Far less has been made of Alcibiades. The underplot in which he figures is conceived in Shakespeare's manner, but its execution suggests imitation. The great soldier, banished by his fellow-citizens in spite of his services, who avenges his wrongs not with the spoken daggers of Timon, but with energetic military reprisals, plays the part of Coriolanus, but plays it in the simple, straightforward temper of Fortinbras. The scene of his banishment (iii. 5.) is as remote in passion and force from the great climax of the Roman play as it is proximate in motive. In the closing scene— -his vengeful return-the Coriolanus motive is still visible; but Fortinbras predominates. Alcibiades announces his impending vengeance to the trembling senators; but he is a gentle conqueror, and returns, with facile accommodation, to the citizenship of the 'coward and lascivious town' whose baseness had provoked Timon's annihilating hatred, as the Norwegian prince succeeds, blithe and high-hearted, to the rule of the rotten Denmark that had blasted the genius of Hamlet.

TIMON OF ATHENS

ACT I.

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're 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 recórd not matches? See, Magic of bounty! all these spirits thy power Hath conjured 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, breathed, as it

were,

To an untirable and continuate goodness:

He passes.

10. breathed, exercised.

ΙΟ

Mer. O, pray, let's see 't: for the Lord Timon, sir ?

Jew. If he will touch the estimate: but, for that

Poet. [Reciting to himself] 'When we for recompense have praised 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 ye.

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

From whence 'tis nourish'd: 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.

Pain. A picture, sir.

forth?

What have you there?

When comes your book

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.
Pain. Indifferent.

Poet.

20

Admirable how this grace 30

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

The

30. how this grace, etc. poet speaks with the preciosity of art coteries. He possibly 'How vividly the grace

means:

of the portrait expresses that of the man himself, on which it is founded.'

One might interpret.

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

Poct.

I will 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 man!
Pain. 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 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

44. beneath, under.

45. my free drift, etc., my spontaneous tribute is not a straggling isolated current of opinion, but moves in consort with a tide of literary eulogy.— The poet's affected jargon is obscure to his hearer, as the painter's question shows. Its interpretation is not free from VOL. X

50

doubt. Ingleby and Littledale take sea of wax' to mean a flood-tide ('he waxed like a sea,' Cor. ii. 2. 103); I cannot believe this. 'A sea of wax' would be as natural an expression in the days of tablets as a sea of ink in ours.

161

47. levell'd, intended.
50. tract, trace,

M

Subdues and properties to his love and tendance
All sorts of hearts; yea, from the glass-faced 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 throned: 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 conceived 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

72. to scope, to the purpose.

60

70

80