whose face reflects as in a mirror the present humour of his patron, to
the rough and unbending cynic, who affecting a contempt of men's
persons, and an indifference to worldly things, yet could not stand out
against the gracious manners and munificent soul of lord Timon, but
would come (against his nature) to partake of his royal entertainments,
and return most rich in his own estimation if he had received a nod or
a salutation from Timon.

If a poet had composed a work which wanted a recommendatory
introduction to the world, he had no more to do but to dedicate it to
lord Timon, and the poem was sure of sale, besides a present purse from
the patron, and daily access to his house and table. If a painter had 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 their own. One
of these flesh-flies was Ventidius, for whose debts, unjustly
contracted