The Works of George Chapman ...

FRAGMENTS FROM ENGLAND'S

PARNASSUS.

[The following Fragments_attributed to Chapman, in an Anthology entitled, "England's Parnassus: or The choysest Flowers of our Moderne Poets, with their Poeticall comparisons. Imprinted at London for N. L. C. B. and T. H. 1600," have not been hitherto verified in any extant publication of his.]

EVERY good motion that the soul awakes A heavenly figure sees, from whence it takes

That sweetless blossom which by power of kind,

Forms like itself an image of the mind;
And in our faith the operations be
Of that divineness which by faith we see;
Which never errs but accidentally
By our frail flesh's imbecility,
By each temptation over-apt to slide,
Except our spirit becomes our body's guide.
For as our bodies' prisons be the towers,
So to our souls these bodies be of ours,
Whose fleshy walls hinder that heavenly
light,

As these stone walls deprive our wished sight.

DESCRIPTIONS OF BEAUTY
AND PERSONAGE.

SEE where she issues in her beauty's

pomp,

As Flora to salute the morning sun ;
Who when she shakes her tresses in the air,
Rains on the earth dissolved pearl in
showers,

Which with his beams the sun exhales to heaven:

She holds the spring and summer in her arms,

And every plant puts on his freshest robes To dance attendance on her princely steps Springing and fading as she comes and goes.

An Invective written by Mr. George
Chapman against Mr. Ben. Jonson.*

GREAT, learned, witty Ben, be pleased to
light

The world with that three-forked fire; nor fright

All us, thy sublearn'd, with luciferous boast

That thou art most great, most learn'd,
witty most

Of all the kingdom, nay of all the earth;
As being a thing betwixt a human birth
And an infernal; no humanity

Of the divine soul shewing man in thee,
Being all of pride composed and surquedry.
Thus it might argue; if thy petulant will
May fly-blow all men with thy great swan's-
quill,

If it can write no plays, if thy plays fail,
All the earnests of our kingdom straight
must vail

To thy wild fury; that, as if a fiend
Had sharp'd his sickle, shew'st thy breast
is spleen'd,

Frisking so madly that 'gainst Town and
Court

Thou plant'st thy battery in most hideous

sort.

If thy pied humours suffer least impair,
And any vapour vex thy virulent air,
The Dunkerks keep not our coal ships in

awe

More than thy moods are thy admirers' law;
All else, as well the grafters of thy paws
With panic terrors fly, bed-rid of cause,
And let the swinish itch of thy fell wreak
Rub 'gainst the presence-royal without
check.

How must state use thee if thy veins thus
leak,

Thou must be muzzled, ring'd, and led in chains,

Lest dames with child abide untimely pains,

*This and the following fragment are from a Commonplace-book preserved among the Ashmole MSS. in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.

And children perish; didst thou not put

out

A boy's right eye that cross'd thy mankind
pout?

If all this yet find pardon, fee, and grace,
The happiest outlaw th'art that ever was.
Goodness to virtue is a godlike thing,
And man with God joins in a good-doing
king

But to give vice her rein; and on all his
(As their pure merits) to confer all this
Who will not argue it redounds? Whatever
Vice is sustain'd withal, turns pestilent
fever,

What nourishes virtue, evermore converts
To blood and spirits of nothing but deserts;
And shall a viper hanging on her hand
By his own poison his full swindge com-
mand?

How shall grave virtue spirit her honour'd
fame

If motley mockery may dispose her
shame

Never so dully, nor with such adust
And clouted choler? 'tis the foulest lust
That ever yet did violate actions just.
But if this weigh'd, proved vile, and saucy
spirit,

Depraving every exemplary merit,
May yet nought less all his fat hopes
inherit-

(When men turn harpies, their blood stand-
ing lakes

Green-bellied serpents, and black-freckled
snakes,

Crawling in their unwieldy clotter'd veins :
Their tongues grown forked, and their

« Предыдущая Продолжить »

Книги