and poem that have been made, but having a more important reference to a
character yet to be unfolded. Along with this there is also expressed,
in the person of a professed panegyrist, a certain lofty and free
opinion of his own work, in a confident declamatory style of
description,--

"Sir, I have upon a high and pleasant hill
Feigned Fortune to be throned," etc.,--

that is levelled with exquisite tact just on the verge of bombast. This
is not done to make the hearer care for the thing described, which is
never heard of after, but to give a hint of Timon and what is to befall
him, and to create a _melodic effect_ upon the hearer's sense which
shall put him in a state to yield readily to the illusion of the piece.

It is not possible to conceive Shakspeare reviewing his lines and
thinking to himself, "That is well done; my genius has not deserted me;
I could not have written anything more to my liking, if I had set about
it deliberately!" But it is easy to see him running it over with a
sensation of "This will serve; my poet will open their eyes and ears;
and now for the hall and banquet scene."

The sense of fitness and relation operates among thoughts and feelings
as well as among fancies, and its results cannot be mistaken for
accident. Ariel and his harpies could not interrupt a scene with a more
discordant action than the phase of feeling or the poetic atmosphere
pervading it would be interrupted by, if a cloud of distraction came
across the poet and the faculties of his mind rioted out of his control.
For he not only feels, but sees his feeling; he takes it up as an object
and holds it before him,--a feeling to be conveyed. Just as a sculptor