h he did not prize above the reverendest
throat in Athens.

This was all the answer he vouchsafed to the weeping disappointed
senators; only at parting he bade them commend him to his countrymen,
and tell them, that to ease them of their griefs and anxieties, and to
prevent the consequences of fierce Alcibiades' wrath, there was yet a
way left, which he would teach them, for he had yet so much affection
left for his dear countrymen as to be willing to do them a kindness
before his death. These words a little revived the senators, who hoped
that his kindness for their city was returning. Then Timon told them
that he had a tree, which grew near his cave, which he should shortly
have occasion to cut down, and he invited all his friends in Athens,
high or low, of what degree soever, who wished to shun affliction, to
come and take a taste of his tree before he cut it down; meaning, that
they might come and hang themselves on it, and escape affliction that
way.

And this was the last courtesy of all his noble bounties, which Timon
showed to mankind, and this the last sight of him which his countrymen
had: for not many days after, a poor soldier, passing by the sea-beach,
which was at a little distance from the woods which Timon frequented,
found a tomb on the verge of the sea, with an inscription upon it,
purporting that it was the grave of Timon the man-hater, who 'While he
lived, did hate all living men, and dying wished a plague might consume
all caitiffs left!'

Whether he finished his life by violence, or whether mere distaste of
life and the loathing he had for mankind brought Timon to his
conclusion, was not clear, yet all men admired the fitness of his
epitaph, and the consistency of his end; dying, as he had lived, a
hater of mankind: and some there were who fancied a conceit in the very
choice which he had made of the sea-beach for his place of burial,
where the vast sea might weep for ever upon his grave, as in contempt
of the transient and shallow tears of hypocritical and deceitful
mankind.

ROMEO AND JULIET

The two chief families in Verona were the rich Capulets and the
Montagues. There had been an old quarrel between these families, which
was grown to such a height, and so deadly was the enmity between them,
that it extended to the remotest kindred, to the followers and
retainers of both sides, insomuch that a servant of the house of
Montague could not meet a servant of the house of Capulet, nor