phors of the kind already noticed in Bussy d'Ambois again abound. But these ornaments are here less remarkable for poetic power and grace, and exhibit, it must be allowed, too much of what King Henry humorously calls (in Savoy) wit of the true Pierian spring That can make any thing of any thing'.' And the author appears too anxious to introduce illustrations of his own learning, which is indeed sufficiently various to be instructive even to the modern reader, but which is more in place on the lips of Elisabeth and her councillors than on those of the plain-spoken Henry and his Court. The fluent grace of the versification remains however unaffected by any of these elaborate efforts; and there are passages of true poetic beauty2 to set against others fairly amenable to the charge of bombast. Caesar and Pompey (printed 1631; from the dedication to the Earl of Middlesex, a statesman whose career was no signal exemplification of Roman virtue, it appears that the play had been written 'long since,' and was never acted) announces itself as a Roman tragedy, out of the events represented in which is evicted this Proposition, Only a just man is a freeman. This maxim, which is no commonplace in Chapman's mouth-for he had a true understanding, nourished by his Classical lore, of the real dignity of free civic life-finds its positive exemplification in Cato, with whose death the play closes. The last act, both as developing Cato's philosophy and as exhibiting with some dramatic force the anxieties of Pompey's wife Cornelia and 1 Conspiracy, act ii. Thus, a simile (Conspiracy, act iii), beginning with a fine poetic image, is, in order to give the idea an artificial completeness, made part of a painfully clever conceit, and Biron says of himself and the King: 2 'My spirit as yet, but stooping to his rest, e. g. Biron's speech (near the end of the Conspiracy) beginning Caesar and her brief recovery of the husband whom she is to lose for ever, seems to me superior in execution to the rest of the play', which is by no means on the level of Chapman's best works, even in beauty of versification. His genius was in a tame mood, though occupied with what ought to have been a theme befitting his powers, when he wrote this tragedy. The display of classical learning is far slighter than what might have been expected; but while this abstinence is by no means unwelcome, the looseness of the constructionwhich is epical rather than dramatic-and the absence of any attempt at characterisation leave the tragedy devoid of dramatic interest. To make Caesar fight the battle of Pharsalus only because of the good omens which he has received, is hardly a powerful thought; indeed the view of Caesar as a 'fortunate' man is throughout too strongly urged, when in truth it was his rival who before the closing part of his career was so pre-eminently a debtor to goodluck. Remarkable in the main neither for historic insight nor for eloquence, nor even for an arduous application of learning, this Caesar and Pompey deserves only a passing notice 2. 1 Act v. plays partly at Utica, partly at Lesbos 'compass'd in With the Aegean sea, that doth divide Europe from Asia,-the sweet literate world From the barbarian.' Here, in a very effective scene, Cornelia and her attendants await the coming of Pompey as victor; and do not recognise him, when he arrives with a single friend, disguised in black robe and broad hat-a rather Puritanical version of a Thessalian augur.'-I can see no sign that Addison when he wrote his Cato was acquainted with Chapman's play. There is some vigour in the first scene of all, where Pompeius and Caesar meet in the Senate with Cato, and where part of the debate about the Calilinarian prisoners is anachronistically introduced. The episode of Fronto, the ruined rascal who summons up Ophioneus (a classical Lucifer, according to his own explanation of himself, from 'the old stoic Pherecydes'), is I suppose Chapman's own invention, and leads to nothing. The diction is generally free from anachronisms, though Pompey's reference to Irish boys and Ophioneus' advice to Fronto to drink with the Dutchman, swear with the Frenchman, cheat with the Englishman, buy with the Scot, and turn all this to Religion,' occur as pardonable licences. Pompey commits an ingenious misquotation in saying he would rather err with Cato, 'than with the truth go of the world besides.' It is by the bye a curious choice of phrase that Caesar should more than once be said to be aiming at the place of 'universal bishop.' Germany (pr. 1654). The tragedy of Alphonsus Emperour of Germany was Alphonsus not printed till after Chapman's death (in 1654). Reference Emperor of has already been made to the peculiar feature which distinguishes this play. As Elze1 observes, the knowledge of German manners and customs (though not invariably correct), and of the German language, of which it gives evidence, cannot be explained except on one of two hypotheses. Either Chapman had at some time of his life visited Germany and mastered its language, or he was assisted by a German writer in the composition of the tragedy. I should with Elze incline to the latter hypothesis, and indeed should be willing to go further, and suppose it possible that the body of the play as well as the passages in German were furnished by some German writer. For not only is the dialogue in general full of German phrases, but the whole of the play gives the impression of having been revised rather than composed by Chapman. It is quite unworthy of him in every respect, though there are indications of his hand in the frequent classical allusions and