Page:George Chapman, a critical essay (IA georgechapmancri00swin).pdf/129

 have a nobler impression of its merit than they who read the whole; but those only who read the whole will know all its merit as well as all its demerit; they will find fresh treasures of fine thought and high expression embedded among dense layers of crabbed and confused rhetoric, wedged in between rocky strata of thick and turgid verse. As there is little other life or movement in the play but that of declamation or discussion, we might presume that if it had ever "touched at the stage" its reception would in all likelihood have been something less than favourable; but we have already remarked on such inexplicable variations of good and ill luck in the fortunes of Chapman's plays that no conclusion of the kind can be assumed as certain. That it never did lose on any boards its long-preserved immunity from the touch of actors or managers, we may, I suppose, after the author's assurance of its virginity at the date of publication, be tolerably confident.

Twenty years after the death of Chapman the long list of his dramatic works was completed by the publication of two tragedies in which, though