genius. In didactic observation and description he is sometimes
happy, and hence he has been praised for possessing more thinking'
than most of his contemporaries of the buskined muse.
His judg
ment, however, vanished in action, for his plots are unnatural, and
his style was too hard and artificial to admit of any nice delineation
of character. His extravagances are also as bad as those of Marlowe,
and are seldom relieved by poetic thoughts or fancy. The best
known plays of Chapman are 'Eastward Hoe'-written in conjunc-
tion with Jonson and Marston-Bussy d'Ambois,' Byron's Conspi-
racy,' 'All Fools,' and the Gentleman Usher.' In a sonnet prefixed
to All Fools,' addressed to Sir T. Walsingham, Chapman states that
he was marked by age for aims of greater weight.' This play was
printed in 1605. It contains the following fanciful lines:

I tell thee love is Nature's second sun,
Causing a spring of virtues where he shines:
And as without the sun, the world's great eye,
All colours, beauties both of art and nature,
Are given in vain to men; so, without love
All beauties bred in women are in vain,

All virtues bred in men lie buried;

For love informs them as the sun doth colours.

In 'Bussy d'Ambois' is the following invocation to a Spirit of Intelligence, which has been highly lauded by Charles Lamb: I long to know

How my dear mistress fares, and be informed
What hand she now holds on the troubled blood
Of her incensed lord. Methought the spirit,
When he had uttered his perplexed presage,

Threw his changed count'nance headlong into clouds.
His forehead bent, as he would hide his face:
He knocked his chin against his darkened breast,
And struck a churlish silence through his powers.
Terror of darkness! O thou king of flames!
That with thy music-footed horse dost strike
The clear light out of crystal on dark earth;
And hurl'st instinctive fire about the world:
Wake, wake the drowsy and enchanted night
That sleeps with dead eyes in this heavy riddle.
Or thou, great prince of shades, where never sun
Sticks his far-darted beams; whose eyes are made
To see in darkness, and see ever best

Where sense is blindest; open now the heart

Of thy abashed oracle, that, for fear

Of some ill it includes, would fain lie hid:
And rise thou with it in thy greater light.

In the same play are the following lines:

False Greatness.

As cedars beaten with continual storms,
So great men flourish; and do imitate
Unskilful statuaries, who suppose,

In forming a Colossus, if they make him
Straddle enough, strut, and look big, and gape,
Their work is goodly: so men merely great,
In their affected gravity of voice,

Sourness of countenance, manners' cruelty,
Authority, wealth, and all the spawn of fortune,

Think they bear all the kingdom's worth before them;
Yet differ not from those colossic statues,

Which, with heroic forms without o'erspread,
Within are nought but mortar, flint, and lead.

The life of Chapman was a scene of content and prosperity. He was born at Hitching Hill, in Hertfordshire, in 1557; was educated both at Oxford and Cambridge; enjoyed the royal patronage of King James and Prince Henry, and the friendship of Spenser, Jonson, and Shakspeare. He was temperate and pious, and, according to Oldys, 'preserved in his conduct the true dignity of poetry, which he compared to the flower of the sun, that disdains to open its leaves to the eye of a smoking taper.' The life of this venerable scholar and poet closed in 1631, at the ripe age of seventy-seven.

Chapman's Homer is a wonderful work, considering the time when it was produced, and the continued spirit which is kept up. Chapman had a vast field to traverse, and though he trod it hurriedly and negligently, he preserved the fire and freedom of his great original. Pope and Waller both praised his translation, and perhaps it is now more frequently in the hands of scholars and poetical students than the more polished and musical version of Pope. Chapman's translations consist of the Iliad' (which he dedicated to Prince Henry), the Odyssey' (dedicated to the royal favourite, Carr, Earl of Somerset), and the Georgics of Hesiod,' which he inscribed to Lord Bacon. A version of Hero and Leander,' left unfinished by Marlowe, was completed by Chapman, and published in 1606.

་

THOMAS DEKKER.

