Opinion of the Scale of Good or Bad. there is no truth of any good To be discern'd on earth; and by conversion, In forming ancient Kings and Conquerors Insinuating Manners. 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 foreshow anything. I am a nobler substance than the stars: And shall the baser over rule the better? To do or not to do; and reason why I do or not do this: the stars have none. They know not why they shine, more than this Taper, And where are all your Caput Algols then? The.Master Spirit. Give me a spirit that on life's rough sea Vile Natures in High Places. -foolish Statuaries, That under little Saints, suppose* great bases, Make less (to sense) the saints: and so, where fortune She much the more exposeth them to shame; Innocence the Harmony of the Faculties. Gainst all the poisons of infirmity, No motion in his will against his reason; No thought 'gainst thought; nor (as 'twere in the confines Only a wayward and tumultuous peace; • Put under. When the infectious guilt of one foul ctime BYRON'S TRAGEDY. BY GEO. CHAPMAN. King Henry the Fourth of France blesses the young Dauphin. My royal blessing, and the King of Heaven, Who, when this State ran like a turbulent sea, Their wraths and envies (like so many winds) Thee, and thy kingdoms govern'd after me; Let all my powers be emptied in my Son; (He fighting for the land, and bringing home But he his father twenty times exceeds. What we have, we slight; what we want, we think excellent. When Kis most heavenly theory of her beauties So all men else do, what they have, transplant; Soliloquy of King Henry deliberating on the Death of a Traitor. O thou that governst the keen swords of Kings, Direct my arm in this important stroke; Or hold it, being advanc'd: the weight of blood, (If it be just and worthy) dwells so dark, The soul's eye, sharpen'd with that sacred light Must only give that judgment. O how much Err those Kings then, that play with life and death ; But humor and their lusts; for which alone [The Selections which I have made from this poet are sufficient to give an idea of that "full and heightened style" which Webster makes charac. teristic of Chapman. Of all the English Play-writers, Chapman perhaps approaches nearest to Shakspeare in the descriptive and didactic, in pas. sages which are less purel ydramatic. 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 modera translations. His almost Greek zeal for the honor 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 Sampson against the uncircumcised. The great obstacle to Chup. man'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 compensat ed 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 propor. tion to the pleasure which we receive from the other. As these transport us to the highest heaven, those should steep us in agonies infernal.] |