"I take all and your several visitations
So kind to heart; 't is not enough to give;
Methinks I could deal kingdoms to my friends,
And ne'er be weary."
But now the time of reckoning approaches in which it is prophesied that,
"When every feather sticks in his own wing,
Lord Timon will be left a naked gull,
Which flashes now a phoenix."
He is beset with the clamorous demands of creditors, and turns with reproachful enquiry to the one honest man who has been seeking so long to check the ebb of his estate, and this great flow of debts; and when he at length gives ear to the importunity that can no longer be avoided, his debts double his means, and all his vast lands are engaged or forfeited. No estate could support his senseless prodigality,
"The world is but a word,
Were it all yours to give it in a breath
How quickly were it gone?"
Flavius, like Apemantus refers the motive of Timon's profusion to vanity and the love of compliment.
"Who is not Timon's?
What heart, head, sword, force, means, but is lord Timon's?
Great Timon, noble, worthy, royal Timon!
Ah! when the means are gone that buy this praise,
The breath is gone whereof this praise is made:
Feast-won, fast-lost : one cloud of winter showers,
These flies are couch'd."
This however is not quite the whole truth. There is doubtless much vanity in Timon's ostentation, but there is also a magnanimous disregard of self, and a false judgment of others founded upon it. His bounty,
"Being free itself, it thinks all other so."
Now comes the real trial, the test of man's value. Riches are
