Page:George Chapman, a critical essay (IA georgechapmancri00swin).pdf/111

 and natural. Around it we may group the remaining works of its author as lower spurs of the outlying range of mountains. None of these lesser poems were ever befriended by such an occasion as lifted for a season into perilous popularity the mightiest of their author's dramatic brood; that the two likest in form and spirit to this giant brother of their race appear to have won no popular favour at all is certainly less remarkable than the record of its own success.

The Revenge of Bussy d'Ambois is a singular example of Chapman's passion for paradox. It is a work of mature power and serious interest, richer in passages of moral magnificence and interludes of exalted meditation than any but that greatest of his poems which we have just been considering; from the large storehouse of these three plays a student may select at every step among their massive heaps of mental treasure fresh samples of rare thought and costly style, fresh ingots of weighty and glittering gold, fresh jewels of profound and living lustre. The third of these has less in common with the play of which it is the nominal