Puslapio vaizdai
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ing that modicum of "small Latin" allowed him by Ben Jonson, would enable him to make out. This seems to have been no unusual mode of becoming acquainted with Greek authors in that age, when many of them were still without English translations; for I have been surprised to observe how often even the learned authors of the age of Elizabeth and James, such as Burton, in the "Anatomy of Melancholy," Jeremy Taylor, and others, refer to and quote the latin versions of Greek fathers and philosophers.

COSTUME, ETC.

In the literary costume of this drama, the congruity of its details with ancient manners, there are no striking deviations from historical probability, except in the odd transference of such names as Lucullus, Ventidius, etc., to Athens. These, so diligent a reader of North's "Plutarch" as Shakespeare was could not but have known to belong to Rome alone, and could have used them only from haste and inadvertence. This is, then, either an additional mark of the careless haste with which the subordinate parts of the play were sketched out, or else, if there be any ground for the theory of its authorship above suggested, it is an error of the dramatist who filled up the chasms of the original work.

The localities, etc., represented in the illustrations of this play, and transferred from the illustrated English editions, are chiefly of such Athenian remains as belong to the historical period of Alcibiades.

For the other costume, Mr. Planché of course recommends to the artist the "Elgin marbles" as the principal authorities. "The age of Pericles, (he adds,) rich in art, as well as luxurious and magnificent, was the period which immediately preceded that of Timon; and it would of course suggest the employment, in the representation of the drama, of great scenic splendour."

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SCENE I.-Athens. A Hall in TIMON's House.

Enter Poet, Painter, Jeweller, Merchant, and
others, at several doors.

Poet. Good day, sir.
Pain. I am glad y'are well.

Poet. I have not seen you long. How goes the world?

Pain. It wears, sir, as it grows.
Poet.

Ay, that's well known;
But what particular rarity? what strange,
Which manifold record not matches? See,
Magic of bounty! all these spirits thy power
Hath conjur'd to attend. I know the merchant.
Pain. I know them both: th' other's a jeweller.
Mer. O! 'tis a worthy lord.

Nay, that's most fix'd.
Jew.
Mer. A most incomparable man; breath'd, as it

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Poet.

I'll say of it,

It tutors nature: artificial strife
Lives in these touches, livelier than life.

Enter certain Senators, who pass over the stage.
Pain. How this lord is follow'd!

Poet. The senators of Athens :-happy men!
Pain. Look, more!

Poet. You see this confluence, this great flood of visitors.

I have in this rough work shap'd out a man,
Whom this beneath world doth embrace and hug
With amplest entertainment: my free drift
Halts not particularly, but moves itself
In a wide sea of wax: no levell'd malice
Infects one comma in the course I hold,
But flies an eagle flight, bold, and forth on,
Leaving no tract behind.

Pain. How shall I understand you?
Poet. I will unbolt to you.

You see how all conditions, how all minds,
(As well of glib and slippery creatures, as
Of grave and austere quality,) tender down
Their services to lord Timon: his large fortune,
Upon his good and gracious nature hanging,
Subdues and properties to his love and tendance
All sorts of hearts; yea, from the glass-fac'd flatterer
To Apemantus, that few things loves better
Than to abhor himself: even he drops down
The knee before him, and returns in peace
Most rich in Timon's nod.

Pain. I saw them speak together.

Poet. Sir, I have upon a high and pleasant hill, Feign'd Fortune to be thron'd: the base o' the

mount

Is rank'd with all deserts, all kind of natures,
That labour on the bosom of this sphere
To propagate their states: amongst them all,
Whose eyes are on this sovereign lady fix'd,

One do I personate of lord Timon's frame;
Whom Fortune with her ivory hand wafts to
her,

Whose present grace to present slaves and servants
Translates his rivals.
Pain.
'Tis conceiv'd to scope.
This throne, this Fortune, and this hill, methinks,
With one man beckon'd from the rest below,
Bowing his head against the steepy mount
To climb his happiness, would be well express'd
In our condition.

Poet.
Nay, sir, but hear me on.
All those which were his fellows but of late,
(Some better than his value,) on the moment
Follow his strides; his lobbies fill with tendance,
Rain sacrificial whisperings in his ear,

Make sacred even his stirrup, and through him
Drink the free air.

Pain.

Ay, marry, what of these? Poet. When Fortune, in her shift and change of

mood,

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