Page:George Chapman, a critical essay (IA georgechapmancri00swin).pdf/131

 for the harsh voice and stammering tongue that imperfectly deliver the message entrusted to them; the tumultuous eloquence which bears down and sweeps away all physical impediment of utterance, the fervid vitality which transfigures and atones for all clumsiness of gesture or deformity of limb. No thought so ripe and sweet, no emotion so exalted and august is here discernible as that which uplifts the contemplation and upholds the confidence of the highest in spirit and the deepest in thought among those earlier speakers who served as mouthpieces of the special genius of their high-minded and deep-souled creator. There is no trace of the ethical power which informs and moulds the meditation of Clermont or of Cato, no relic of the imaginative passion which expands and inflates the fancy of Bussy or of Biron,

In Alphonsus there is more of Chapman's quality at first perceptible than in Revenge for Honour; there is a certain hardness in the simplicity of tone, a certain rigidity in the sharp masculine lineaments of style and character, common to much of his work when free from the taint of crabbed or bombastic