IV.iii.139 (357,9) I’ll trust to your conditions] You need not swear to continue whores, I will trust to your inclinations.

IV.iii.140 (358,1) Yet may your pains, six months,/Be quite contrary] The explanation [Warburton’s] is ingenious, but I think it very remote, and would willingly bring the author and his readers to meet on easier terms.  We may read,

  —­Yet may your pains six months
  Be quite contraried.—­

Timon is wishing ill to mankind, but is afraid lest the whores should imagine that he wishes well to them; to obviate which he lets them know, that he imprecates upon them influence enough to plague others, and disappointments enough to plague themselves.  He wishes that they may do all possible mischief, and yet take pains six months of the year in vain.

In this sense there is a connection of this line with the next.  Finding your pains contraried, try new expedients, thatch your thin roofs, and paint.

To contrary is on old verb.  Latymer relates, that when he went to court, he was advised not to contrary the king.

IV.iii.153 (359,3) mens’ spurring] Hanmer reads sparring, properly enough, if there be any ancient example of the word.

IV.iii.158 (359,5)

  take the bridge quite away
  Of him, that his particular to foresee
  Smells from the general weal]

[W:  to forefend] The metaphor is apparently incongruous, but the sense is good.  To foresee his particular, is to provide for his private advantage, for which he leaves the right scent of publick good.  In hunting, when hares have cross’d one another, it is common for some of the hounds to smell from the general weal, and foresee their own particular.  Shakespeare, who seems to have been a skilful sportsman, and has alluded often to falconry, perhaps, alludes here to hunting.

To the commentator’s emendation it may be objected, that he used forefend in the wrong meaning.  To forefend, is, I think, never to provide for, but to provide against.  The verbs compounded with for or fore have commonly either an evil or negative sense.

IV.iii.182 (361,8) eyeless venom’d worm] The serpent, which we, from the smallness of his eyes, call the blind worm, and the Latins, caecilia.

IV.iii.183 (361,9) below crisp heaven] [W:  cript] Mr. Upton declares for crisp, curled, bent, hollow.

IV.iii.188 (361,1) Let it no more bring out ingrateful man!] [W:  out to ungrateful] It is plain that bring out is bring forth, with which the following lines correspond so plainly, that the commentator might be suspected of writing his note without reading the whole passage.

IV.iii.193 (362,2) Dry up thy marrows, vines, and plough torn leas] I cannot concur to censure Theobald [as Warburton did] as a critic very unhappy.  He was weak, but he was cautious:  finding but little power in his mind, he rarely ventured far under its conduct.  This timidity hindered him from daring conjectures, and sometimes hindered him happily.