deed of saying" is quite out of use. To promise, is most courtly and fashionable: performance is a kind of will or testament, which argues a great sickness in his judgment that makes it.

TIM. Excellent workman! thou canst not paint a man so bad as is thyself.

POET. I am thinking what I shall say I have provided for him: it must be a personating of himself: a satire against the softness of prosperity, with a discovery of the infinite flatteries that follow youth and opulency.

TIM. Must thou needs stand for a villain in thine own work? wilt thou whip thine own faults in other men? Do so, I have gold for thee.

POET. Nay, let's seek him:

Then do we sin against our own estate,
When we may profit meet, and come too late.
PAIN. True;-

When the day serves, before black-corner'd night,
Find what thou want'st by free and offer'd light.
Come.

TIM. I'll meet you at the turn.-What a god's gold,

That he is worshipp'd in a baser temple
Than where swine feed!

'Tis thou that rigg'st the bark, and plough'st the

Rid me these villains from your companies :
Hang them or stab them, drown them in a draught,
Confound them by some course, and come to me,
I'll give you gold enough.

BOTH. Name them, my lord, let's know them.
TIM. You that way, and you this, but two in

company:

Each man apart, all single and alone,

respondent of Steevens' proposed to read, “black-cover'd night." Mr. Dyce suggests "black-curtain'd night."

When the day serves, &c.] This couplet should be assigned

to the Poet, to whom it undoubtedly belongs.

d A made-up villain.] A finished, or accomplished villain.

The reverend'st throat in Athens. So I leave you To the protection of the prosperous gods,

As thieves to keepers.

FLAV. Stay not, all's in vain. TIM. Why, I was writing of my epitaph; It will be seen to-morrow; my long sickness Of health and living, now begins to mend, And nothing brings me all things. Go, live still; Be Alcibiades your plague, you his,— And last so long enough!

1 SEN. We speak in vain. TIM. But yet I love my country, and am not One that rejoices in the common wreck,

As common bruit doth put it.

1 SEN. That's well spoke. TIM. Commend me to my loving countrymen,1 SEN. These words become your lips as they pass through them.

2 SEN. And enter in our ears like great triúmphers

In their applauding gates.

TIM. Commend me to them; And tell them that, to ease them of their griefs, Their fears of hostile strokes, their aches, losses, Their pangs of love, with other incident throes That nature's fragile vessel doth sustain

In life's uncertain voyage, I will some kindness do them,

I'll teach them to prevent wild Alcibiades' wrath.
2 SEN. I like this well; he will return again.
TIM. I have a tree, which grows here in my close,
That mine own use invites me to cut down,
And shortly must I fell it; tell my friends,
Tell Athens, in the sequence of degree,
From high to low throughout, that whoso please
To stop affliction, let him take his haste,
Come hither, ere my tree hath felt the axe,
And hang himself.-I pray you, do my greeting.
FLAV. Trouble him no further, thus you still
shall find him.

TIM. Come not to me again: but say to Athens,
Timon hath made his everlasting mansion
Upon the beached verge of the salt flood;
Who once a day with his embossed froth
The turbulent surge shall cover; thither come,
And let my grave-stone be your oracle.-
Lips, let sour words go by, and language end:

As full as thy report?

MESS.
I have spoke the least:
Besides, his expedition promises
Present approach.

2 SEN. We stand much hazard, if they bring not Timon.

MESS. I met a courier, one mine ancient friend ;

Whom, though in general part we were oppos'd,
Yet our old love made a particular force,
And made us speak like friends:-this man was
riding

From Alcibiades to Timon's cave,
With letters of entreaty, which imported
His fellowship i' the cause against your city,
In part for his sake mov'd.
1 SEN.

Here come our brothers.

"When, though on several part we were oppos'd,
Yet our old love had a particular force."

We conceive the errors to lurk in the words made and force, the former having been caught by the compositor from the following line, and would read,

"Whom, though in general part we were oppos'd,
Yet our old love took a particular truce,

And made us speak like friends."

To take a truce was an every-day expression in our author's time, and has been adopted by him more than once; thus, in "King John," Act III. Sc. 1 :

"With my vex'd spirits I cannot take a truce." And in "Troilus and Cressida," Act II. Sc. 3:"Took a truce, and did him service."