end; and another lord,
Lucullus, had bestowed upon him in the same pretended way of free gift a
brace of greyhounds, whose make and fleetness Timon had been heard to
admire; these presents the easy-hearted lord accepted without suspicion
of the dishonest views of the presenters; and the givers of course were
rewarded with some rich return, a diamond or some jewel of twenty times
the value of their false and mercenary donation.

Sometimes these creatures would go to work in a more direct way, and
with gross and palpable artifice, which yet the credulous Timon was too
blind to see, would affect to admire and praise something that Timon
possessed, a bargain that he had bought, or some late purchase, which
was sure to draw from this yielding and soft-hearted lord a gift of the
thing commended, for no service in the world done for it but the easy
expense of a little cheap and obvious flattery. In this way Timon but
the other day had given to one of these mean lords the bay courser which
he himself rode upon, because his lordship had been pleased to say that
it was a handsome beast and went well; and Timon knew that no man ever
justly praised what he did not wish to possess. For Lord Timon weighed
his friends' affection with his own, and so fond was he of bestowing,
that he could have dealt kingdoms to these supposed friends, and never
have been weary.

Not that Timon's wealth all went to enrich these wicked flatterers; he
could do noble and praiseworthy actions; and when a servant of his once
loved the daughter of a rich Athenian, but could not hope to obtain her
by reason that in wealth and rank the maid was so far above him, Lord
Timon freely bestowed upon his servant three Athenian talents, to make
his fortune equal with the dowry which the father of the young maid
demanded of him who should be her husband. But for the most part, knaves
and parasites had the command of his fortune, false friends whom he did
not know to be such, but, because they flocked around his person, he
thought they must needs love him; and because they smiled and flattered
him, he thought surely that his conduct was approved by all the wise and
good. And when he was feasting in the midst of all these flatterers and
mock friends, when they were eating him up, and draining his fortunes
dry with large draughts of richest wines drunk to his health and
prosperity, he could not perceive the difference of a friend from a
flatterer, but to his deluded eyes