Page:George Chapman, a critical essay (IA georgechapmancri00swin).pdf/125

 and manners, respectable if not venerable for their private virtues, elegant and sententious in their habitual choice of language, grave and decorous in their habitual carriage and discourse, and equally imbued with a fine and severe sense of responsibility for the conscientious discharge of the highest and hardest duties of their royal office.

It is less remarkable, as the dramatist in his dedication to Sir Thomas Howard disclaims all pretension to observe "the authentical truth of either person or action," as a thing not to be expected "in a poem whose subject is not truth, but things like truth," that he should have provided to avenge the daring and turbulent desperado who out-braved the gorgeous minions of the king with a simple dress set off by the splendour of six pages in cloth of gold, and then signalized by a fresh insult under the very eyes of Henry his enforced reconciliation with the luckless leader of their crew, a brother of whose name I know nothing but that Georges de Clermont d'Amboise, not a follower of Guise but a leader of the Huguenots, was slain