Page:George Chapman, a critical essay (IA georgechapmancri00swin).pdf/100

same field, It has no passage comparable for force and vehemence of imagination to the highest moods of the author of Bussy d'Ambois; to the second evocation of the spirit in a speech of which Lamb said well that it was 'tremendous, even to the curdling of the blood; I know nothing in poetry like it; nor to the dying appeal of Bussy to his own surviving fame, or the sweet and weighty verses of invocation in which his mistress adjures 'all the peaceful regents of the night' to favour the first meeting of the lovers. It is disfigured by no such bloated bombast and animated by no such theatrical changes of effect, such sudden turns and sharp surprises, as fit the earlier play to catch the eyes and ears of an audience more impressible than critical. It has no such violent interlude of action and emotion as the scene in which Montsurry (Monsoreau) extorts by torture the confession of her guilt from the bleeding hand of his wife; an incident which singularly enough recalls a similar scene in the earliest play of the great French improvisatore who has told in such different fashion the story of the ambuscade by which Bussy fell under the weight