tirely in himself, and not in any worthiness in the receiver thereof. And because his love thus proceeds upon ideal grounds, therefore, when the revulsion comes, he is equally undiscriminating and selfwilled in his hate: both growing purely from an imaginative, not from an experimental source, there is of course as little respect of persons in the one as in the other. In either case, the causes of his action are wholly in himself, and not at all in the objects of it for even so, where one's life is thus "of imagination all compact," the first crossings and thwartings of personal experience are apt to upset and revolutionize his whole scheme and conception of human character: as his confidence is without any real ground in the experienced differences of men, so he has nothing to rescue him from the ideal consequences of a single disappointment. This is evidently the true root and basis alike of his overflowing bounties and his all-withering imprecations. Hence, when the occasion comes, he flies at once from one extreme to its farthest opposite in hatred as in love, he must still be treating men as if there were nothing to choose between them; and when the exception of his faithful Steward is forced upon him, he prefers to die rather than retreat from the extreme ground of imagination to the medium ground of experience. Nevertheless, in his misanthropy we can discover no signs of a reaction, (if it ought not rather to be called a continuation,) such as not seldom occurs in actual life, from a profligate and unprincipled companionship. For his unrespective blastings of reproof are poured forth, fresh and full of spirit, from the depths of an enraged imagination; and have nothing of the stale and musty sourness which often supervenes upon the fermentings of a beastly and sensual life. The character of Apemantus seems designed, in part, on purpose to illustrate the difference between the intense hearty misanthropy of Timon and the low vulgar cynicism of an outworn profligate or superannuated debauchee. For in Apemantus we have a specimen of the cynic proper, who finds his pastime in a sort of scowling buffoonery and malignant slang; at first setting himself to practise the arts of a snarling scorner of men, because this feeds his distempered conceit; and then by dint of such exercise gradually working himself up into a corresponding passion. For it is easy to see that the cynicism which now forms his character originated in sheer affectation. Timon justly despises the sincere cant of one who thus drives contempt of mankind as a trade; for he knows it to be the offspring of disappointed vanity, seeking to indemnify its own baseness by making reprisals on others. He sees that Apemantus never had in himself a single touch of the goodness, the alleged want of which he so much delights to bark at; and that his superiority to the common passions of men is all because he has not virtue enough left to be vicious. PERSONS REPRESENTED. TIMON, a noble Athenian. LUCIUS, LUCULLUS, SEMPRONIUS, Lords, and Flatterers of Timon. VENTIDIUS, one of Timon's false Friends. APEMANTUS, a churlish Philosopher. ALCIBIADES, an Athenian General. FLAVIUS, Steward to Timon. Servants of Varro, Ventidius, and Isidore, three of Timon's Other Lords, Senators, Officers, Soldiers, Thieves, and At tendants. SCENE, Athens; and the Woods adjoining. TIMON OF ATHENS. ACT I. SCENE I. Athens. A Hall in TIMON's House. Enter Poet, Painter, Jeweller, Merchant, and 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! 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.1 Jew. I have a jewel here, 1 Breath'd is exercised, inured by constant practice, so as not to be wearied. To breathe a horse is to exercise him for the course. Continuate for continued. Pass was often used for surpass. Mer. O! pray, let's see't. sir? For the lord Timon, 2 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." Mer. [Looking at the Jewel.] 'Tis a good form. Pain. You are rapt, sir, in some work, some To the great lord. Poet. A thing slipp'd idly from me. Our poesy is as a gum which oozes 4 From whence 'tis nourish'd: The fire i' the flint Poet. Upon the heels of my presentment, sir. 2 That is, come up to the price. 3 Former editors have thought it needful to inform the reader that these three lines are the beginning of the poem which the speaker afterwards describes. The information, whether needful or not, is doubtless correct. As the Poet strikes up the rehearsal of his lines without bespeaking any listener, this puts the Painter upon supposing him to be in a rapture. Perhaps the reader would like to be told further, that the sudden discharge of poetry arrests the speech of the Jeweller. H. 4 The original has, -"Our Poesie is as a Gowne, which uses;" from which no sense can be gathered. Pope changed gown to gum, and uses to issues. The substitution of oozes is by Dr. JohnWhat follows shows that the word, whichever it be, is meant to convey the idea of spontaneous production; not forced, as the fire from the flint. son. II. Pain. 'Tis a good piece. Poet. So 'tis this comes off well, and excellent. Pain. Indifferent. Poet. Admirable ! How this grace Speaks his own standing! what a mental power 6 Pain. It is a pretty mocking of the life. Here is a touch: is't good? Poet. 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 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 This picture, it would seem, is a full-length portrait of Timon, in which the gracefulness of the attitude expresses the habitual standing or carriage of the original. H. 6 One might supply words to such intelligible action: the sig nificant gesture ascertains the sentiments that should accompany it. So in Cymbeline, Act ii. sc. 4: "Never saw I pictures so likely to report themselves." 7 The excellence of an artist was often set forth by representing him as the tutor or the competitor of nature. Thus in the Poet's Venus and Adonis : "Look, when a painter would surpass the life н. |