ry reader in his work has saved
him from that comparison which (it has perhaps been urged _ad nauseam_) is
the bane of just literary judgment. To those who always strive to waive all
such considerations, these things will make but little difference.

The only complete edition of Chapman's works dates from our own days, and
its three volumes correspond to a real division of subject. Although, in
common with all these writers, Chapman has had much uncertain and some
improbable work fathered on him, his certain dramas supply one of the most
interesting studies in our period. As usual with everyone except Shakespere
and (it is a fair reason for the relatively disproportionate estimate of
these so long held) Beaumont and Fletcher, they are extremely unequal. Not
a certain work of Chapman is void of interest. The famous _Eastward Ho!_
(one of the liveliest comedies of the period dealing with London life) was
the work of three great writers, and it is not easy to distribute its
collaboration. That it is not swamped with "humours" may prove that
Jonson's learned sock was put on by others. That it is neither grossly
indecent nor extravagantly sanguinary, shows that Marston had not the chief
hand in it, and so we are left to Chapman. What he could do is not shown in
the list of his own certain plays till _All Fools_. _The Blind Beggar of
Alexandria_ (1596?) and _An Humorous Day's Mirth_ show that singular
promiscuousness--that heaping together of scenes without order or
connection--which we have noticed in the first dramatic period, not to
mention that the way in which the characters speak of themselves, not as
"I" but by their names in the third person, is also unmistakable. But _All
Fools_ is a much more noteworthy piece, and though Mr. Swinburne may have
praised it rather highly, it would certainly take place in a collection of
the score best comedies of the time not written by Shakespere. _The
Gentleman Usher_ and _Monsieur d'Olive_ belong to the same school of
humorous, not too pedantic comedy, and then we come to the strange series
of Chapman's French tragedies, _Bussy d'Ambois_, _The Revenge of Bussy
d'Ambois_, _Byron's Conspiracy_, _The Tragedy of Charles, Duke of Byron_,
and _The Tragedy of Philip Chabot, Admiral of France_. These singular plays
stand by themselves. Whether the strong influence which Marlowe exercised
on Chapman led the later poet (who it must be remembered was not the
younger) to continue _The Massacre of