There are thus in this anthology no less than eighty-one extracts ascribed to Chapman, besides two of which one is known and the other suspected to be the work of his hand; these are wrongly assigned to Spenser. At the time of this publication Chapman was in his forty-second year; he had published but two plays and three volumes of verse, the third being his continuation of Marlowe's Hero and Leander. Of the eighty-three passages numbered above, thirty-two are taken from this poem, twenty-five from Ovid's Banquet of Sense, ten from The Shadow of Night, eight from The Contention of Phillis and Flora, a quaint and sometimes a graceful version into the Elizabethan dialect of a Latin or more probably a quasiLatin poem ascribed by Ritson to one of the most famous among mediæval masters; one is taken from the first scene of his first play, one is spurious, and six (including the passage wrongly referred in a former list to Ovid's Banquet of Sense), whether spurious or genuine, have yet to be traced to their true source. In his critical memoir of Marlowe (Works, vol. i. p. lvii. ed. 1850), Mr. Dyce observes that 'the editor of England's Parnassus appears never to have resorted to manuscript sources; and if, as is of course most probable, the supposition of that great scholar and careful critic be well founded, we must conclude that these passages, as well as the more precious and exquisite fragment of a greater poet which called forth this remark from his editor, were extracted by Allot from some printed book or books long lost to human sight. One small but noticeable extract of two lines and a half descriptive of midnight is evidently I think from a lost play. The taste of the worthy person who compiled this first English anthology was remarkable apparently for its equal relish of good verse and bad; but we may be grateful that it was by no means confined to the more popular and dominant authors of his age, such as Spenser and Sidney; since his faculty of miscellaneous admiration has been the means of preserving many curious fragments of fine or quaint verse, and occasionally a jewel of such price as the fragment of Marlowe which alike for tone of verse and tune of thought so vividly recalls Shelley's poem, The Question, written in the same metre and spirit, that one is tempted to dream that some particles of the 'predestined plot of dust and soul' which had once gone to make up the elder must have been used again in the composition of the younger poet, who in fiery freedom of thought and speech was like no other of our greatest men but Marlowe, and in that as in his choice of tragic motive was so singularly like this one ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE. Since Ovid's eyes were closed with iron sleep. But now his waking soul in Chapman lives, Which shows so well the passions of his soul, And yet this muse more cause of wonder gives, And doth more prophet-like love's art enrol. For Ovid's soul now grown more old and wise, Pours forth itself in deeper mysteries. ANOTHER. SINCE Ovid, Love's first gentle master, died, He hath a most notorious truant been, And in that rank I put thee in the front Treasures of art that treasure can command. Ah would they could! then should thy wealth and wit Be equal, and a lofty fortune fit. was I To be of that most blessed company : For if they most are blest that most are crost, Then poets, I am sure, are blessed most. Yet we with rhyme and reason trim the times, Though they give little reason for our rhymes. The reason is, else error blinds my wits, They reason want to do what honour fits, But let them do as please them, we must do What Phoebus, Sire of Art, moves Nature to. Jo: DAVIES, of Hereford.* * TO GEORGE CHAPMAN. GEORGE, it is thy genius innated, And hath not once in thrice five ages Thou pick'st not flowers from another's seen That same sweet muse that was his first sweet guide; But since Apollo, who was gratified field, Stolen similes or sentences translated, Once with a kiss, hunting on Cynthus' Let barren wits go borrow what to write. green, By Love's fair mother, tender beauty's queen, This favour unto her hath not envied, hath done : She makes in thee the spirit of Ovid move, And calls thee second master of her love. Futurum invisible. TO MY HIGHLY VALUED MR. GEORGE CHAPMAN, FATHER OF OUR ENGLISH POETS. I KNOW thee not, good George, but by thy pen, For which I rank thee with the rarest men. 'Tis bred and born with thee what thou inditest, And our comedians thou out-strippest quite, And all the hearers more than all delightest, With unaffected style and sweetest strain, Thy inambitious pen keeps on her pace, And cometh near'st the ancient comic vein, Thou hast beguiled us all of that sweet grace: No Chapman but thyself were to be And were Thalia to be sold and bought, sought. THOMAS FREEMAN, Gent.f *The Scourge of Folly (Lond. 1611). Rubbe and A great Cast Epigrams: Lond. 1614. 1 PREFIXED TO CHAPMAN'S HESIOD, 1618. TO MY WORTHY FRIEND MR. GEORGE CHAPMAN AND HIS TRANSLATED HESIOD. CHAPMAN, we find by thy past-prized fraught What wealth thou dost upon this land confer; Th' old Grecian prophets hither that hast brought Of their full words the true interpreter ; And by thy travel strongly hast exprest The large dimensions of the English tongue, Delivering them so well, the first and best That to the world in numbers ever sung. Which till the graceful Muses did begin In blest Elysium, in a place most fit, In thy free labours, friend, then rest content; Fear not Detraction, neither fawn on Praise ; When idle Censure all her force hath spent, Knowledge can crown herself with her own bays. Their lines that have so many lives out worn, Clearly expounded, shall base Envy scorn. MICHAEL DRAYTON. TO MY WORTHY AND HONOURED FRIEND, MR. GEORGE CHAPMAN, ON HIS TRANSLATION OF HESIOD'S WORKS AND DAYS. WHOSE work could this be, Chapman, to refine Old Hesiod's ore, and give it us, but thine, Who hadst before wrought in rich Homer's mine? Smoothing their rugged foreheads; and do What treasure hast thou brought us! and |