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.