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VAR. SERV.

Is't not your business too?

CAPH. It is;-And yours too, Isidore?

ISID. SERV.

CAPH. 'Would we were all discharg'd!
VAR. SERV.

CAPH. Here comes the lord.

It is so.

I fear it.

Enter TIMON, ALCIBIADES, and Lords, &c. TIM. So soon as dinner's done, we'll forth again", My Alcibiades.-With me, what is your will?

CAPH. My lord, here is a note of certain dues.

scene of the third Act, where we find in the first folio, p. 86, col. 2,) "Enter Varro's man, meeting others." I have therefore always annexed Serv. to the name of the master. MALONE.

Good even, or, as it is sometimes less accurately written, Good den, was the usual salutation from noon, the moment that good morrow became improper. This appears plainly from the following passage in Romeo and Juliet, Act II. Sc. IV. :

"Nurse. God ye good morrow, gentlemen.

"Mercutio. God ye good den, fair gentlewoman. "Nur. Is it good den?

"Merc. 'Tis no less I tell you; for the.. hand of the dial is now open upon the.. of noon."

So, in Hamlet's greeting to Marcellus, Act I. Sc. I. Sir T. Hanmer and Dr. Warburton, not being aware, I presume, of this wide sense of Good even, have altered it to Good morning; without any necessity, as from the course of the incidents, precedent and subsequent, the day may well be supposed to be turned of noon. TYRWHITT.

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5 - we'll forth again,] i. e. to hunting, from which diversion, we find by Flavius's speech, he was just returned. It may be here observed, that in our author's time it was the custom to hunt as well after dinner as before. Thus, in Laneham's Account of the Entertainment at Kenelworth Castle, we find that Queen Elizabeth always, while there, hunted in the afternoon; Monday was hot, and therefore her highness kept in till five a clok in the evening; what time it pleaz'd her to ryde forth into the chase, to hunt the hart of fors; which found anon, and after sore chased," &c. Again : Munday the 18th of this July, the weather being hot, her highness kept the castle for coolness 'till about five a clok, her majesty in the chase hunted the hart (as before) of forz," &c. So, in Tancred and Gismund, 1592:

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"He means this evening in the park to hunt." REED.

TIM. Dues? Whence are you?

CAPH.

Of Athens here, my lord.

TIM. Go to my steward.

CAPH. Please it your lordship, he hath put me off

To the succession of new days this month:
My master is awak'd by great occasion,
To call upon his own; and humbly prays you,
That with your other noble parts you'll suit,
In giving him his right.

TIM.
Mine honest friend,
I pr'ythee, but repair to me next morning.

CAPH. Nay, good my lord,

TIM.
Contain thyself, good friend.
VAR. SERV. One Varro's servant, my good lord,—
ISID. SERV.
From Isidore;

He humbly prays your speedy payment'

,

CAPH. If you did know, my lord, my master's

wants,

VAR. SERV. Twas due on forfeiture, my lord, six weeks,

And past,

ISID. SERV. Your steward puts me off, my lord; And I am sent expressly to your lordship.

TIM. Give me breath:

I do beseech you, good my lords, keep on;

[Exeunt ALCIBIADES and Lords.

I'll wait upon you instantly.-Come hither, pray

you,

[TO FLAVIUS.

6 That with your other noble parts you'll suit,] i. e. that you will behave on this occasion in a manner consistent with your other noble qualities. STEEVENS.

"He humbly prays your speedy payment,] As our author does not appear to have meant that the servant of Isidore should be less civil than those of the other lords, it is natural to conceive that this line, at present imperfect, originally stood thus:

"He humbly prays your lordship's speedy payment."

ŠTEEVENS.

How goes the world, that I am thus encounter'd With clamorous demands of date-broken bonds", And the detention of long-since-due debts,

Against my honour?

FLAV.
Please you, gentlemen,
The time is unagreeable to this business:
Your importunacy cease, till after dinner;
That I may make his lordship understand
Wherefore you are not paid.

TIM.

See them well entertain'd.

Do so, my friends: [Exit TIMON.

FLAV.

I pray, draw near.
[Exit FLAVIUS.

Enter APEMANTUS and a Fool.

CAPH. Stay, stay, here comes the fool with Apemantus; let's have some sport with 'em.

8 of DATE-broke bonds,] The old copy has :

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of debt, broken bonds.'

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Mr. Malone very judiciously reads-date-broken. For the sake of measure, I have omitted the last letter of the second word. So, in Much Ado About Nothing: I have broke [i. e. broken] with her father." STEEVENS.

