Tim. 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' the 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.
Son of sixteen,
Pluck the lin❜d crutch from thy old limping sire,
With it beat out his brains! Piety, and fear,
Religion to the gods, peace, justice, truth,
Domestic awe, night-rest, and neighbourhood,
Instruction, 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,
Sow all the Athenian bosoms; and their crop
Be general leprosy! Breath infect breath,
That their society, as their friendship, may
Be merely poison! Nothing I'll bear from thee,
But nakedness, thou detestable town!
Take thou that too, with multiplying bans !
Timon will to the woods; where he shall find
The unkindest beast more kinder than mankind.

The gods confound-hear me, you good gods all—
The Athenians both within and out that wall!

2 Serv.

Act 4, Sc. I.

As we do turn our backs
From our companions, thrown into his grave;
So his familiars to his buried fortunes
Slink all away; leave their false vows with him,
Like empty purses pick'd; and his poor self,
A dedicated beggar to the air.—Act 4, Sc. 2.

Flav. O, the fierce wretchedness that glory brings us!
Who would not wish to be from wealth exempt,
Since riches point to misery and contempt?

Act 4, Sc. 2.

Tim.
I'll example you with thievery :-
The sun's a thief, and with his great attraction
Robs the vast sea: the moon's an arrant thief,
And her pale face she snatches from the sun :
The sea's a thief, whose liquid surge resolves
The moon into salt tears: the earth's a thief,
That feeds and breeds by a composture stolen
From general excrement: each thing's a thief:
The laws, your curb and whip, in their rough power
Have uncheck'd theft. Love not yourselves: away,
Rob one another. There's more gold. Cut throats :
All that you meet are thieves: to Athens go,
Break open shops; nothing can you steal,
But thieves do lose it: steal no less for this

I give you ;-Act 4, Sc. 3.

Flav. What viler thing upon the earth than friends
Who can bring noblest minds to basest ends?

Act 4, Sc. 3.

Pain. Promising is the very air o' the time: it opens the eyes of expectation: performance is ever the duller for his

act; and, but in the plainer and simpler kind of people, the deed of saying is quite out of use. To promise is most courtly and fashionable: performance is a kind of will or testament which argues a great sickness in his judgment that makes it.-Act 5, Sc. I.

Tim.

What a god's gold,

That he is worshipp'd in a baser temple

Than where swine feed!

'Tis thou that rigg'st the bark and plough'st the foam, Settlest admired reverence in a slave :

To thee be worship! and thy saints for aye

Be crown'd with plagues that thee alone obey!

Timon's Epitaph.

Act 5, Sc. I.

'Here lies a wretched corse, of wretched soul bereft : Seek not my name: a plague consume you wicked caitiffs left!

Here lie I, Timon; who, alive, all living men did hate : Pass by and curse thy fill, but pass and stay not here thy gait.'-Act 5, Sc. 4.

JULIUS CÆSAR.

Cassius. I cannot tell what you and other men
Think of this life; but, for my single self,

I had as lief not be, as live to be

In awe of such a thing as I myself.-Act 1, Sc. 2

Cas. Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus, and we petty men

Walk under his huge legs, and creep about

To find ourselves dishonourable graves.-Act 1, Sc. 2.

Cas. Let me have men about me that are fat.
Sleek-headed men and such as sleep o'nights :
Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look;
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.

Act 1, Sc. 2.

Cic. But men may construe things after their fashion,
Clean from the purpose of the things themselves.

Bru.

Act 1, Sc. 3.

But 'tis a common proof,
That lowliness is young ambition's ladder,
Whereto the climber upward turns his face;
But when he once attains the utmost round,
He then unto the ladder turns his back,
Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees
By which he did ascend.-Act 2, Sc. I.

Bru. Between the acting of a dreadful thing
And the first motion, all the interim is
Like a phantasma, or a hideous dream :
The Genius and the mortal instruments
Are then in council; and the state of man,
Like to a little kingdom, suffers then

Bru.

The nature of an insurrection.-Act 2, Sc. I.

O conspiracy,

Shamest thou to show thy dangerous brow by night,
When evils are most free? O, then by day

Where wilt thou find a cavern dark enough

To mask thy monstrous visage?

Seek none, con

For if thou path, thy native semblance on,
Not Erebus itself were dim enough

To hide thee from prevention.—Act 2, Sc. I.

Bru. You are my true and honourable wife;
As dear to me as are the ruddy drops
That visit my sad heart.*-Act 2, Sc. I.

Cal. When beggars die, there are no comets seen;
The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes.
Cas. Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.

Cæs.

Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,

It seems to me most strange that men should fear;
Seeing that death, a necessary end,

Will come when it will come.-Act 2, Sc. 2.

Hence! wilt thou lift up Olympus?

Dec. Great Cæsar,

Cæs.

Doth not Brutus bootless kneel?

Cas. Speak, hands, for me!

Cæs.

[Casca first, then the other Conspirators and Marcus Brutus, stab Cæsar. Et tu, Brute! Then, fall, Cæsar! [Dies. Cin. Liberty! Freedom! Tyranny is dead! Run hence, proclaim, cry it about the streets.

Act 3, Sc. I.

Ant. The choice and master spirit of this age.-Act 3, Sc. I.

Ant. Though last, not least in love.†-Act 3, Sc. I.

Ant. How like a deer strucken by many princes
Dost thou here lie!-Act 3, Sc. I.

* Gray, in his poem "The Bard," Pt. I., stanza 3, copied these lines:"Dear as the light that visits these sad eyes,

Dear as the ruddy drops that warm my heart."

† See also Burns' Prologue, spoken at the Theatre, Ellesland :—

66 Last, tho' not least in love;"

Collins' "Ode to Liberty: "

"Though least, not last in thy esteem."