Page:George Chapman, a critical essay (IA georgechapmancri00swin).pdf/149

 poem on the death of Lord Russell of Thornhaugh, a patron, it should seem, of a far other kind than Carr; distinguished as a soldier in the field now only memorable to us for the death of Sir Philip Sydney, where if report may be trusted his romantic or Homeric valour was worthy to have employed the pen of a translator of the Iliad; and yet more remarkable for the comparative justice and mercy displayed in his military administration of Ireland. This epicede, longer and more ornate than that issued two years before on Prince Henry, is neither much worse nor much better in substance and in style. Each may boast of some fine and vigorous verses, and both are notable as examples of the poet's somewhat troubled and confused elevation of thought and language. In Eugenia especially the same high note of moral passion alternates with the same sharp tone of contemptuous complaint that we find in The Tears of Peace and in the very last verses affixed by way of epilogue to his translation of the Hymns and other Homeric fragments. This bitterness of insinuation or invective against meaner scholars or artists we should set down rather to a