And by a train of noble peers, She gave in charge he fhould be brought Whose royal King, whose noble mind, To mufter up his knights at arms, And fo to England came with speed And drive his daughters from their thrones Where the, true hearted noble Queen, Was in the battle flain; Yet he, good King, in his old days But when he heard Cordelia's death, Of her dear father, in whose cause The lords and nobles when they faw The ends of these events, The other fifters unto death And being dead their crowns they left Thus have you feen the fall of pride Thieves, Senators, Poet, Painter, Jeweller, and Merchant; with Servants and Attendants. SCENE, Athens; and the Woods not far from it. From Lucian's Dialogues. Of this Play there is no Edition known but that of the Players. TIMON of ATHENS. ACT I. SCENE I. A Hall in TIMON's Houfe, Enter Poet, Painter, Jeweller, and Merchant, at feveral doors. But what particular rarity? &c.] Our author, it is obfervable, has made his poet in this play a knave. But that it might not reflect upon the prefeffion, he has made him only a pretender to it, as appears from his having drawn him, all the way, with a falfe tafte and judgment. One infallible mark of which, is a fondness for every thing ftrange, furprizing and portentous; and a difregard for whatever is common, or in nature. Shakespear therefore has with great delicacy of judgment M 4 Which Paint, |