Prepar'd for Arras pictures, is no picture, In forming ancient Kings and Conquerors Insinuating Manners. 10 We must have these lures, when we hawk for friends: And wind about them like a subtle river, That, seeming only to run on his course, Doth search yet, as he runs, and still finds out The Stars not able to foreshew any Thing. I am a nobler substance than the stars: Or are they better since they are the bigger? To do or not to do; and reason why I do or not do this: the stars have none. 20 They know not why they shine, more than this course: I'll change my I'll piece-meal pull the frame of all my thoughts, The Master Spirit. Give me a spirit that on life's rough sea 30 There is no danger to a man, that knows He goes before them, and commands them all, Vile Natures in High Places. -foolish Statuaries, That under little Saints suppose* great bases, Make less (to sense) the saints: and so, where fortune Advanceth vile minds to states great and noble, 10 She much the more exposeth them to shame, Not able to make good, and fill their bases With a conformed structure. Innocence the Harmony of the Faculties. -Innocence, the sacred amulet 'Gainst all the poisons of infirmity, Of all misfortune, injury, and death: That makes a man in tune still in himself; No strife nor no sedition in his powers; 20 No thought 'gainst thought; nor (as 'twere in the confines Of wishing and repenting), doth possess Put under. XLVIII. BYRON'S TRAGEDY. BY THE SAME. KING HENRY THE FOURTH of France blesses the young Dauphin. 10 My royal blessing, and the King of Heaven, And hearing it ran bellowing to their home; 20 30 That she may ever tarry by his throne. (He fighting for the land, and bringing home 10 What we have, we slight; what we want, we think excellent. So all men else do, what they have, transplant, Soliloquy of KING HENRY deliberating on the Death of a O thou that govern'st the keen swords of Kings, (If it be just and worthy), dwells so dark, The soul's eye, sharpen'd with that sacred light, Of whom the sun itself is but a beam, Must only give that judgment. O how much 20 30 Err those kings then, that play with life and death, And nothing put into their serious states But humour and their lusts; for which alone Men long for kingdoms: whose huge counterpoise [The Selections which I have made from this poet are sufficient to give an idea of that "full and heightened style" which Webster makes characteristic of Chapman. Of all the English Play-writers, Chapman perhaps approaches nearest to Shakspeare in the descriptive and didactic, in passages which are less purely dramatic. Dramatic Imitation was not his talent. He could not go out of himself, as Shakspeare could shift at pleasure, to inform and animate other existences, but in himself he had an eye to perceive and a soul to embrace all forms. He would have made a great epic poet, if, indeed, he has not abundantly shown himself to be one; for his Homer is not so properly a Translation as the Stories of Achilles and Ulysses re-written. The earnestness and passion which he has put into every part of these poems would be incredible to a reader of mere modern translations. His almost Greek zeal for the honour of his heroes is only paralleled by that fierce spirit of Hebrew bigotry, with which Milton, as if personating one of the Zealots of the old law, clothed himself when he sate down to paint the acts of Samson against the Uncircumcised. The great obstacle to Chapman's Translations being read is their unconquerable quaintness. He pours out in the same breath the most just and natural and the most violent and forced expressions. He seems to grasp whatever words come first to hand during the impetus of inspiration, as if all other must be inadequate to the divine meaning. But passion (the all in all in Poetry) is everywhere present, raising the low, dignifying the mean, and putting sense into the absurd. He makes his readers glow, weep, tremble, take any affection which he pleases, be moved by words, or in spite of them, be disgusted and overcome their disgust. I have often thought that the vulgar misconception of Shakspeare, as of a wild irregular genius "in whom great faults are compensated by great beauties," would be really true applied to Chapman. But there is no scale by which to balance such disproportionate subjects as the faults and beauties of a great genius. To set off the former with any fairness against the latter, the pain which they give us should be in some proportion to the pleasure which we receive from the other. As these transport us to the highest heaven, those should steep us in agonies infernal.] |