Page:George Chapman, a critical essay (IA georgechapmancri00swin).pdf/43

not laboured to justify them, because he hopes they will be proved enough to justify themselves, and prove sufficiently authentical to such as understand them; for the rest, God help them" (for the poet evidently will not), "I cannot do as others, make day seem a lighter woman than she is, by painting her." The poem is however rich in fine verses which struggle into sight through the vaporous atmosphere of bombast and confusion; it is thoughtful, earnest, eloquent, with interludes of mere violent and dissonant declamation, and rarer flashes of high and subtle beauty. The licentious grammar and the shapeless structure of sentences that break all bounds of sense or harmony are faults that cannot be overlooked and must be condoned if we care to get at the kernel underlying these outer and inner husks of hard language. The same comment may be applied to the poems which follow; but the second Hymn, being longer and more discursive than the first, is more extravagant and incoherent, and its allegory more confused and difficult (whenever it is possible) to follow. Whether or not there be as usual any reference to Elizabeth