Page:William Hazlitt - Characters of Shakespear's Plays (1817).djvu/93

Rh gloss of prosperity could do. He grudges himself the means of life, and is only busy in preparing his grave. How forcibly is the difference between what he was, and what he is described in Apemantus's taunting questions, when he comes to reproach him with the change in his way of life!

The manners are every where preserved with distinct truth. The poet and painter are very skilfully played off against one another, both affecting great attention to the other, and each taken up with his own vanity, and the superiority of his own art. Shakespear has put into the mouth of the former a very lively description of the genius of poetry and of his own in particular.

"A thing slipt idly from me. Our poesy is as a gum, which issues From whence 'tis nourish'd. The fire i' th' flint