Page:George Chapman, a critical essay (IA georgechapmancri00swin).pdf/49

and inflated in style; from thence to the end, with but slight breaks or jars, the strong and weighty verse steps out with masculine dignity, and delivers in clear grave accents its cordial message of praise and good cheer. At all times Chapman took occasion to approve himself a true son of the greatest age of Englishmen in his quick and fiery sympathy with the daring and the suffering of its warriors and adventurers; a sympathy which found vent at times where none but Chapman would have made room for it; witness the sudden and singular illustration, in his Epicede on the death of Prince Henry, of the popular anguish and dismay at that calamity by a "description of the tempest that cast Sir Th. Gates on the Bermudas, and the state of his ship and men, to this kingdom's plight applied in the Prince's death." It has been remarked by editors and biographers that between the years 1574, at or about which date, according to Anthony Wood, "he, being well-grounded in school learning, was sent to the university," and 1594, when he published his first poem, we have no trace or hint to guide us in conjecturing how his life was spent