Shakspeare has fixed upon a name for his piece, and he writes it,--he
that the players told Ben Jonson "never blotted a line." It is the
tragedy,--

TIMON OF ATHENS.

He will have it in five acts, as the best form; and he has fixed upon
his _dramatis personae_, at least the principal of them, for he names
them on the margin as he writes. He uses twelve in the first scene, some
of whom he has no occasion for but to bring forward the character of his
hero; but they are all individualized while he employs them. The scene
he has fixed upon; this is present to his mind's eye; and as he cannot
afterwards alter it without making his characters talk incongruously and
being compelled to rewrite the whole, he writes it down thus:--


ACT I.

SCENE I.--_A Hall in Timon's House._

Now he has reflected that his first object is to interest his audience
in the action and passion of the piece,--at the very outset, if
possible, to catch their fancies and draw them into the mimic life of
the play,--to beguile and attract them without their knowing it. He has
reflected upon this, we say,--for see how artfully he opens the scene,
and how soon the empty stage is peopled with life! He chooses to begin
by having two persons enter from opposite wings, whose qualities are
known at once to the reader of the play, but not to an audience. The
stage-direction informs us:--