TIM. Knock me down with 'em : cleave me to TIT. Mine, fifty talents. TIM. Tell out my blood. LUC. SERV. Five thousand crowns, my lord. TIM. Five thousand drops pays that.What yours?—and yours? 1 VAR. SERV. My lord, 2 VAR. SERV. My lord, TIM. Tear me, take me, and the gods fall upon you! [Exit. HOR. 'Faith, I perceive our masters may throw their caps at their money; these debts may well be called desperate ones, for a madman owes 'em. Re-enter TIMON and FLAVIUS. [Exeunt. TIM. They have e'en put my breath from me, the slaves: Creditors!-devils. FLAV. My dear lord,— TIM. What if it should be so? FLAV. My lord, TIM. I'll have it so :-My steward! FLAV. Here, my lord. TIM. So fitly? Go, bid all my friends again, 6 Knock me down with 'em.] Timon quibbles. They present their written bills; he catches at the word, and alludes to the bills or battle-axes, which the ancient soldiery carried, and were still used by the watch in Shakspeare's time. See the scene between Dogberry, &c. in Much Ado About Nothing, vol. vii. p. 87, n. 1. Again, in Heywood's If You Know Not Me You Know Nobody, 1633, Second Part, Sir John Gresham says to his creditors: Friends, you cannot beat me down with your bills." Again, in Decker's Guls Hornbook, 1609: "they durst not strike down their customers with large bills." STEEVENS. 66 Lucius, Lucullus, and Sempronius; Ullorxa all: FLAV. O my lord, You only speak from your distracted soul; TIM. Be't not in thy care; go, I charge thee; invite them all let in the tide Of knaves once more; my cook and I'll provide. [Exeunt. 1 So fitly? Go, bid all my friends again, Lucius, Lucullus, and Sempronius; all: I'll once more feast the rascals.] Thus the second folio; except that, by an apparent error of the press, we have-add instead of and. The first folio reads: 66 'Lucius, Lucullus, and Sempronius Vllorca: all, Regularity of metre alone would be sufficient to decide in favour of the present text, which, with the second folio, rejects the fortuitous and unmeaning aggregate of letters-Ullorxa. This Ullorca, however, seems to have been considered as one of the " inestimable stones, unvalued jewels," which " emblaze the forehead" of that august publication, the folio 1623; and has been set, with becoming care, in the text of Mr. Malone. For my own part, like the cock in the fable, I am content to leave this gem on the stercoraceous spot where it was discovered.-Ullorxa (a name unacknowledged by Athens or Rome) must (if meant to have been introduced at all) have been a corruption as gross as others that occur in the same book, where we find Billinsgate instead of Basing-stoke; Epton instead of Hyperion; and an ace instead of Até. Types, indeed, shook out of a hat, or shot from a dice-box, would often assume forms as legitimate as the proper names transmitted to us by Messieurs Hemings, Condell, and Co. who very probably did not accustom themselves to spell even their own appellations with accuracy, or always in the same manner. STEEVENS. As Mr. Malone has taken no notice of these observations, I conclude that he meant to retain the word Ullorxa. It is certainly corrupt; but amputation is the last remedy to which we should resort. BOSWELL. SCENE V. The Same. The Senate-House. The Senate sitting. Enter ALCIBIADES, attended. 1 SEN. My lord, you have my voice to it; the fault's Bloody; 'tis necessary he should die : Nothing emboldens sin so much as mercy. 2 SEN. Most true; the law shall bruise him 8. ALCIB. Honour, health, and compassion to the senate! 1 SEN. Now, captain? ALCIB. I am an humble suitor to your virtues; For pity is the virtue of the law, And none but tyrants use it cruelly. It pleases time, and fortune, to lie heavy 8 shall bruise HIM.] The old copy reads-shall bruise 'em. The same mistake has happened often in these plays. In a subsequent line in this scene we have in the old copy-with him, instead of with 'em. For the correction, which is fully justified by the context, I am answerable. MALONE. Sir Thomas Hanmer also reads-bruise him. STEEVENS. 9-setting his FATE aside,] i. e. putting this action of his, which was pre-determined by fate, out of the question. STEEVENS. He is a man, &c.] I have printed these lines after the original copy, except that, for an honour, it is there, and honour. All the latter editions deviate unwarrantably from the original, and give the lines thus: "He is a man, setting his fault aside, "Of virtuous honour, which buys out his fault; Nor did he soil the fact with cowardice; (An honour in him, which buys out his fault,) And with such sober and unnoted passion This licentious alteration of the text, with a thousand others of the same kind, was made by Mr. Pope. MALONE. 2 And with such sober and UNNOTED passion He did BEHAVE his anger, ere 'twas spent, &c.] Unnoted for common, bounded. Behave, for curb, manage. I would rather read: 66 and unnoted passion WARBURTON. "Be "He did behave, ere was his anger spent." Unnoted passion means, I believe, an uncommon command of his passion, such a one as has not hitherto been observed. have his anger," may, however, be right. In Sir W. D'Avenant's play of The Just Italian, 1630, behave is used in as singular a manner: "How well my stars behave their influence." Again: 66 You an Italian, sir, and thus "Behave the knowledge of disgrace!" In both these instances, to behave is to manage. STEEVENS. "Unnoted passion," I believe, means a passion operating inwardly, but not accompanied with any external or boisterous appearances; so regulated and subdued, that no spectator could note, or observe, its operation. The old copy reads-He did behoove, &c. which does not afford any very clear meaning. Behave, which Dr. Warburton interprets manage, was introduced by Mr. Rowe. I doubt the text is not yet right. Our author so very frequently converts nouns into verbs, that I have sometimes thought he might have writtenHe did behalve his anger,"-i. e. suppress it. So, Milton: yet put he not forth all his strength, 66 66 "But check'd it mid-way." Behave, however, is used by Spenser, in his Fairy Queen, b. i. c. iii. in a sense that will suit sufficiently with the passage before us: "But who his limbs with labours, and his mind To behave certainly had formerly a very different signification As if he had but prov'd an argument. 1 SEN. You undergo too strict a paradox3, Striving to make an ugly deed look fair: Your words have took such pains, as if they labour'd To bring manslaughter into form, set quarrelling The worst that man can breathe'; and make his wrongs His outsides; wear them like his raiment, carelessly; And ne'er prefer his injuries to his heart, To bring it into danger. If wrongs be evils, and enforce us kill, from that in which it is now used. Cole, in his Dictionary, 1679, renders it by tracto, which he interprets to govern, or manage. MALONE. On second consideration, the sense of this passage, (however perversely expressed on account of rhyme,) may be this: "He managed his anger with such sober and unnoted passion [i. e. suffering, forbearance,] before it was spent, [i. e. before that disposition to endure the insult he had received, was exhausted,] that it seemed as if he had been only engaged in supporting an argument he had advanced in conversation. Passion may as well be used to signify suffering, as any violent commotion of the mind: and that our author was aware of this, may be inferred from his introduction of the Latin phrase" hysterica passio," in King Lear. See also vol. xii. p. 13, n. 7. STEEVENS. 3 You undergo too STRICT a paradox,] You undertake a paradox too hard. JOHNSON. 66 i. e. can utter. So afterwards: MALONE. Having ever seen, in the prenominate crimes, |