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And you shall find, I like it: wait attendance
Till you hear further from me.

PAIN.

The gods preserve you:

TIM. Well fare you, gentlemen: Give me your hand;

We must needs dine together.-Sir, your jewel

Hath fuffer'd under praise.

JEW.

What, my lord? dispraise?

TIM. A meer satiety of commendations.

If I should pay you for't as 'tis extoll'd,

It would unclew me quite.4

JEW.

My lord, 'tis rated

As those, which sell, would give: But you well

know,

Things of like value, differing in the owners,

Are prized by their masters : 5 believe't, dear lord,

You mend the jewel by wearing it.

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MER. No, my good lord; he speaks the common

tongue,

Which all men speak with him.

TIM. Look, who comes here. Will you be chid?

4

-

- unclew me quite. To unclew is to unwind a ball of thread. To unclew a man, is to draw out the whole mass of his fortunes. JOHNSON.

So, in The Two Gentlemen of Verona :

"Therefore as you unwind her love from him,-
" You must provide to bottom it on me."

See Vol. IV. p. 246, n. 9. STEEVENS.

5 Are prized by their masters:] Are rated according to the esteem in which their poffeffor is held. JOHNSON.

by wearing it.) Old copy-by the wearing it.

STEEVENS.

1

Enter APEMANTUS."

JEW. We will bear, with your lordship.

MER.

He'll fpare none. TIM. Good morrow to thee, gentle Apemantus! APEM. Till I be gentle, stay for thy good mor

row;

When thou art Timon's dog, and these knaves

honest,

TIM. Why dost thou call them knaves? thou know'st them not.

7 Enter Apemantus.) See this character of a cynic finely drawn by Lucian, in his Auction of the Philosophers; and how well Shakspeare has copied it. WARBURTON.

8

stay for ] Old copy - ftay thou for-. With Sir T. Hanmer I have omitted the useless thou, (which the compositor's eye might have caught from the following line,) because it disorders the metre. STEEVENS.

9 When thou art Timon's dog,] When thou hast gotten a better character, and inftead of being Timon as thou art, shalt be changed to Timon's dog, and become more worthy kindness and falutation. JOHNSON.

This is spoken δεικτικῶς, as Mr. Upton says somewhere :*ftriking his hand on his breaft.

Wot you who named me first the kinge's dogge?" says Ariftippus in Damon and Pythias. FARMER.

Apemantus, I think, means to say, that Timon is not to receive a gentle good morrow from him till that shall happen which never will happen; till Timon is transformed to the thape of his dog, and his knavish followers become honeft men. Stay for thy good morrow, fays he, till I be gentle, which will happen at the same time when thou art Timon's dog, &c. i. e. never.

MALONE.

Mr. Malone has justly explained the drift of Apemantus. Such another reply occurs in Troilus and Creffida, where, Ulyffes, defirous to avoid a kiss from Creffida says to her; give me one

" When Helen is a maid again," &c. STEEVENS.

APEM. Are they not Ahenians ??

TIM. Yes.

APEM. Then I repent not.

JEW. You know me, Apemantus.

APEM. Thou know'st, I do; I call'd thee by thy

name.

TIM. Thou art proud, Apemantus.

APEM. Of nothing so much, as that I am not

like Timon.

TIM. Whither art going?

(

APEM. To knock out an honest Athenian's brains.
TIM. That's a deed thou'lt die for.

APEM. Right, if doing nothing be death by the

law.

TIM. How likest thou this picture, Apemantus?
APEM. The best, for the innocence.

TIM. Wrought he not well, that painted it?

APEM. He wrought better, that made the painter;

and yet he's but a filthy piece of work.

PAIN. You are a dog. 8

APEM. Thy mother's of my generation; What's

she, if I be a dog?

:

TIM. Wilt dine with me, Apemantus ?

APEM. NO; I eat not lords.

TIM. Anthou should'st, thou'dst anger ladies.

7 Are they not Athenians ?] The very imperfet state in which the ancient copy of this play has reached us, leaves a doubt whether several short speeches in the present scene were designed for verse or prose. I have therefore made no attempt at regulation.

STEEVENS.

Pain. You are a dog. This speech, which is given to the Painter in the old editions, in the modern ones must have been transferred to the Poet by mistake: it evidently belongs to the former. RITSON.

APEM. O, they eatlords; so they come by great bellies.

TIM. That's a lafcivious apprehenfion.

APEM. So thou apprehend'st it: Take it for thy labour.

TIM. How dost thou like this jewel, Apemantus? APEM. Not so well as plain-dealing, which will not cost a man a doit.

TIM. What dost thou think 'tis worth?

APEM. Not worth my thinking. - How now, poet?

POET. How now, philosopher?

APEM. Thou lieft.

POET. Art not one?

APEM. Yes.

POET. Then I lie not.

APEM. Art not a poet?

POET. Yes.

APEM. Then thou liest: look in thy last work, where thou haft feign'd him a worthy fellow. POET. That's not feign'd, he is so.

APEM. Yes, he is worthy of thee, and to pay thee for thy labour: He, that loves to be flatter'd, is worthy o'the flatterer. Heavens, that I were a lord!

TIM. What would'st do then, Apemantus? APEM. Even as Apemantus does now, hate a lord with my heart.

TIM. What, thyfelf?

• Not so well as plain-dealing, Alluding to the proverb: "Plain dealing is a jewel, but they that use it die beggars."

STEEVENS.

APEM. Ay.

TIM. Wherefore?

APEM. That I had no angry wit to be a lord.

Art not thou a merchant?

2

This reading is absurd,

* That I had no angry wit to be a lord.] and unintelligible. But, as I have restored the text,

That I had fo hungry a wit to be a lord,

it is fatirical enough of confcience, viz. I would hate myself, for having no more wit than to covet so infignificant a title. In the same sense, Shakspeare uses lean-witted in his King Richard II:

"And thou a lunatick, lean-witted tool." WARBURTON. The meaning may be, - I should hate myself for patiently enduring to be a lord. This is ill enough expressed. Perhaps some happy change may set it right. I have tried, and can do nothing, yet I cannot heartily concur with Dr. Warburton. JOHNSON.

Mr. Heath reads:

That I had so wrong'd my wit to be a lord.

But the pafssage before us, is, in my opinion, irremediably corrupted. STEEVENS.

Perhaps the compositor has transposed the words, and they should

be read thus:

Or,

Angry that I had no wit, -to be a lord.

Angry to be a lord, that I had no wit. BLACKSTONE. Perhaps we should read:

That I had an angry with to be a lord;

meaning, that he would hate himself for having wished in his anger to become a lord.-For it is in anger that he says: "Heavens, that I were a lord!" M. MASON.

I believe Shakspeare was thinking of the common expreffionhe has wit in his anger; and that the difficulty arises here, as in many other places, from the original editor's paying no attention to abrupt sentences. Our author, I suppose, wrote:

That I had no angry wit. - To be a lord!

Art thou, &c.

Apemantus is asked, why after having wished to be a lord, he should hate himself. He replies, -For this reason; that I had no wit or difcretion) in my anger, but was abfurd enough to wish myself one of that set of men, whom I despise. He then exclaims with indignation - To be lord! Such is my conjecture, in which however I have not fo much confidence as to depart from the mode in which this paffage has been hitherto exhibited. MALONE,

a

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