Note IX.
III. 2. 60-64. Pope altered these lines as follows:
'Why, this is the world's soul;
Of the same piece, is every flatterer's sport:
Who can call him his friend
That dips in the same dish? for in my knowing,
Timon has been to this lord as a father,
And kept his credit with his bounteous purse.'
Theobald follows Pope's arrangement, but reads 'spirit' for 'sport' in the second line, an emendation which he first suggested in a letter to Warburton, still unpublished, in the British Museum. Warburton's conjecture 'coat,' which he made no allusion to in his own edition, is mentioned by Theobald in the same letter. Hanmer gives the whole passage thus:
'Why, this is the world's soul;
Of the same piece is every flatterer's spirit:
Who can call him his friend that dips with him
In the same dish? for even in my knowing,
Timon has been to this Lord as a father,
And kept his credit with his bounteous purse.'
Johnson follows the Folios except that he gives the first lines thus:
'Why, this is the world's soul;
And just of the same piece is every flatterer's spirit:
Who can call him his friend,
That &c.'
Steevens, in the edition of 1773, followed Johnson's arrangement, but adopted in the first lines a transposition proposed by Upton:
'Why, this is the world's sport;
And just of the same piece is every flatterer's soul.'
In his edition of 1793 he read as follows:
'Why this
Is the world's soul; and just of the same piece
Is every flatterer's spirit. Who can call him
His friend, &c.'
Following, in the rest, Capell's arrangement.
Malone arranged as follows:
'Why this is the world's soul, and just of the same piece
Is every flatterer's spirit. Who can call him his friend,
That dips in the same dish? for in my knowing
Timon has been this lord's father, and kept
His credit with his purse.'
In a note, however, he says, 'I do not believe this speech was intended by the authour for verse.'