Unruly blafts wait on the tender fpring;
Unwholesome weeds take root with precious flowers;
The adder hiffes where the fweet birds fing;
What virtue breeds, iniquity devours:
We have no good that we can fay is ours,
But ill-annexed opportunity

Or kills his life, or elfe his quality.

O Opportunity! thy guilt is great :

'Tis thou that execut'it the traitor's treason;
Thou fet'ft the wolf where he the lamb may get;
Whoever plots the fin, thou point'st the seafon;
'Tis thou that fpurn'ft at right, at law, at reafon;
And in thy fhady cell, where none may spy him,
Sits Sin, to feize the fouls that wander by him.

Thou mak'ft the veftal violate her oath ;
Thou blow'ft the fire when temperance is thaw'd;
Thou fmother'ft honefty, thou murder'st troth;
Thou foul abettor! thou notorious bawd!
Thou planteft fcandal, and difplaceft laud:
Thou ravisher, thou traitor, thou false thief,
Thy honey turns to gall, thy joy to grief!

Thy fecret pleasure turns to open fhame,
Thy private feafting to a publick faft;
Thy fmoothing tities to a ragged name 3 ;

3

Thy

2 Thou mak'ft the vestal violate her oath ;] So, in Antony and Cleopatra:

women are not

"In their best fortunes ftrong; but want will perjure "The ne'er-touch'd veftal." STEEVENS.

3 Thy fmoothing titles to a ragged name;] Thy flattering titles. So, in K. Lear [1608, and 1623]:

"Such fmiling rogues as thefe

- Smooth ev'ry paffion

"That in the nature of their lords rebels."

Again, in Pericles, Prince of Tyre, 1609:

"The

Thy fugar'd tongue to bitter wormwood taste 4:
Thy violent vanities can never last 5.

How comes it then, vile opportunity,
Being fo bad, fuch numbers feek for thee?

When wilt thou be the humble fuppliant's friend,
And bring him where his fuit may be obtained?
When wilt thou fort an hour great ftrifes to end?
Or free that foul which wretchedness hath chained?
Give phyfick to the fick, eafe to the pained?

The poor, lame, blind, halt, creep, cry out for thee;

But they ne'er meet with opportunity.

The patient dies while the phyfician fleeps ;
The orphan pines while the oppreffor feeds;
Justice is feafting while the widow weeps ;
Advice is fporting while infection breeds7;
Thou grant'ft no time for charitable deeds:

"The finful father

"Seem'd not to strike, but smooth."

Wrath,

The edition of 1616, and all afterwards, read without authority: Thy moth'ring titles

MALONE.

• Thy fugar'd tongue to bitter wormwood tafte:] So, in Othello: -the food that to him now is luscious as locufts, fhall be to him shortly as bitter as coloquintida." STEEVENS.

5 Thy violent vanities can never laft.] So, in Romeo and Juliet: "Thefe violent delights have violent ends,

"And in their triumph die."

Again, in Othello: "it was a violent commencement in her, and thou shalt fee an answerable fequeftration." MALONE. Fierce vanities is an expreffion in K. Henry VIII. Scene I.

STEEVENS.

When wilt thou fort an hour-] When wilt thou choose out an hour. So, in The Two Gentlemen of Verona:

"Let us into the city presently
"To fort fome gentlemen well-fkill'd in mufick."

Again, in King Richard III:

MALONE.

"But I will fort a pitchy day for thee." STEEVENS. ? Advice is Sporting while infection breeds ;] While infection is

spreading,

Wrath, envy, treason, rape, and murder's rages,
Thy heinous hours wait on them as their pages.

When Truth and Virtue have to do with thee,
A thousand croffes keep them from thy aid;
They buy thy help: but Sin ne'er gives a fee,
He gratis comes; and thou art well appay'd
As well to hear as grant what he hath faid.
My Collatine would elfe have come to me
When Tarquin did, but he was stay'd by thee.

Guilty thou art of murder and of theft;
Guilty of perjury and fubornation;
Guilty of treafon, forgery, and shift;
Guilty of inceft, that abomination :
An acceffary by thine inclination

To all fins paft, and all that are to come,
From the creation to the general doom.

Mishapen Time, copefmate of ugly night,
Swift fubtle poft, carrier of grifly care;
Eater of youth, falfe flave to falfe delight,
Base watch of woes, fin's pack-horse, virtue's fnare;
Thou nurfeft all, and murdereft all that are.
O hear me then, injurious, fhifting time!
Be guilty of my death, fince of my crime.

fpreading, the grave rulers of the flate, that ought to guard against its farther progrefs, are careless and inattentive.-Advice was formerly ufed for knowledge. So, in The Two Gent. of Verona: "How fhall I dote on her with more advice,

"That thus without advice begin to love her?"

