The moral sententiousness of this play equals that of Lord Bacon’s Treatise on the Wisdom of the Ancients, and is indeed seasoned with greater variety. Every topic of contempt or indignation is here exhausted; but while the sordid licentiousness of Apemantus, which turns every thing to gall and bitterness, shews only the natural virulence of his temper and antipathy to good or evil alike, Timon does not utter an imprecation without betraying the extravagant workings of disappointed passion, of love altered to hate. Apemantus sees nothing good in any object, and exaggerates whatever is disgusting: Timon is tormented with the perpetual contrast between things and appearances, between the fresh, tempting outside and the rottenness within, and invokes mischiefs on the heads of mankind proportioned to the sense of his wrongs and of their treacheries. He impatiently cries out, when he finds the gold, ‘This yellow slave Will knit and break religions; bless the accurs’d; Make the hoar leprosy ador’d; place thieves, And give them title, knee, and approbation, With senators on the bench; this is it, That makes the wappen’d widow wed again; She, whom the spital-house Would cast the gorge at, _this embalms and spices To th’ April day again_.’ One of his most dreadful imprecations is that which occurs immediately on his leaving Athens. ‘Let me look back upon thee, O thou wall, That girdlest in those wolves! Dive in the earth, And fence not Athens! Matrons, turn incontinent; Obedience fail in children; slaves and fools Pluck the grave wrinkled senate from the bench, And minister in their steads. To general filths Convert o’ th’ instant green virginity! Do ‘t in your parents’ eyes. Bankrupts, hold fast; Rather than render back, out with your knives, And cut your trusters’ throats! Bound servants, steal: Large-handed robbers your grave masters are And pill by law. Maid, to thy master’s bed: Thy mistress is o’ th’ brothel. Son of sixteen, Pluck the lin’d crutch from thy old limping sire, And with it beat his brains out! Fear and piety, Religion to the Gods, peace, justice, truth, Domestic awe, night-rest, and neighbourhood, Instructions, manners, mysteries and trades, Degrees, observances, customs and laws, Decline to your confounding contraries; And let confusion live!—Plagues, incident to men, Your potent and infectious fevers heap On Athens, ripe for stroke! Thou cold sciatica, Cripple our senators, that their limbs may halt As lamely as their manners! Lust and liberty Creep in the minds and marrows of our youth, That ‘gainst the stream of virtue they may strive, And drown themselves in riot! Itches, blains,