SCENE III. The fame. A Room in Sempronius's House. Enter SEMPRONIUS, and a Servant of Timon's. SEM. Must he needs trouble me in't? Humph! 'Bove all others? He might have tried lord Lucius, or Lucullus; Whom he redeem'd from prifon: 9 All these three SERV. O my lord, They have all been touch'd, and found base metal; for They have all deny'd him? SEM. How! have they deny'd him? Has Ventidius 4 and Lucullus deny'd him? 9 And now Ventidius is wealthy too, Whom he redeem'd from prison:] This circumstance likewise occurs in the anonymous unpublished comedy of Timon: 2 "O yee ingrateful! have I freed yee "From bonds in prison, to requite me thus, these three-] The word three was inserted by Sir T. Hanmer to complete the measure; as was the exclamation O, for the fame reason, in the following speech. STEEVENS. 3 They have all been touch'd,] That is, tried, alluding to the touchstone. JOHNSON. So, in King Richard III: "O Buckingham, now do I play the touch, "To try, if thou be current gold, indeed." STEEVENS. * Has Ventidius &c.] With this mutilated and therefore rugged speech no ear accustomed to harmony can be fatisfied. Sir T. Hanmer thus reforms the first part of it: Have Lucius, and Ventidius, and Lucullus, And does he send to me? Three? humph!- ficians, Thrive, give him over; s Must I take the cure upon me? Yet we might better, I think, read with a later editor: Three? humph! It shows &c. But I can only point out metrical dilapidations which I profess my inability to repair. STEEVENS. - His friends, like. physicians, Thrive, give him over;) Sir T. Hanmer reads, try'd, plaufibly enough. Instead of three proposed by Mr. Pope, I should read thrice. But perhaps the old reading is the true. JOHNSON. Perhaps we should read-priv'd. They give him over spriv'd; that is, prepared for immediate death by fbrift. TYRWHITT. Perhaps the following passage in Webster's Dutchess of Malfy, is the best comment after all : Physicians thus "With their hands full of money, use to give o'er The passage will then mean: -" His friends, like physicians, thrive by his bounty and fees, and either relinquish, and forsake him, or give his case up as desperate." To give over in The Taming of the Shrew has no reference to the irremediable condition of a patient, but fimply means to leave, to forfake, to quit: " And therefore let me be thus bold with you To give you over at this first encounter, " Unless you will accompany me thither." STEEVENS. The editor of the second folio, the first and principal corrupter of these plays, for Thrive, substituted Thriv'd, on which the conjectures of Sir Thomas Hanmer and Mr. Tyrwhitt were founded. The passage quoted by Mr. Steevens from The Dutchess of Malfy, is a ftrong confirmation of the old reading; for Webster appears both in that and in another piece of his (The White Devil) to have frequently imitated Shakspeare. Thus, in The Dutchess of Malfy. we find: Use me well, you were best; "What I have done, I have done; I'll confefs nothing." He has much disgrac'd me in't; I am angry at him, Apparently from Othello : " Demand me nothing; what you know, you know; " From this time forth I never will speak word." Again the Cardinal, speaking to his mistress Julia, who had im portuned him to disclose the cause of his melancholy, says: "The only way to make thee keep thy counsel, Satisfy thy longing; "Is, not to tell thee." for secrecy So, in King Henry IV. Part I: "No lady closer; for I well believe "Thou wilt not utter what thou dost not know." Again, in The White Devil: Terrify babes, my lord, with painted devils." So, in Macbeth: " 'tis the eye of childhood "That fears a painted devil." Again, in The White Devil: the secret of my prince, "Which I will wear i'th' infide of my heart." Copied, I think, from these lines of Hamlet : Give me the man "That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him The White Devil was not printed till 1612.