Pope, one hundred and twenty-five years later, made a for-
tune by his translation of Homer.
tune by his translation of Homer.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v06 - Cal to Chr
This could
not, however, be accomplished everywhere; for instance, over the
broad street I must next take-actually, as mischief would have
## p. 3512 (#490) ###########################################
3512
ADELBERT VON CHAMISSO
it, at the very moment the boys came out of school. A cursed
hunchbacked rogue-I see him yet-spied out instantly that
I had no shadow. He proclaimed the fact with a loud outcry
to the whole assembled literary street youth of the suburb,
who began forthwith to criticize me and to pelt me with mud.
"Decent people are accustomed to take their shadow with them
when they go into the sunshine. " To defend myself from them
I threw whole handfuls of gold amongst them, and sprang into
a hackney coach which some compassionate soul procured for me.
As soon as I found myself alone in the rolling carriage, I
began to weep bitterly. The presentiment must already have
arisen in me that on earth, far as gold transcends merit and vir-
tue in estimation, so much higher than gold itself is the shadow
valued; and as I had earlier sacrificed wealth to conscience, I
had now thrown away the shadow for mere gold. What in the
world could and would become of me!
FROM WOMAN'S LOVE AND LIFE'
HOU ring upon my finger,
My little golden ring,
Against my fond bosom I press thee,
And to thee my fond lips cling.
THOU
Τ
My girlhood's dream was ended,
Its peaceful, innocent grace,
Forlorn I woke, and so lonely,
In desolate infinite space.
Thou ring upon my finger,
Thou bringest me peace on earth,
And thou my eyes hast opened
To womanhood's infinite worth.
I'll love and serve him forever,
And live for him alone;
I'll give him my life, but to find it
Transfigured in his own.
Thou ring upon my finger,
My little golden ring,
Against my fond bosom I press thee,
And to thee my fond lips cling.
Translation of Charles Harvey Genung.
## p. 3513 (#491) ###########################################
3513
WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING
(1780-1842)
D
R. CHANNING, the recognized leader although not the origi-
nator of the Unitarian movement in this country, was a
man of singular spirituality, sweetness of disposition, purity
of life, and nobility of character. He was thought by some to be
austere and cold in temperament, and timid in action; but this was
rather a misconception of a life given to conscientious study, and an
effort to allow due weight to opposing arguments. He was not liable
to be swept from his moorings by momentary enthusiasm.
As a
writer he was clear and direct, admirably
perspicuous in style, without great orna-
ment, much addicted to short and simple
sentences, though singularly enough an
admirer of those which were long and
involved. A critic in Fraser's Magazine
wrote of him:-"Channing is unquestion-
ably the first writer of the age. From his
writings may be extracted some of the
richest poetry and richest conceptions,
clothed in language-unfortunately for our
literature-too little studied in the day in
which we live. "
He was of "blue blood," - the grand- WILLIAM E. CHANNING
son of William Ellery, one of the signers
of the Declaration,- and was born at Newport, Rhode Island, April
7th, 1780. He was graduated at Harvard College with high honors in
1798, and first thought of studying medicine, but was inclined to the
direction of the ministry. He became a private tutor in Richmond,
Virginia, where he learned to detest slavery. Here he laid the seeds
of subsequent physical troubles by imprudent indulgence in asceti-
cism, in a desire to avoid effeminacy. He entered upon the study of
theology, which he continued in Cambridge; he was ordained in
1803, and soon became pastor of the Federal Street Church in Bos-
ton, in charge of which society he passed his ministerial life. In
the following year he was associated with Buckminster and others
in the liberal Congregational movement, and this led him into a posi-
tion of controversy with his orthodox brethren,-one he cordially
disliked. But he could not refrain from preaching the doctrines of
the dignity of human nature, the supremacy of reason, and religious
freedom, of whose truth he was profoundly assured.
## p. 3514 (#492) ###########################################
3514
WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING
It has been truly said that Channing was too much a lover of
free thought, and too desirous to hold only what he thought to be
true, to allow himself to be bound by any party ties. "I wish," he
himself said, "to regard myself as belonging not to a sect but to the
community of free minds, of lovers of truth and followers of Christ,
both on earth and in heaven. I desire to escape the narrow walls of
a particular church, and to stand under the open sky in the broad
light, looking far and wide, seeing with my own eyes, hearing with
my own ears, and following Truth meekly but resolutely, however
arduous or solitary be the path in which she leads. "
He was greatly interested in temperance, in the anti-slavery
movement, in the elevation of the laboring classes, and other social
reforms; and after 1824, when Dr. Gannett became associate pastor,
he gave much time to work in these directions. His death occurred
at Bennington, Vermont, April 2d, 1842. His literary achievements
are mainly or wholly in the line of his work,- sermons, addresses,
and essays; but they were prepared with scrupulous care, and have
the quality naturally to be expected from a man of broad and cath-
olic spirit, wide interests, and strong love of literature. His works,
in six volumes, are issued by the American Unitarian Association,
which also publishes a 'Memorial' by his nephew, William Henry
Channing, in three volumes.
