no levell'd malice
Infects one comma in the course I hold;
But flies an eagle-flight, bold, and forth on,
Leaving no tract behind]
To _level_ is to _aim_, to point the shot at a mark. Shakespeare's
meaning is, my poem is not a satire written with any particular view, or
_levelled_ at any single person; I fly like an eagle into the general
expanse of life, and leave not, by any private mischief, the trace of my
passage.
I.i.51 (276,8) I'll unbolt] I'll open, I'll explain.
I.i.53 (276,9) glib and slippery creatures] Hanmer, and Warburton after
him, read, _natures_. _Slippery_ is _smooth_, unresisting.
I.i.58 (276,1) glass-fac'd flatterer] That shows in his own look, as by
reflection, the looks of his patron.
I.i.65 (277,3) rank'd with all deserts] _Cover'd with ranks_ of all
kinds of men.
I.i.67 (277,4) To propagate their states] To advance or improve their
various conditions of life.
I.i.72 (277,5) conceiv'd to scope] Properly imagined, appositely, to the
purpose.
I.i.82 (278,8) through him/Drink the free air] That is, catch his breath
in affected fondness.
I.i.90 (278,9) A thousand moral paintings I can shew] Shakespeare seems
to intend in this dialogue to express some competition between the two
great arts of imitation. Whatever the poet declares himself to have
shewn, the painter thinks he could have shewn better. (1773)
I.i.107 (279,1) 'Tis not enough to help the feeble up,/But to support
him after] This thought is better expressed by Dr. Madden in his elegy
on archbishop Boulter.
--_He thought it mean
Only to help the poor to beg again._
I.i.129 (280,2) Therefore he will be, Timon] I rather think an
emendation necessary, and read,
_Therefore_ well be him, _Timon.
His honesty rewards him in itself._
That is, _If he in honest_, bene fit illi, _I wish him the proper
happiness of an honest man, but his honesty gives him no claim to my
daughter_.
The first transcriber probably wrote _will be him_, which the next, not
understanding, changed to, _he will be_. (1773)