—nor then silenc'd with
'Commend me to your master'—and the cap
Plays in the right hand, thus:—
Either, methinks, 'plays' should be 'play'd,' or 'and' should be changed to 'while.' I can certainly understand it as a parenthesis, an interadditive of scorn; but it does not sound to my ear as in Shakspeare's manner.
Ib. sc. 2. Timon's speech: (Theobald.)
And that unaptness made you minister,
Thus to excuse yourself.
Read 'your';—at least I cannot otherwise understand the line. You made my chance indisposition and occasional unaptness your minister—that is, the ground on which you now excuse yourself. Or, perhaps, no correction is necessary, if we construe 'made you' as 'did you make;' 'and that unaptness did you make help you thus to excuse yourself.' But the former seems more in Shakspeare's manner, and is less liable to be misunderstood. {2}
Act iii. sc. 3. Servant's speech:—
How fairly this lord strives to appear foul!—takes virtuous copies to
be wicked; like those that under hot, ardent, zeal would set whole
realms on fire. Of such a nature is his politic love.
This latter clause I grievously suspect to have been an addition of the players, which had hit, and, being constantly applauded, procured a settled occupancy in the prompter's copy. Not that Shakspeare does not elsewhere sneer at the Puritans; but here it is introduced so nolenter volenter (excuse the phrase) by the head and shoulders!—and is besides so much more likely to have been conceived in the age of Charles I.
Act iv. sc. 2. Timon's speech:—
Raise me this beggar, and deny't that lord.—