THE PASSION FOR POWER
From The Life and Character of Napoleon Bonaparte'
is
HE passion for ruling, though most completely developed in
to no forms of government. It is
the chief peril of free States, the natural enemy of free
institutions. It agitates our own country, and still throws an
uncertainty over the great experiment we are making here in
behalf of liberty.
It is the distinction of republican
institutions, that whilst they compel the passion for power to
moderate its pretensions, and to satisfy itself with more limited
gratifications, they tend to spread it more widely through the
community, and to make it a universal principle. The doors of
office being opened to all, crowds burn to rush in. A thousand
hands are stretched out to grasp the reins which are denied to
none. Perhaps in this boasted and boasting land of liberty, not
a few, if called to state the chief good of a republic, would
place it in this: that every man is eligible to every office, and
## p. 3515 (#493) ###########################################
WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING
3515
that the highest places of power and trust are prizes for univer-
sal competition. The superiority attributed by many to our
institutions is, not that they secure the greatest freedom, but give
every man
chance of ruling; not that they reduce the power
of government within the narrowest limits which the safety of
the State admits, but throw it into as many hands as possible.
The despot's great crime is thought to be that he keeps the
delight of dominion to himself, that he makes a monopoly of it;
whilst our more generous institutions, by breaking it into parcels
and inviting the multitude to scramble for it, spread this joy
more widely. The result is that political ambition infects our
country and generates a feverish restlessness and discontent,
which to the monarchist may seem more than a balance for our
forms of liberty. The spirit of intrigue, which in absolute gov-
ernments is confined to courts, walks abroad through the land;
and as individuals can accomplish no political purposes single-
handed, they band themselves into parties, ostensibly framed for
public ends, but aiming only at the acquisition of power. The
nominal sovereign,- that is, the people,-like all other sov-
ereigns, is courted and flattered and told that it can do no wrong.
Its pride is pampered, its passions inflamed, its prejudices made
inveterate. Such are the processes by which other republics have
been subverted, and he must be blind who cannot trace them
among ourselves. We mean not to exaggerate our dangers. We
rejoice to know that the improvements of society oppose many
checks to the love of power. But every wise man who sees its
workings must dread it as one chief foe.
This passion derives strength and vehemence in our country
from the common idea that political power is the highest prize
which society has to offer. We know not a more general delu-
sion, nor is it the least dangerous. Instilled as it is in our
youth, it gives infinite excitement to political ambition. It turns
the active talents of the country to public station as the supreme
good, and makes it restless, intriguing, and unprincipled. It
calls out hosts of selfish competitors for comparatively few
places, and encourages a bold, unblushing pursuit of personal
elevation, which a just moral sense and self-respect in the com-
munity would frown upon and cover with shame.
## p. 3516 (#494) ###########################################
3516
WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING
THE CAUSES OF WAR
From a Discourse delivered before the Congregational ministers of
Massachusetts >
ONE
NE of the great springs of war may be found in a very
strong and general propensity of human nature-in the
love of excitement, of emotion, of strong interest; a pro-
pensity which gives a charm to those bold and hazardous enter-
prises which call forth all the energies of our nature. No state
of mind, not even positive suffering, is more painful than the
want of interesting objects. The vacant soul preys on itself, and
often rushes with impatience from the security which demands
no effort, to the brink of peril. This part of human nature is
seen in the kind of pleasures which have always been preferred.
Why has the first rank among sports been given to the chase?
Because its difficulties, hardships, hazards, tumults, awaken the
mind, and give to it a new consciousness of existence, and a
deep feeling of its powers. What is the charm which attaches
the statesman to an office which almost weighs him down with
labor and an appalling responsibility? He finds much of his
compensation in the powerful emotion and interest awakened by
the very hardships of his lot, by conflict with vigorous minds,
by the opposition of rivals, by the alternations of success and
defeat. What hurries to the gaming tables the man of prosper-
ous fortune and ample resources The dread of apathy, the
love of strong feeling and of mental agitation. A deeper inter-
est is felt in hazarding than in securing wealth, and the tempta-
tion is irresistible.
Another powerful principle of our
nature which is the spring of war, is the passion for superiority,
for triumph, for power. The human mind is aspiring, impatient
of inferiority, and eager for control. I need not enlarge on the
predominance of this passion in rulers, whose love of power is
influenced by its possession, and who are ever restless to extend
their sway.
It is more important to observe that were this de-
sire restrained to the breasts of rulers, war would move with a
sluggish pace. But the passion for power and superiority is uni-
versal; and as every individual, from his intimate union with
the community, is accustomed to appropriate its triumphs to
himself, there is a general promptness to engage in any contest
by which the community may obtain an ascendency over other
·
## p. 3517 (#495) ###########################################
WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING
3517
nations. The desire that our country should surpass all others
would not be criminal, did we understand in what respects it is
most honorable for a nation to excel; did we feel that the glory
of a State consists in intellectual and moral superiority, in pre-
eminence of knowledge, freedom and purity. But to the mass
of the people this form of pre-eminence is too refined and un-
substantial. There is another kind of triumph which they better
understand: the triumph of physical power, triumph in battle,
triumph not over the minds but the territory of another State.