THOMAS DEKKER appears to have been an industrious author, and Collier gives the names of above twenty plays which he produced, either wholly or in part. He was connected with Jonson in writing for the Lord Admiral's theatre, conducted by Henslowe; but Ben and he became bitter enemies; and the former, in his 'Poetaster,' performed in 1C01, lias satirised Dekker under the character of Crispinus, representing himself as Horace! Jonson's charges against his adversary are his arrogancy and impudence in commending his own things, and for his translating.' The origin of the quarrel does not appear, but in an apologetic dialogue added to the 'Poetaster,' Jon

son says:

Whether of malice, or of ignorance,

Or itch to have me their adversary, I know not,
Or all these mixed; but sure I am, three years
They did provoke me with their petulant styles
On every stage.

Dekker replied by another drama, 'Satiromastix, or the Untrussing the Humorous Poet,' in which Jonson appears as Horace junior. There is more raillery and abuse in Dekker's answer than wit or

poetry, but it was well received by the play-going public. Jonson had complained that his lines were often maliciously misconstrued and misapplied, complacently remarking:

The error is not mine, but in their eye

That cannot take proportions.

Dekker replies happily to this querulous display of egotism:

Horace! to stand within the shot of galling tongues
Proves not your guilt; for could we write on paper
Made of these turning leaves of heaven, the clouds,
Or speak with angels' tongues, yet wise men know

That some would shake the head, though saints should sing:
Some snakes must hiss, because they 're born with stings.
Be not you grieved

If that which you mould fair, upright, and smooth,
Be screwed awry, made crooked, lame, and vile,

By racking comments.

So to be bit it rankles not, for Innocence

May with a feather brush off the foul wrong.

Bat when your dastard wit will strike at men

In corners, and in riddles fold the vices

Of your best friends, you must not take to heart
If they take off all gilding from their pills,
And only offer you the bitter core.

Dekker's 'Fortunatus, or the Wishing-cap,' and the 'Honest Whore,' are his best. The latter was a great favourite with Hazlitt, who says it unites the simplicity of prose with the graces of poetry.' The poetic diction of Dekker is choice and elegant, but he often wanders into absurdity. Passages like the following would do honour to any dramatist. Öf Patience:

Patience! why, 'tis the soul of peace:

Of all the virtues, 'tis nearest kin to heaven:
It makes men look like gods. The best of men
That e'er wore earth about him was a sufferer,
A soft, meek, patient, humble tranquil spirit;
The first true gentleman that ever breathed.

The contrast between female honour and shame:

Nothing did make me, when I loved them best,

To loathe them more than this: when in the street
A fair, young, modest damsel I did meet;

She seemed to all a dove when I passed by,

And I to all a raven: every eye

That followed her, went with a bashful glance:
At me each bold and jeering countenance
Darted forth scorn: to her, as if she had been
Some tower unvanquished, would they all vail;
'Gainst me swoln Rumour hoisted every sail;
She, crowned with reverend praises, passed by them;
I, though with face masked, could not 'scape the hem;
For, as if heaven had set strange marks on such,
Because they should be pointing-stocks to man,
Drest up in civilest shape, a courtesan,

Let her walk saint-like, noteless, and unknown,
Yet she's betrayed by some trick of her own.

The picture of a lady seen by her lover:

My Infelice's face, her brow, her eye,

The dimple on her cheek: and such sweet skill
Hath from the cunning workman's pencil flown,
These lips look fresh and lively as her own;
Seeming to move and speak. Alas! now I see
The reason why fond women love to buy
Adulterate complexion: here 'tis read:
False colours last after the true be dead.
Of all the roses grafted on her cheeks,
Of all the graces dancing in her eyes,
Of all the music set upon her tongue,
Of all that was past woman's excellence,
In her white bosom; look, a painted board
Circumscribes all! Earth can no bliss afford;
Nothing of her but this! This cannot speak;
It has no lap for me to rest upon;

No lip worth tasting. Here the worms will feed,
As in her coffin. Hence, then, idle art,

True love's best pictured in a true love's heart.

