be of no service to a man who has such friends about him, and he offers to begone at once. But Mercury reminds him of the will of Jove. Poverty pleads in vain that she has rescued him from his old associates, Sloth and Luxury, and is now forming him to virtue in her own more wholesome school; and though Timon asks with some roughness to be left still under her instruction, and bids Plutus begone "to make fools of other men as he has once of him," he is overruled by Mercury's appeal to his sense of gratitude to Jupiter, who has taken so much trouble to help him. Poverty reluctantly takes her leave, and with her depart Labour and Wisdom and the rest of her company.
Digging on in the earth by direction of Plutus, Timon finds an immense buried treasure, and the sight at once reawakens his love of riches. But it now takes another and more selfish form. Henceforth he will live for himself and not for others, and become the enemy of men as he had formerly been their injudicious friend. The name which he desires to be known by is that of "The Misanthrope."[1] The companions of his former days of splendour—who had been treated by him with such munificence, and had repaid him with such ingratitude—hear of his new wealth, and flock to him to make their excuses and apologies, to tender him all kinds of services, and to offer him public honours, if he will only give them a little of his new riches. Blows from his spade, and showers of stones, are his only answer. And in this
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"I am Misanthropos, and hate mankind."
—Shaksp., "Timon," act iv. sc. 3.
