Page:George Chapman, a critical essay (IA georgechapmancri00swin).pdf/62

tone by no means to be ascribed in this ease to a general and genuine humility, since the dedications prefixed to his various poems, and to two among his tragedies published under his own eye, are remarkable for their lofty and dignified self-assertion. The fact that of these two tragedies, one, The Revenge of Bussy d'Ambois, was apparently unsuccessful on the stage, and the other, Cæsar and Pompey, seems never to have obtained a chance of appearing on the boards at all, may naturally have moved the author to assert their right to respect and acceptance with more studied emphasis than usual; in the earlier instance at least he is emphatic enough in his appeal from the verdict of the 'maligners' with whom he complains that it met 'in the scenical representation,' to the 'approbation of more worthy judgments' which 'even therein' it did not fail to obtain; and in the second case, though he appears to apologize for the lack of 'novelty and fashion' in a play 'written so long since' that it 'had not the timely ripeness of that age' (seventy-two) 'that, I thank God, I yet find no fault withal for any such defects,' yet he is apparently and reasonably confi-