Page:George Chapman, a critical essay (IA georgechapmancri00swin).pdf/147

 The rumour is singular enough, and it would be curious to know if at least any such threat or attempt were actually made. From Carr at all events we can hardly believe that it would have come; for it must be set down to his credit that in the days of obscurity which followed on his disgrace and retirement he seems to have befriended the poet whose humbler chances of court favour had presumably fallen with his own.

It was unlikely that any man ever so slightly associated with the recollection of a matter which the king was probably of all men least desirous to keep in mind should again be summoned by two of the Inns of Court, as Chapman had been summoned the year before, to compose the marriage masque for a royal wedding. More inauspicious by far though far more innocent than those of Somerset were the nuptials he had then been chosen to celebrate; the nuptials of Elizabeth, called the Queen of Hearts, with Frederick, one day to be surnamed the Winter-King. For that fatal marriage-feast of "Goody Palsgrave"' and her hapless bridegroom he had been bidden to provide due decorations of pageantry