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.