PERSONS REPRESENTED.

SCENE, ATHENS, AND THE WOODS ADJOINING.

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 you 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, 't is a worthy lord!

JEW.

Nay, that's most fix'd.
MER. A most incomparable man; breath'd a, as it were,

a Breath'd. When Hamlet says,

"It is the breathing time of day with me,"

he refers to the time of habitual exercise, by which his animal strength was fitted for "untirable and continuate" exertion. The analogy between this and the habitual exercise of "goodness" is obvious.

MER. O, pray, let's see 't: For the lord Timon, sir?
JEW. If he will touch the estimate: But for that-
POET. "When we for recompense have prais'd the vile,
It stains the glory in that happy verse

Which aptly sings the good." b

MER. "T is a good form.

JEW. And rich: here is a water, look you.

PAIN. You are rapt, sir, in some work, some dedication

To the great lord.

РОЕТ.

A thing slipp'd idly from me. Our poesy is as a gum, which oozes

From whence 't is nourished : The fire i' the flint

Shows not till it be struck; our gentle flame

Provokes itself, and, like the current, flies

Each bound it chafes d. What have

you there?

PAIN. A picture, sir.-When comes your book forth?
POET. Upon the heels of my presentment, sir.

Let's see your piece.

[Looking at the jewel.

a He passes-he excels-he goes beyond common virtues. In the Merry Wives of Windsor' we have, "Why this passes, Master Ford."

The Poet is here supposed to be reading his own performance.

• The reading of the original is—

Pope changed this to

"Our poesie is as a gowne which uses

From whence 't is nourisht."

"Our poesie is as a gum which issues."

The reading oozes is that of Dr. Johnson. Tieck maintains that the passage should stand as in the original: he says, "The act, the flattery, of this poet of occasions, which is useful to those who pay for it. The expression is hard, forced, and obscure, but yet to be understood." We cannot see how the construction of the sentence can support this interpretation, and we therefore retain the reading of Pope and Johnson.

This passage has been considered difficult, but if we receive bound in the sense of boundary, obstacle, the image is tolerably clear. The "gentle flame" of poesy which provokes itself, runs the quicker, even for obstruction, like the current which flies faster after it has chafed the obstacles to its equal flow.

• Monck Mason believes that the passage should be written

"How this Grace

Speaks its own standing:"—

saying the figure alluded to was a representation of one of the Graces. The commentators have not noticed what appears to us tolerably obvious, that the flattering painter had brought with him a portrait of Timon, in which the grace of the attitude spoke "his own standing," the habitual carriage of the original.

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 b: 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?

РОЕТ.

I'll 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

Artificial strife-the contest of art with nature. So in the 'Venus and Adonis'

"Look, when a painter would surpass the life,

In limning out a well-proportion'd steed,
His art with nature's workmanship at strife,

As if the dead the living should exceed:

So did this horse excel."

An allusion to the ancient practice of writing upon waxen tablets with a style. Unbolt-unfold-explain.

Feign'd Fortune to be thron'd: The base o' the mount
Is rank'd with all deserts, all kinds 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.

POET. When Fortune, in her shift and change of mood,
Spurns down her late belov'd, all his dependants,

Which labour'd after him to the mountain's top,
Even on their knees and hands, let him slip down,
Not one accompanying his declining foot.

PAIN. "T is common:

A thousand moral paintings I can show,

That shall demonstrate these quick blows of fortune's

More pregnantly than words. Yet you do well,

To show lord Timon that mean eyes have seen

The foot above the head.

Trumpets sound. Enter TIMON, attended; the Servant of VENTIDIUS talking

TIM.

with him d

Imprison'd is he, say you?

VEN. SERV. Ay, my good lord; five talents is his debt;

a Condition is here used for art. The painter has here formed a picture in his mind according to the description of the Poet, and he would say that it was a subject for the skill of each to be exercised upon.

b Drink the free air-live, breathe but through him.

e

Slip-in the original, sit.

The original stage direction is, "Trumpets sound, enter Lord Timon, addressing himself courteously to every suitor."