Atlantic Monthly | Page 5

Merchant examines the jewel,
the first who spoke, the high-flown individual, is pacing and talking to
himself near the one he met:--
_Poet. When we for recompense have praised the vile, It stains the
glory in that happy verse Which aptly sings the good._
Perhaps he is thinking of himself. The Merchant and Jeweller do not
hear him;--they stand in twos at opposite sides of the stage.
Merchant. 'Tis a good form. [_Looking at the jewel._
He observes only that the stone is well cut; but the Jeweller adds,--
Jeweller. And rich: here is a water, look you.
While they are interested in this and move backward, the two others
come nearer the front.
Painter. You are rapt, Sir, in some work, some dedication To the great
lord.
This is said, of course, with reference to the other's recent soliloquy.
And now we are going to know them.
Poet. A thing slipped idly from me. Our poesy is as a gum, which
oozes From whence 'tis nourished. The fire i' the flint Shows not till it
be struck; our gentle flame Provokes itself, and like the current files
Each bound it chafes.--What have you there?
We perceive that he is a poet, and a rather rhetorical than sincere one.
He has the art, but, as we shall see, not the heart.

Painter. A picture, Sir.--And when comes your book forth?
Poet. Upon the heels of my presentment, Sir-- Let's see your piece.
Painter. 'Tis a good piece.
We know that the Poet has come to make his presentment. The Painter,
the more modest of the two, wishes his work to be admired, but is
apprehensive, and would forestall the Poet's judgment. He means, it is a
"tolerable" piece.
Poet. So 'tis: this comes off well and excellent.
Painter. 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.
He, at all events, means to flatter the Painter,--or he is so habituated to
ecstasies that he cannot speak without going into one. But with what
Shakspearean nicety of discrimination! The "grace that speaks his own
standing," the "power of the eye," the "imagination of the lip," are all
true; and so is the natural impulse, in one of so fertile a brain as a poet
from whom verse "oozes" to "interpret to the dumb gesture,"--to invent
an appropriate speech for the figure (Timon, of course) to be uttering.
And all this is but to preoccupy our minds with a conception of the lord
Timon!
Painter. It is a pretty mocking of the life. Here's a touch; is't good?
Poet. I'll say of it It tutors Nature: artificial strife Lives in these touches
livelier than life.
He has thought of too fine a phrase; but it is in character with all his
fancies.
[_Enter certain Senators, and pass over._
Painter. How this lord's followed!

Poet. The senators of Athens: happy men!
This informs us who they are that pass over. The Poet also keeps up the
Ercles vein; while the Painter's eye is caught.
Painter. Look, more!
Poet. You see this confluence, this great flood of visitors.
I have, in this rough work, shaped 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 levelled
malice Infects one comma in the course I hold: But flies an eagle flight,
bold, and forth on, Leaving no tract behind.
This flight of rhetoric is intended to produce a sort of musical effect, in
preparing us by its lofty sound for readily apprehending the lord Timon
with "amplest entertainment." The same is true of all that follows. The
Poet and Painter do but sound a lordly note of preparation, and move
the curtain that is to be lifted before a scene of profusion. Call it by
what name we please, it surely was not accident or unconscious
inspiration,--a rapture or frenzy,--which led Shakspeare to open this
play in this manner. If we remember the old use of choruses, which was
to lift up and excite the fancy, we may well believe that he intended
this flourishing Poet to act as a chorus,--to be a "mighty whiffler,"
going before, elevating "the flat unraised spirits" of his auditory, and
working on their "imaginary forces." He is a rhetorical character,
designed to rouse the attention of the house by the pomp of his
language, and to set their fancies in motion by his broad conceptions.
How well he does it! No wonder the Painter is a little confused as he
listens to him.
Painter. How shall I understand you?
Poet. I'll unbolt to you.
You see