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To the present emendation I should not have ventured to give a place in the text, but that some change is absolutely necessary, and this appears to be established beyond a doubt by a former line in the preceding scene, page 293:

"And my reliances on his fracted dates."

So, also, in The Merchant of Venice, vol. v. p. 33:

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If he should break his day, what should I gain,

By the exaction of the forfeiture.”

The transcriber's ear deceived him here as in many other places. Sir Thomas Hanmer and the subsequent editors evaded the difficulty by omitting the corrupted word-debt. MALONE.

9 Enter Apemantus and a Fool.] I suspect some scene to be lost, in which the entrance of the Fool, and the page that follows him, was prepared by some introductory dialogue, in which the audience was informed that they were the fool and page of Phrynia, Timandra, or some other courtezan, upon the knowledge of which depends the greater part of the ensuing jocularity.

JOHNSON.

VAR. SERV. Hang him, he'll abuse us.
ISID. SERV. A plague upon him, dog!
VAR. SERV. How dost, fool?

APEM. Dost dialogue with thy shadow?
VAR. SERV. I speak not to thee.

APEM. No; 'tis to thyself,-Come away.

[To the Fool. ISID. SERV. [TO VAR. Serv.] There's the fool hangs on your back already.

APEM. No, thou stand'st single, thou art not on him yet.

CAPH. Where's the fool now?

APEM. He last asked the question.-Poor rogues, and usurers' men! bawds between gold and want1! ALL SERV. What are we, Apemantus?

APEM. Asses.

ALL SERV. Why?

APEM. That you ask me what you are, and do not know yourselves. Speak to 'em, fool. FOOL. How do you, gentlemen?

Poor rogues, and usurers' men! bawds, &c.] This is said so abruptly, that I am inclined to think it misplaced, and would regulate the passage thus:

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Caph. Where's the fool now?

Apem. He last asked the question.

"All. What are we, Apemantus?

Apem. Asses.

" All. Why?

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Apem. That you ask me what you are, and do not know yourselves. Poor rogues, and usurers' men! bawds between gold and want! Speak," &c.

Thus every word will have its proper place. It is likely that the passage transposed was forgot in the copy, and inserted in the margin, perhaps a little beside the proper place, which the transcriber wanting either skill or care to observe, wrote it where it now stands. JOHNSON.

The transposition proposed by Dr. Johnson is unnecessary. Apemantus does not address these words to any of the others, but mutters them to himself; so that they do not enter into the dialogue, or compose a part of it. M. MASON.

ALL SERV. Gramercies, good fool: How does your mistress?

FOOL. She's e'en setting on water to scald such chickens as you are2. 'Would, we could see you at Corinth 3.

APEM. Good! gramercy.

Enter Page.

FOOL. Look you, here comes my mistress' page *.

2 She's e'en setting on water to SCALD, &c.] The old name for the disease got at Corinth was the brenning, and a sense of scalding is one of its first symptoms. JOHNSON.

The same thought occurs in the Old Law, by Massinger:

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look parboil'd,

"As if they came from Cupid's scalding house."

Randle Holme, in his Academy of Arms and Blazon, b. iii. ch. ii. p. 441, has also the following passage: "He beareth Argent, a Doctor's tub (otherwise called a Cleansing Tub), Sable, Hooped, Or. In this pockifyed, and such diseased persons, are for a certain time put into, not to boyl up to an heighth, but to parboil," &c. STEEVENS.

It was anciently the practice, and in inns perhaps still continues, to scald off the feathers of poultry instead of plucking them. Chaucer hath referred to it in his Romaunt of the Rose, 6820:

"Without scalding they hem pulle." HENLEY.

3 'Would, we could see you at CORINTH.] A cant name for a bawdy-house, I suppose, from the dissoluteness of that ancient Greek city; of which Alexander ab Alexandro has these words : "Et Corinthi supra mille prostitutas in templo Veneris assidue degere, et inflammata libidine quæstui meretricio operam dare, et velut sacrorum ministras Deæ famulari." Milton, in his Apology for Smectymnuus, says: "Or searching for me at the Bordellos, where, it may be, he has lost himself, and raps up, without pity, the sage and rheumatick old prelatess, with all her young Corinthian laity, to enquire for such a one.” WARBURTON.

my MISTRESS' page.] In the first passage this Fool speaks of his sister, in the second [as exhibited in the modern editions] of his mistress. In the old copy it is master in both places. It should rather, perhaps, be mistress in both, as it is in a following and a preceding passage:

"All. How does your mistress?

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Fool. My mistress is one, and I am her fool."

STEEVENS.

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