a picture to dispose of, he had only to take it to lord Timon, and
pretend to consult his taste as to the merits of it; nothing more was
wanting to persuade the liberal-hearted lord to buy it. If a jeweller
had a stone of price, or a mercer rich costly stuffs, which for their
costliness lay upon his hands, lord Timon's house was a ready mart
always open, where they might get off their wares or their jewellery
at any price, and the good natured lord would thank them into the
bargain, as if they had done him a piece of courtesy in letting him
have the refusal of such precious commodities. So that by this means
his house was thronged with superfluous purchases, of no use but to
swell uneasy and ostentatious pomp; and his person was still more
inconveniently beset with a crowd of these idle visitors, lying poets,
painters, sharking tradesmen, lords, ladies, needy courtiers, and
expectants, who continually filled his lobbies, raining their fulsome
flatteries in whispers in his ears, sacrificing to him with adulation
as to a God, making sacred the very stirrup by which he mounted his
horse, and seeming as though they drank the free air but through his
permission and bounty.

Some of these daily dependents were young men of birth, who (their
means not answering to their extravagance) had been put in prison by
creditors, and redeemed thence by lord Timon; these young prodigals
thenceforward fastened upon his lordship, as if by common sympathy he
were necessarily endeared to all such spendthrifts and loose livers,
who not being able to follow him in his wealth, found it easier to
copy him in prodigality and copious spending of what was not their
own. One of these flesh-flies was Ventidius, for whose debts unjustly
contracted Timon but lately had paid down the sum of five talents.

But among this confluence, this great flood of visitors, none were
more conspicuous than the makers of presents and givers of gifts. It
was fortunate for these men, if Timon took a fancy to a dog, or a
horse, or any piece of cheap furniture which was theirs. The thing
so praised, whatever it was, was sure to be sent the next morning
with the compliments of the giver for lord Timon's acceptance, and
apologies for the unworthiness of the gift; and this dog or horse, or
whatever it might be, did not fail to produce, from Timon's bounty,
who would not be outdone in gifts, perhaps twenty dogs or horses,
certainly presents of far richer worth, as these pre