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. Mer. O, 't is a worthy lord! Nay, that's most fix'd. Mer. A most incomparable man; breath'd," 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" ex To an untirable and continuate goodness: He passes. a 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: But, for that "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. b 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. c Monck Mason believes that the passage should be writ ten "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. d Artificial strife-the contest of art with nature. So in the Venus and Adonis "Look, when a painter would surpass the life, Whom this beneath world doth embrace and hug to you. Pain. How shall I understand you? To Apemantus, that few things loves better I saw them speak together. Poet. Sir, I have upon a high and pleasant Apem. Of nothing so much as that I am not like Timon. Tim. Whither art going? Apem. To knock out an honest Athenian's brains. Tim. That's a deed thou 'lt die for. Apem. Right, if doing nothing be death by the law. Tim. How likest thou this picture, Apemantus ? Apem. The best, for the innocence. Tim. Wrought he not well that painted it? Tim. Wilt dine with me, Apemantus? Tim. Anthou should'st, thou 'dst anger ladies. Apem. O, they eat lords; so they come by great bellies. Tim. That's a lascivious apprehension. Apem. So thou apprehend'st it: Take it for thy labour. Tim. How dost thou like this jewel, Ape |