry-You are honourableBut yet they could have wisht-they know not Something hath been amifs-a noble nature

May catch a wrench-would all were well-'tis pity-
And fo intending other ferious matters,

After distasteful looks, and these hard (2) fractions,
With certain half-caps, and cold-moving nods,
They froze me into filence.

Tim. You gods reward them!

I pr'ythee, man, look cheerly. Thefe old fellows
Have their ingratitude in them hereditary :
Their blood is cak'd, 'tis cold, it feldom flows,
'Tis lack of kindly warmth, they are not kind;
And nature, as it grows again tow'rd earth,
Is fashion'd for the journey, dull and heavy.

ACT III.

SCENE VI.

Against Duelling.

Your Words have took fuch pains, as if they labour'd To bring man-flaughter into form, fet quarrelling

Upon

(1) Cock, i. e. a cockloft, a garret and, a rafteful cock fignifies, a garret lying in waste, neglected, put to no ufe. Oxford editor.

(2) Fractions] i, e. These breaks in fpeech; fuch as are expreft above.

Upon the head of valour; which, indeed,
Is valour mis-begot, and came into the world,
When fects and factions were but newly born.
He's truly valiant, that can wifely fuffer

The worst that man can breathe, (3) and make his
wrongs

His out-fides, wear them like his rayment, carelefly,
And ne'er prefer his injuries to his heart,
To bring it into danger.

ACT IV.

SCENE I.

Without the Walls of Athens.

Timon's Execrations on the Athenians.

Let me look back upon thee, O, thou wall,
That girdleft in those wolves! dive in the earth,
And fence not Athens! Matrons, turn incontinent;
Obedience fail in children; flaves and fools
Pluck the grave wrinkled fenate from the bench,
And minifter in their fteads: to general filths
Convert o'th' inftant, green virginity!

;

Do't in your parents eyes. Bankrupts, hold fast
Rather than render back, out with your knives,
And cut your trufters throats. Bound fervants, steal;
Large-handed robbers your grave masters are,
And pill by law. Maid, to thy mafter's bed;
Thy mistress is o'th' brothel. Son of fixteen,
Pluck the lin'd crutch from thy old limping fire,
And with it beat his brains out! Fear and piety,
Religion to the gods, peace, justice, truth,
Domestic awe, night-reft, and neighbourhood,
Inftruction, manners, myfteries and trades,

(3) And make, &c.] The first part of the fentence is explained by the latter, "He's truly valiant, &c. that can make his wrongs his outfides, i. e. wear them like his raiment carelefly.

Degrees, Obfervances, cuftoms and laws,
Decline to your confounding contraries!
And yet confufion live!-Plagues, incident to men,
Your potent and infectious fevers heap

On Athens, ripe for stroke! Thou cold Sciatica,
Cripple our fenators, that their limbs may halt
As lamely as their manners. Luft and liberty
Creep in the minds and marrows of our youth,
That 'gainst the stream of virtue they may strive,
And drown themselves in riot! Itches, blains,
Sow all th' Athenian bofoms, and their crop
Ee general leprofy: breath infect breath,
That their fociety (as their friendship) may
Be meerly poison. Nothing I'll bear from thee,
Fut nakedness, thou deteftable town!

SCENE II. A Friend for faken.

As we do turn our backs

From our companion, thrown into his grave,
So his familiars from his buried fortunes
Slink all away; leave their falfe vows with him,
Like empty purfes pick'd: and his poor fe'f,
(4) A dedicated beggar to the air,

With his disease of all-fhun'd poverty,

Walks, like contempt, alone.

(4) A dedicated, &c.] In Romeo and Juliet, at the beginning, he fpeaks prettily of a bud bit by an envious worm,

Ere he can fpread his fweet wings to the air,

Or dedicate his beauty to the sun.

In the next line, the author feems to have had his eye on that trite and well-known line of Ovid's ;

Nullus ad amiffas ibit amicus opes..

SCENE