Page:William Hazlitt - Characters of Shakespear's Plays (1817).djvu/96

66 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' th' 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. Maid, to thy master's bed: Thy mistress is o' th' brothel. Son of sixteen, Pluck the lin'd crutch from thy old limping sire, And with it beat his brains out! Fear and piety, Religion to the Gods, peace, justice, truth, Domestic awe, night-rest, and neighbourhood, Instructions, 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 manners of our youth, That 'gainst the stream of virtue they may strive, And drown themselves in riot! Itches, blains, Sow all th' Athenian bosoms; and their crop Be general leprosy: breath infect breath, That their society (as their friendship) may Be merely poison!"

Timon is here just as ideal in his passion for ill as he had before been in his belief of good. Apemantus was satisfied with the mischief existing in the world, and with his own