- Hamlet had appeared in 1604. See also another imitation quoted in a note on Cymbeline, Act IV. fc. ii.; and the last scene of the fourth act of The Dutchess of Malfy, which seems to have been copied from our author's King John, Act IV. fc. ii. The Dutchess of Malfy had certainly appeared before 1619, for Burbage, who died in that year, acted in it; I believe, before 1616, for I imagine it is the play alluded to in Ben Jonson's Prologue to Every Man in his Humour, printed in that year : "To make a child new-fwaddled to proceed So that probably the lines above cited from Webster's play by Mr. Steevens, were copied from Timon before it was in print; for it first appeared in the folio, 1623. Hence we may conclude, that thrive was not an error of the press, but our author's original word, which Webster imitated, not from the printed book, but from the representation of the play, or the Mf. copy. It is observable, that in this piece of Webster's, the dutchess, who, like Desdemona, is strangled, revives after long feeming dead, speaks a few words, and then dies. MALONE. That might have known my place: I see no fenfe for't, But his occafions might have woo'd me first; 6 And does he think so backwardly of me now, return, And with their faint reply this answer join; Who bates mine honour, shall not know my coin. [Exit. SERV. Excellent! Your lordship's a goodly villain. The devil knew not what he did, when he made man politick; he cross'd himself by't: and I cannot think, but, in the end, the villainies of man will fet him clear. How fairly this lord strives to ap 6 And I amongst the lords be thought a fool.] [Old copy-and *mong ft lords be thought a fool.] The perfonal pronoun was inferted by the editor of the fecond folio. MALONE. I have changed the position of the personal pronoun, and added the for the fake of metre, which, in too many parts of thisplay, is incorrigible. STEEVENS. 1 I had fuch a courage - Such an ardour, fuch an eager defire. JOHNSON. 8 Excellent! &c.) I suppose the former part of this speech to have been originally written in verse, as well as the latter; though the players having printed it as profe (omitting several fyllables neceffary to the metre) it cannot now be restored without fuch additions as no editor is at liberty to infert in the text. STEEVENS. I fufpect no omiffion whatsoever here. MALONE. 9 The devil knew not what he did, when he made man politick; be cross'd himself by't: and I cannot think, but, in the end, the villainies of man will fet him clear.) I cannot but think that the negative pear foul? takes virtuous copies to be wicked; like not has intruded into this passage, and the reader will think so too, when he reads Dr. Warburton's explanation of the next words. JOHNSON. will fet him clear.] Set him clear does not mean acquit him before heaven; for then the devil must be supposed to know what he did; but it fignifies puzzle him, outdo him at his own weapons. WARBURTON. How the devil, or any other being, should be fet clear by being puzzled and outdone, the commentator has not explained. When in a crowd we would have an opening made, we fay, Stand clear, that is, out of the way of danger. With some affinity to this use, though not without great harshness, to fet clear, may be to fet aside. But I believe the original corruption is the infertion of the negative, which was obtruded by some transcriber, who supposed crofs'd to mean thwarted, when it meant, exempted from evil. The use of croffing by way of protection or purification, was probably not worn out in Shakspeare's time. 'The sense of fet clear is now easy; he has no longer the guilt of tempting man. To cross himself may mean, in a very familiar sense, to clear bis score, to get out of debt, to quit his reckoning. He knew not what he did, may mean, he knew not how much good he was doing himself. There is no need of emendation. JOHNSON. Perhaps Dr. Warburton's explanation is the true one. Clear is an adverb, or so used; and Dr. Johnson's Dictionary observes that to fet means, in Addison, to embarrass, to distress, to perplex. If then the devil made men politick, he has thwarted his own interest, because the superior cunning of man will at last puzzle him, or be above the reach of his temptations. TOLLET. Johnson's explanation of this passage is nearly right; but I don't fee how the infertion of the negative injures the sense, or why that should be confidered as a corruption. Servilius means to say, that - the devil did not foresee the advantage that would arise to himself from thence, when he made men politick. He redeemed himself by it; for men will, in the end, become so much more villainous than he is, that they will fet him clear; he will appear innocent when compared to them. Johnson has rightly explained the words, " he crossed himself by it."-So, in Cymbeline, Posthumus says of himself: It is I "That all the abhorred things o'the earth amend, The meaning, I think, is this:- The devil did not know what he |