Here art thou drawn, sweet maid, till this be dead,
So that thou livest twice, twice art buried.
Thou figure of my friend, lie there!

Picture of Court-life.-From 'Old Fortunatus.'

For still in all the regions I have seen,

I scorned to crowd among the muddy throng

Of the rank multitude, whose thickened breath-
Like to condensed fogs-do choke that beauty,
Which else would dwell in every kingdom's cheek.
No; I still boldly stept into their courts:
For there to live 'tis rare, O 'tis divine!
There shall you see faces angelical;

There shall you see troops of chaste goddesses,

Whose starlike eyes have power-might they still shine-
To make night day, and day more crystalline.
Near these you shall behold great heroes,
White-headed councillors, and jovial spirits,
Standing like fiery cherubim to guard
The monarch, who in godiike glory sits
In midst of these, as if this deity

Had with a 100k created a new world,

The standers-by being the fair workmanship.

AND. Oh, how my soul is rapt to a third heaven!

I'll travel sure, and live with none but kings.

AMP. But tell me, father, have you in all courts
Beheld such glory, so majestical,

In all perfection, no way blemished?

FORT. In some courts shall you see Ambition

Sit, piecing Dædalus's old waxen wings;

But being clapt on. and they about to fly,

Even when their hopes are busied in the clouds,
They melt against the sun of Majesty,
And down they tumble to destruction.

By travel, boys, I have seen all these things.
Fantastic Compliment stalks up and down,
Trickt in outlandish feathers; all his words,
His looks, his oaths, are all ridiculous,
All apish, childish, and Italianate,

Dekker is supposed to have died about the year 1641. His life seems to have been spent in irregularity and poverty. According to Oldys, he was three years in the King's Bench prison. In one of his own beautiful lines, he says:

We ne'er are angels till our passions die.

But the old dramatists lived in a world of passion, of wild revelry, alternating with want and despair :

JOHN WEBSTEK.

JOHN WEBSTER, the 'noble-minded,' as Hazlitt designates him, lived and died about the same time as Dekker, with whom he wrote in the conjunct authorship then so common. His original dramas are the Duchess of Malfi,'' Guise, or the Massacre of France;' the 'Devil's Law-case;' Appius and Virginia;' and the White Devil, or Vittoria Corombona.' Webster, it has been said, was clerk of St. Andrew's Church, Holborn; but Mr. Dyce, his editor and biographer, searched the registers of the parish for his name without success. The White Devil' and the Duchess of Malfi' have divided the opinion of critics as to their relative merits. They are both powerful dramas, though filled with 'supernumerary horrors.' The former was not successful on the stage, and the author published it with a dedication, in which he states, that most of the people that come to the playhouse resemble those ignorant asses who, visiting stationers' shops, their use is not to inquire for good books, but new books.' He was accused, like Jonson, of being a slow writer, but he consoles himself with the example of Euripides, and confesses that he did not write with a goose-quill winged with two feathers. In this slighted play there are some exquisite touches of pathos and natural feeling. The grief of a group of mourners over a dead body is thus described:

I found them winding of Marcello's corse,
And there is such a solemn melody

"Tween doleful songs, tears, and sad elegies,
Such as old grandames watching by the dead

Were wont to outwear the nights with; that, believe me,

I had no eyes to guide me forth the room,

They were so overcharged with water.

The funeral dirge for Marcello, sung by his mother, possesses, says Charles Lamb, that intenseness of feeling which seems to resolve itself into the elements which it contemplates:'

Call for the robin-redbreast and the wren,
Since o'er shady groves they hover,
And with leaves and flowers do cover
The friendless bodies of unburied men.
Call unto his funeral dole

The ant, the field-mouse, and the mole,

To raise him hillocks that shall keep him warm,

And, when gay tombs are robbed, sustain no harm,
But keep the wolf far thence, that's foe to men,
For with his nails he'll dig them up again.