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 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 pretended donors knew well enough, and that their false presents were but the putting out of so much money at large and speedy interest.  In this way lord Lucius had lately sent to Timon a present of four milk-white horses trapped in silver, which this cunning lord had observed