“_Timon of Athens_,” we are informed by Dr. Drake (vol. ii. p. 447), “is an admirable satire on the folly and ingratitude of mankind; the former exemplified in the thoughtless profusion of Timon, the latter in the conduct of his pretended friends; it is, as Dr. Johnson observes,— “‘A very powerful warning against that ostentatious liberality, which scatters bounty, but confers no benefits, and buys flattery but not friendship.’” There is some doubt whether Shakespeare derived his idea of this play from the notices of Timon which appear in Lucian, or from those given by Plutarch. The fact, however, that the very excellent work by Sir Thomas North, Knight, _The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romaines, &c._, was published in 1579,—and that Shakespeare copies it very closely in the account of Timon’s sepulchre and epitaph, show, I think, Plutarch to have been the source of his knowledge of Timon’s character and life. One of the Emblem writers, Sambucus, treated of the same subject in eighteen Latin elegiacs, and expressly named it, _Timon the Misanthrope_. The scene, too, which the device represents, is in a garden, and we can very readily fancy that the figure on the left is the old steward Flavius come to reason with his master,— Μισάνθρωπ!ος! Τίμων. _Ad Hieron. Cardanum._ [Illustration: _Sambucus, 1584._] ODERAT _hic cunctos, nec ſe, nec amabat amicos, Μισῶν ἀνθρώπους nomina digna gerens. Hoc vitium, & morbus de bili naſcitur atra, Anxiat hæc, curas ſuppeditatque graues. Quapropter cecidiſſe piro, fregiſſeque crura Fertur, & auxilium non petiiſſe malo. Suauibus à sociis, & conſuetudine dulci Qui se ſubducunt, vulnera ſæua ferunt. Conditio hæc miſera eſt, triſtes ſuſpiria ducunt, Cumque nihil cauſæ eſt, occubuiſſe velint. At tu dum poteris, noto ſociere ſodali, Subleuet vt preſſum, corque dolore vacet. Quos nulla attingunt prorſus commercia grato Atque ſodalitio, ſubſidiisque carent: Aut Dij ſunt proprij, aut falſus peruertit inanes Senſus, vt hos ſtolidos, vanaque corda putes. Tu verò tandem nobis dialectica ſponte Donata, in lucem mittito, ſi memor es._ In this case we have given the Latin of Sambucus in full, and append a nearly literal translation,—