MALONE. This idea was probably fuggefted to Shakspeare by the rapid pro grefs of the plague in London. STEEVENS.

and thou art well appay'd,] Appay'd is pleafed. The

word is now obfolete. MALONE.

cope/mate-] i. e. companion. So, in Hubbard's Tale: "Till that the foe his cope/mate he had found."

STEEVENS.

Why

Why hath thy fervant, Opportunity,
Betray'd the hours thou gav'ft me to repofe?
Cancel'd my fortunes, and enchained me
To endless date of never-ending woes?
Time's office is to fine the hate of foes';
To eat up error by opinion bred 2,
Not spend the dowry of a lawful bed.

Time's glory is to calm contending kings,
To unmask falfhood, and bring truth to light,
To stamp the feal of time in aged things,
To wake the morn, and fentinel the night,
To wrong the wronger till he render right;
To ruinate proud buildings with thy hours,
And fmear with duft their glittering golden

towers :

Το

'Time's office is to fine the hate of foes;] It is the business of time to foften and refine the animofities of men; to footh and reconcile enemies. The modern editions read without authority or meaning:

--

MALONE.

to find the hate of men. "To fine the hate of foes" is to bring it to an end. So, in All's Well that ends Well:

"Whate'er the course, the end is the renown." The fame thought has already occurred in the poem before us: "When wilt thou fort an hour great firife's to end ?"

STEEVENS. To eat up error by opinion bred,] This likewife is represented as the office of Time in the chorus to the Winter's Tale:

"that make and unfold error." STEEVENS.

3 To wrong the wronger till he render right;] To punish by the compunctious vifiting of confcience the person who has done an injury to another, till he has made compenfation. The wrong done in this inftance by Time, must be understood in the fenfe of damnum fine injuria; and in this light ferves to illuftrate and support Mr. Tyrwhitt's explanation of a paffage in Julius Cæfar, even fuppofing that it had stood as Ben Jonfon has maliciously reprefented it" Know, Cæfar, doth not wrong, but with juft caufe, &c." See Vol. VII. p. 58.

Dr. Farmer very elegantly would read:

To wring the wronger till he render right. MALONE. + To ruinate proud buildings with thy hours,] As we have here

no

To fill with worm-holes ftately monuments,
To feed oblivion with decay of things,
To blot old books, and alter their contents,
To pluck the quills from ancient ravens' wings,
To dry the old oak's fap, and cherish fprings;

To

no invocation to time, I fufpect the two last words of this line to be corrupted, and would read:

To ruinate proud buildings with their bowers.

STEEVENS. To ruinate proud buildings with thy hours,] So, in The Comedy of Errors:

"Shall love in building grow so ruinate ?” Hours is, I believe, the true reading. So, in our author's 19th Sonnet:

"Devouring Time

"O carve not with thy hours my love's fair brow-"

To ruinate proud buildings with thy hours-is to deftroy buildings by thy flow and unperceived progrefs. It were eafy to read-with his hours; but the poet having made Lucretia address Time per fonally in the two preceding ftanzas, and again a little lowerWhy work it thou mifchief in thy pilgrimage --probably was here inattentive, and is himself answerable for the prefent inaccuracy. MALONE.

To blot old books, and alter their contents,] Our author proba bly little thought, when he wrote this line, that his own compofi tions would afford a more friking example of this species of de vaitation than any that has appeared fince the first ufe of types.

MALONE.

To dry the old oak's fap, and cherish fprings,] The two laft words, if they make any fenfe, it is fuch as is directly contrary to the fentiments here advanced; which is concerning the decays and not the repairs of time. The poet certainly wrote:

To dry the old oak's fap, and tarifh fprings; i. e. to dry up fprings, from the French tarir, or tariffement, exarefacere, exficcatio: thefe words being peculiarly applied to fprings or rivers. WARBURTON.

This note of Dr. Warburton's has given rife to various observations, which it is unneceffary to quote at large here, as the reader may find them in the laft edition of our author, Vol. VII. P. 477

Dr. Johnson thinks that Shakspeare wrote:

and perib fprings;

And Dr. Farmer has produced from the Maid's Tragedy a paffage in which the word perib is used in an active sense.