PAIN. Indifferent. Admirable: How this grace POET. 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." 8 How this grace Speaks his own standing!) This relates to the attitude of the figure, and means that it stands judiciously on its own centre. And not only so, but that it has a graceful standing likewife. which the poet in Hamlet, speaking of another picture, says: "A station like the herald, Mercury, Of which lines Milton seems to have had in view, where he says of Raphael: "At once on th' eastern cliff of Paradise "He lights, and to his proper shape returns. Like Maia's fon he stood." WARBURTON. This fentence seems to me obfcure, and, however explained, not very forcible. This grace speaks his own standing, is only, The gracefulness of this figure shows how it ftands. I am inclined to think something corrupted. It would be more natural and clear thus : How this standing Speaks his own graces! How this posture displays its own gracefulness. But I will indulge conjecture further, and propose to read: How this grace Speaks understanding! what a mental power This eye shoots forth! JOHNSON. The paffage, to my apprehenfion at least, speaks its own meaning, which is, how the graceful attitude of this figure proclaims that it stands firm on its center, or gives evidence in favour of its own fixure. Grace is introduced as bearing witness to propriety. A similar expression occurs in Cymbeline, Act II. fc. iv: 9 never faw I figures "So likely to report themselves." STEEVENS. - to the dumbness of the gesture One might interpret.) The figure, though dumb, seems to have a capacity of speech. The allufion is to the puppet-shows, or motions, as they were termed in our author's time. The perfon : 1 PAIN. It is a pretty mocking of the life. Here is a touch; Is't good? POET. I'll fay of it, It tutors nature: artificial strife* who spoke for the puppets was called an interpreter. See a note on Hamlet, Act III. fc. v. MALONE. Rather-one might venture to fupply words to fuch intelligible action. Such significant gesture afcertains the sentiments that should accompany it. STEEVENS. 2 - artificial ftrife-) Strife for action or motion. Strife is either the contest of art with nature: Hic ille eft Raphael, timuit, quo fofpite vinci Rerum magna parens, & moriente mori. WARBURTON. or it is the contraft of forms or oppofition of colours. JOHNSON. "Hath paid the author a great share of life." &c. STEEVENS. And Ben Jonfon, on the head of Shakspeare by Droeshout: " This figure which thou here seest put, "With nature, to out-doo the life." HENLEY. That artificial ftrife means, as Dr. Johnson has explained it, the contest of art with nature, and not the contraft of forms or oppofition of colours, may appear from our author's Venus and Adonis, where the fame thought is more clearly expressed : "Look, when a painter would furpass the life, In Drayton's Mortimeriados, printed I believe in 1 596, (afterwards entitled The Barons' Wars,) there are two lines nearly resembling these : "Done for the last with such exceeding life, Enter certain Senators, and pass over. PAIN. How this lord's follow'd! 3 POET. You see this confluence, this great flood I have, in this rough work, shap'd out a man, In a wide fea of wax: no levell'd malice & 3 -Happy men!) Mr. Theobald reads-happy man; and certainly the emendation is fufficiently plausible, though the old reading may well stand. MALONE. The text is right. The poet envies or admires the felicity of the fenators in being Timon's friends, and familiarly admitted to his table, to partake of his good cheer, and experience the effects of his bounty. RITSON. 4 - this confluence, this great flood of visitors.] Mane falutantum totis vomit ædibus undam. JOHNSON. 5this beneath world-] So, in Measure for Measure, we have" This under generation;" and in King Richard II: " lower world." STEEVENS. - the 6 Halts not particularly,] My design does not stop at any fingle character. JOHNSON. 1 In a wide fea of wax:) Anciently they wrote upon waxen tables with an iron stile. HANMER. I once thought with Sir T. Hanmer, that this was only an allufion to the Roman practice of writing with a ftyle on waxen tablets; but it appears that the fame custom prevailed in England about the year 1395, and might have been heard of by Shakspeare. It feems also to be pointed out by implication in many of our old collegiate establishments. See Warton's History of English Poetry, Vol. III. p. 151. STEEVENS. Mr. Aftle observes in his very ingenious work On the Origin and Progress of Writing, quarto, 1784, that "the practice of writing on : Infects one comma in the course I hold; PAIN. How shall I understand you? I'll unbolt to you." You fee how all conditions, how all minds, terer 4 To Apemantus, that few things loves better table-books covered with wax was not entirely laid aside till the commencement of the fourteenth century." As Shakspeare, I believe, was not a very profound English antiquary, it is furely improbable that he should have had any knowledge of a practice which had been disused for more than two centuries before he was born. The Roman practice he might have learned from Golding's Tranflation of the ninth book of Ovid's Metamorphoses: 8 "Her right hand holds the pen, her left doth hold the emptie waxe," &C. MALONE. - no levell'd malice &c.] To level is to aim, to point the shot at a mark. Shakspeare's meaning is, my poem is not a fatire written with any particular view, or levelled at any fingle person; I fly like an eagle into the general expanfe of life, and leave not, by any private mischief, the trace of my passage. JOHNSON. 9 I'll unbolt-] I'll open, I'll explain. JOHNSON. 2 - glib and flippery creatures,] Sir T. Hanmer, and Dr. Warburton after him, read-natures. Slippery is smooth, unrefifting. My heart's fubdued JOHNSON. "Even to the very quality of my lord." STEEVENS. glass-fac'd flatterer-] That shows in his look, as by reflection, the looks of his patron. JOHNSON. Than to abhor himself: even he drops down PAIN. I faw 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 8 Is rank'd with all deferts, all kind of natures, 5-even he drops down &c.] Either Shakspeare meant to put a falfehood into the mouth of his poet, or had not yet thoroughly planned the character of Apemantus; for in the ensuing scenes, his behaviour is as cynical to Timon as to his followers. STEEVENS. The Poet, feeing that Apemantus paid frequent vifits to Timon, naturally_concluded that he was equally courteous with his other guests. RITSON. 6 I saw them speak together.] The word-together, which only serves to interrupt the measure, is, I believe, an interpolation, being occafionally omitted by our author, as unnecessary to sense, on fimilar occafions. Thus, in Measure for Measure: "Bring me to hear them speak;" i. e. to speak together, to converse. Again, in another of our author's plays: "When fpoke you last?" Nor is the fame phraseology, even at this hour, out of use. STEEVENS. 1 - rank'd with all deferts,] Cover'd with ranks of all kinds of men. JOHNSON. 8 To propagate their states:) To advance or improve their various conditions of life. JOHNSON. 9 Feign'd Fortune to be thron'd: on this fovereign lady &c.] So, in The Tempeft: "-bountiful fortune, " Now my dear lady," &c. MALONE. |