in the generally superior manner of the last act. The tragedy of Alphonsus is in any case a very indifferent piece of handiwork. Its subject is the contention between Richard of Cornwall and Alfonso of Castile for the crown of the Roman Empire, in the period of the Interregnum which preceded the election of Rudolf of Habsburg. The events and characters with which the action of the drama. is concerned are treated after a fashion amounting, it is needless to say, to a singularly gross perversion of history. Thus, to speak of the chief personage of the play only, the real Alphonsus never came to Germany at all, and seems to have been a very inoffensive personage. In the play he is made a villain of the deepest dye. He begins by murdering his secretary, in order to be rid of the confidant of his evil policy, and then persuades his victim's son that the act was committed by order of the Electors. This son, Alexander, is hereupon instigated by the Emperor to poison 1 Dr. Karl Elze's edition of Alphonsus (Leipzig, 1867) contains, besides its valuable Introduction, some interesting notes explaining various passages in the play. VOL. II. C those of the Electors who are adverse to his interests. He is next induced by Alphonsus to dishonour the Saxon princess, the newly-married bride of Prince Edward, the nephew of his English rival Richard. Finally the villainous Emperor is destroyed by the instrument of his own malice. For when the battle between the rival forces has been decided in Alphonsus' favour, Alexander, in order to induce the tyrant to kill his wife (Richard's sister) and Prince Edward, who are in his custody, brings the false news of defeat. In dastardly despair, Alphonsus now reveals himself to Alexander as the real murderer of his father, and meets with the punishment of death at the hands of the son. This outline by no means exhausts the horrors of the play, which are intermixed with some extremely doubtful fun,— consisting in the device of making the Saxon princess, as well as two bowrs' who are suborned to assassinate Richard, talk German. This device, which is employed for more equivocal purposes than that of producing a laugh at the sound of a foreign 'lingo,' is of course by no means peculiar to this play; but it is nowhere employed in so elaborate a fashion. Shakspere's Princess Katharine can only speak French; in Dekker's Shoemakers' Holiday the hero assumes the disguise and the tongue of a Fleming; and other instances might be cited for the introduction of a character speaking a foreign language. The peculiarity of Princess' Hedewick's' and the 'bowrs' German is its thoroughly idiomatic character; it is as good German as the rest of the play is English, and could hardly have been written by an Englishman who had not at some period of his life become thoroughly Germanised. I have therefore no hesitation in concluding a native hand to have aided Chapman at all events in these speeches, and in the Germanisms abounding in the rest of the dialogue. On the other hand, it seems beyond the mark to suppose that Chapman or his coadjutor intended in this play any allusion to the German politics of the time of its production. The details concerning the Electoral College might, as Elze shows, easily have been taken from English' books-an English translation of the Golden Bull in particular had appeared in 1619. But if attention to chronological accuracy was a thought which doubtless never entered into the author's head-all he cared for being what is called 'local colouring' in political as well as social details-still less can he have intended a political doublemeaning. The resemblance between the condition of Germany during the Interregnum and that at the beginning of the Thirty Years' War was in fact of too vague a character to have supplied suitable materials for such a purpose, nor can I perceive any evidence of its having been entertained by the author of this play'. Alphonsus, however, remains a very curious attempt to bring before English spectators a subject nominally taken from the history, and written with some real knowledge of the life, of a foreign country. There are in this tragedy, apart from the knowledge of the German language which it displays, passages which could not have been written except by one well acquainted with German ways and manners; but these have been so well elucidated by its German editor, that I need only refer to his guidance. those interested in so unique an illustration of the intimate connexion which existed in this age between the two countries. Revenge for Honour (printed 1654) is probably to be reckoned among Chapman's later plays, as the character of the versification, which resembles Beaumont and Fletcher's in the abundance of feminine endings to the lines, seems to indicate. In style, however, there is not much difference between this and the earlier tragedies of Chapman. Far removed from the baldness of Alphonsus, Revenge for Honour abounds with ingenious and graceful similes, 1 Dr. Elze (Introduction, p. 35) seems to forget his knowledge of the history of his country when he says that the 'Palsgrave' Frederick was, like Richard of Cornwall, elected to the imperial dignity by dissenting parties of the States.' So far as I know, James's son-in-law was elected to the Bohemian, not the imperial, crown; and the resemblance therefore dwindles into a very doubtful analogy. As for the likeness between the secretary Lorenzo and Pater Lamormain, it is little more than what might be traced in half the Macchiavellian' counsellors who were a standing figure of the Elisabethan stage. Revenge for Honour |