Page:George Chapman, a critical essay (IA georgechapmancri00swin).pdf/150

 genuine hatred of bad work, genuine abhorrence of base ambition and false pretence, than to any unjust or malevolent instinct of mere jealousy; which yet might perhaps be found pardonable to the neglected and laborious old age of a high-minded artist and hard-working scholar such as Chapman, There are impressive touches of a higher mood in the funeral hymn which completes the somewhat voluminous tribute of ceremonial verse offered up at the grave of Lord Russell; but the greater part of the poem is more noticeable for quaintness than for any better quality, being indeed eccentric in execution as in conception beyond the wont even of Chapman. It carries however some weight of thought, and contains probably the longest and minutest catalogue ever given in verse of the signs of an approaching storm; a description which shows at once the close and intense observation of nature, the keen and forcible power of reproduction, and the utter incompetence to select and arrange his material, alike and at all times distinctive of this poet.

Four years after the miscarriage of Andromeda we find his translation of Hesiod ushered in by a