Page:George Chapman, a critical essay (IA georgechapmancri00swin).pdf/170

spirit of imagination" proper to all great men, and varying in each case from all other, reforms of itself its own misshapen work, treads down and triumphs over its own faults and errors, renews its faltering forces and resumes its undiminished reign. But he who in so high a matter as the dramatic art can sin so heavily, and so triumphantly tread under the penalty of his transgression, must be great among the greatest of his fellows. Such, with all his excesses and shortcomings in the way of dramatic work, was Jonson; such certainly was not Chapman. The tragedy for example of Chabot, a noble and dignified poem in the main, and the otherwise lively and interesting comedy of Monsieur d'Olive, are seriously impaired by a worse than Jonsonian excess in the analysis and anatomy of "humours." The turncoat advocate and the mock ambassador bestride the action of the plays and oppress the attention of the reader with a more "importunate and heavy load" than that of Sinbad's old man of the sea. Another point of resemblance to Jonson on the wrong side is the absence or in-