1 Sen.
All have not offended;
For those that were, it is not square 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
With those that have offended: like a shepherd,
Approach the fold, and cull the infected forth,
But kill not altogether.

What thou wilt,

2 Sen. Thou rather shalt enforce it with thy smile, Than hew to 't with thy sword.

Set but thy foot

1 Sen.
Against our rampir'd gates, and they shall
So thou wilt send thy gentle heart before,
To say thou 'It enter friendly.

2 Sen.

ope;

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 ports;
Those enemies of Timon's, and mine own,
Whom you yourselves shall set out for reproof,
Fall, and no more: and,-to atone 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.

Both.

'T is most nobly spoken. Alcib. Descend, and keep your words. The Senators descend, and open the gates.

VOL. IX.

L

Enter a Soldier.

Sol. My noble general, Timon is dead;
Entomb'd upon the very hem o' the sea:
And on his grave-stone 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.

These will express in thee thy latter spirits:
Though thou abhorr'dst in us our human griefs,
Scorn'dst our brain's flow, 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.

Is noble Timon; of whose memory

Dead

Hereafter more.-Bring me into your city,
And I will use the olive with sword:

Make war breed

each

my

peace; make peace stint war;

Prescribe to other, as each other's leech.

Let our drums strike.

make

[Exeunt.

End of
Timon of Athens.

Introduction.

THE original quarto edition of 'Troilus and Cressida ' was printed in 1609. No other edition of the play was published until it appeared in the folio collection of 1623.

"The original story," says Dryden, " was written by one Lollius, a Lombard, in Latin verse, and translated by Chaucer into English; intended, I suppose, a satire on the inconstancy of women. I find nothing of it among the ancients, not so much as the name Cressida once mentioned. Shakspere (as I hinted), in the apprenticeship of his writing, modelled it into that play which is now called by the name of 'Troilus and Cressida." " Without entering into the question who Lollius was, we at once receive the 'Troilus and Creseide' of Chaucer as the foundation of Shakspere's play. Of his perfect acquaintance with that poem there can be no doubt. Chaucer, of all English writers, was the one who would have the greatest charm for Shakspere. Mr. Godwin has justly observed that the Shaksperian commentators have done injustice to Chaucer in not more distinctly associating his poem with this remarkable play. But although the main incidents in the adventures of the Greek lover and his faithless mistress, as given by Chaucer, are followed with little deviation, yet, independent of the wonderful difference in the characterisation, the whole story under the treatment of