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ACT I.

SCENE I.-Athens. A Hall in TIMON's House. Enter Poet, Painter, Jeweller, Merchant, and others, at several doors.

GOOD day, sir.

Poet.

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; t'other's a jeweller.
Mer. O, 'tis a worthy lord!

Jew. Nay, that's most fix'd.

Mer. A most incomparable man; breath'd, as it were,' To an untirable and continuate goodness:

He passes.

Jew. I have a jewel here.

Mer. O pray, let's see't: For the lord Timon, sir? Jew. If he will touch the estimate :3 But, for thatPoet. When we for recompense have prais'd the vile, It stains the glory in that happy verse

Which aptly sings the good.*

Mer. 'Tis a good form.

[Looking at the jewel.

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

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

To the great lord.

Poet. A thing slipp'd idly from me.

Our poesy is as a gum, which oozes

[1] Breathed, is inured by constant practice; so trained as not to be wearied. To breathe a horse is to exercise him for the course.

Exceeds, goes beyond common bounds.

[3] Come up to the price. JOHNSON.

JOHNSON.
STEEVENS.

[4] We must here suppose the poet busy in reading his own work; and that these three lines are the introduction of the poem addressed to Timon, which he afterwards gives the Painter an account of. WARBURTON.

From whence 'tis 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. What have you there?

Pain. A picture, sir.-And when comes your book forth?

Poet. Upon the heels of my presentment, sir."

Let's see your piece.

Pain. 'Tis a good piece.

Poet. So 'tis

this comes off well and excellent.7

Pain. Indifferent.

Poet. Admirable : How this grace

Speaks his own standing! what a mental power
This eye shoots forth how big imagination
Moves in this lip! to the dumbness of the gesture
One might interpret.

Pain. It is a pretty mocking of the life.
Here is a touch; Is't good?

Peet. I'll say of it,

It tutors nature: artificial strife

Lives in these touches, livelier than life.

Enter certain Senators, and pass over.

Pain. How this lord's follow'd!

Poet. The senators of Athens ;-Happy men!

Pain. Look, more!

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

itors.'

I have, in this rough work, shap'd out a man,
Whom this beneath world doth embrace and hug

[5] It should be pointed thus, and then the sense will be evident:
our gentle flame

Provokes itself, and like the current flies;

Each bound it chafes.

Our gentle flame animates itself; it flies like a current; and every obstacle serves but to increase its force. M. MASON.This jumble of incongruous images seems to have been designed, and put into the mouth of the poetaster, that the reader might appreciate his talents: his language therefore should not be considered in the abstract. HENLEY.

JOHNSON.
JOHNSON.

[6] As soon as my book has been presented to lord Timon. [7] The figure rises well from the canvas. 'Cest bien releve.' [8] I am inclined to suppose, that the figure alluded to, was a representation of one of the Graces, and, as they are always supposed to be females, should read the passage thus:-----How this Grace

Speaks its own standing!

This amendment is strongly supported by the pronoun this prefixed to the word Grace, as it proves that what the Poet pointed out was some real object, not merely an abstract idea.

M. MASON.

[9] Strife is the contest of art with nature:

"Hic ille est Raphael, timuit, quo sospite vinci Rerum magna parens, & moriente mori." [1] "Mane salutantum totis vomit ædibus undam."

JOHNSON,

JOHNSON.

With amplest entertainment: My free drift
Halts not particularly, but moves itself
n a wide sea of wax :3 no levell'd malice*-
nfects 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'll unbolt to you.

ou 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 :9 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

JOHNSON.

HANMER.

[2] My design does not stop at any single character. Anciently they wrote upon waxen tables with an iron stile. To level is to aim, to point the shot at a mark. Shakespeare's meaning is, my poem is not a satire written with any particular view, or levelled at any single person; I fly like an eagle into the general expanse of life, and leave not, by any pri vate mischief, the trace of my passage. JOHNSON. JOHNSON.

Slippery, smooth, unresisting.

The glass-faced flatterer, that shows in his own look, as by reflection, the looks

of his patron.

JOHNSON.

[7 The Poet, seeing that Apemantus paid frequent visits to Timon, naturally con cluded that he was equally courteous with his other guests. RITSON.

[8] Covered with ranks of all kinds of men.

JOHNSON.

[9] To advance or improve their various conditions of life. JOHNSON. [1] Properly imagined, appositely, to the purpose. JOHNSON.

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