English Homer quickly betrays itself[1].—His crowds of bold and violent figures, which jostle one another in their turbulent birth,—his swelling fancies,—and his dry, square, axioms, giving the lie, as it were, to his enthusiasm.—The usual metaphor of thoughts "flowing from the brain" can never be used in writing of Chapman's inventive process. His images and conceptions spout forth as from the crater of a volcano, hurling in the blast, at once, bright fire and dusky smoke,—live coals and dry ashes. The English language has not a more unequal poet:—one instant finds him familiar, low,—bolting inelegant conceits, and gross hyperboles; the next, soaring aloft in bardic majesty, full of true passion and vigorous feelings. In his most pathetic scenes he suddenly strikes us into ice, with a philo-
- ↑ The following allusion to Chapman's share in the present translation, occurs in "England's Mourning Garment," &c. [1606.]
"Neither doth Coryn, full of worth and wit,
That finisht dead Musæus' gracious song,
With grace as great, and words and verse as fit,
Chide meager death for doing vertue wrong."
