Page:George Chapman, a critical essay (IA georgechapmancri00swin).pdf/69

scruples with his pithy arguments against conjugal fidelity, while he lets fly at her supposed husband the well-worn jests which recoil on his own head, have in them enough of wit and humorous invention to furnish forth the whole five acts of an ordinary comedy of intrigue. Even in these sketches from the prosaic life of their day the great and generous poets of that age were as prodigal of the riches of their genius as in the tragic and romantic work of their higher moods. The style of Chapman is perceptible in some of the best of these scenes in the third act as well as in the moral passage of metrical philosophy put into the lips of the half-drowned Quicksilver in the fourth, where only the last editor has taken note of his handiwork. Two allusions in the mouth of the usurer, one to 'the ship of famous Draco,' and one to the camel's horns of which we hear something too often from this poet, are in the unmistakable manner of Chapman. Other such points might perhaps be discovered; but on the whole we may probably feel safe in assigning to each of the three associates as