Here is a palpable, visible superiority; and for this a people are
willing to submit to severe privations. A victory blots out the
memory of their sufferings, and in boasting of their extended
power they find a compensation for many woes.
An-
other powerful spring of war is the admiration of the brilliant
qualities displayed in war. Many delight in war, not for its
carnage and woes, but for its valor and apparent magnanimity,
for the self-command of the hero, the fortitude which despises
suffering, the resolution which courts danger, the superiority of
the mind to the body, to sensation, to fear. Men seldom delight
in war, considered merely as a source of misery. When they
hear of battles, the picture which rises to their view is not
what it should be-a picture of extreme wretchedness, of the
wounded, the mangled, the slain; these horrors are hidden under
the splendor of those mighty energies which break forth amidst
the perils of conflict, and which human nature contemplates with
an intense and heart-thrilling delight. Whilst the peaceful sov-
ereign who scatters blessings with the silence and constancy of
Providence is received with a faint applause, men assemble in
crowds to hail the conqueror,—perhaps a monster in human form,
whose private life is blackened with lust and crime, and whose
greatness is built on perfidy and usurpation. Thus war is the
surest and speediest way to renown; and war will never cease
while the field of battle is the field of glory, and the most lux-
uriant laurels grow from a root nourished with blood.
## p. 3518 (#496) ###########################################
3518
WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING
SPIRITUAL FREEDOM
From the Discourse on Spiritual Freedom,' 1830
I
CONSIDER the freedom or moral strength of the individual
mind as the supreme good, and the highest end of govern-
ment.
I am aware that other views are often taken. It is
said that government is intended for the public, for the commu-
nity, not for the individual. The idea of a national interest
prevails in the minds of statesmen, and to this it is thought that
the individual may be sacrificed. But I would maintain that the
individual is not made for the State so much as the State for
the individual. A man is not created for political relations as
his highest end, but for indefinite spiritual progress, and is
placed in political relations as the means of his progress. The
human soul is greater, more sacred than the State, and must
never be sacrificed to it. The human soul is to outlive all
earthly institutions. The distinction of nations is to pass away.
Thrones which have stood for ages are to meet the doom pro-
nounced upon all man's works. But the individual mind sur-
vives, and the obscurest subject, if true to God, will rise to
power never wielded by earthly potentates.
A human being is a member of the community, not as a
limb is a member of the body, or as a wheel is a part of a
machine, intended only to contribute to some general joint
result. He was created not to be merged in the whole, as a
drop in the ocean or as a particle of sand on the seashore, and
to aid only in composing a mass. He is an ultimate being,
made for his own perfection as his highest end; made to main-
tain an individual existence, and to serve others only as far as
consists with his own virtue and progress. Hitherto governments
have tended greatly to obscure this importance of the individual,
to depress him in his own eyes, to give him the idea of an out-
ward interest more important than the invisible soul, and of an
outward authority more sacred than the voice of God in his own
secret conscience. Rulers have called the private man the prop-
erty of the State, meaning generally by the State themselves;
and thus the many have been immolated to the few, and have
even believed that this was their highest destination. These
views cannot be too earnestly withstood. Nothing seems to me
so needful as to give to the mind the consciousness, which gov-
ernments have done so much to suppress, of its own separate
## p. 3519 (#497) ###########################################
WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING
3519
worth. Let the individual feel that through his immortality he
may concentrate in his own being a greater good than that of
nations. Let him feel that he is placed in the community, not
to part with his individuality or to become a tool, but that he
should find a sphere for his various powers, and a preparation
for immortal glory. To me the progress of society consists in
nothing more than in bringing out the individual, in giving him.
a consciousness of his own being, and in quickening him to
strengthen and elevate his own mind.
In thus maintaining that the individual is the end of social
institutions, I may be thought to discourage public efforts and
the sacrifice of private interests to the State. Far from it. No
man, I affirm, will serve his fellow-beings so effectually, so fer-
vently, as he who is not their slave; as he who, casting off every
other yoke, subjects himself to the law of duty in his own mind.
For this law enjoins a disinterested and generous spirit, as man's
glory and likeness to his Maker. Individuality, or moral self-
subsistence, is the surest foundation of an all-comprehending love.
No man so multiplies his bonds with the community, as he who
watches most jealously over his own perfection. There is a beau-
tiful harmony between the good of the State and the moral free-
dom and dignity of the individual. Were it not so, were these
interests in any case discordant, were an individual ever called
to serve his country by acts debasing his own mind, he ought
not to waver a moment as to the good which he should prefer.
Property, life, he should joyfully surrender to the State. But his
soul he must never stain or enslave. From poverty, pain, the
rack, the gibbet, he should not recoil; but for no good of others
ought he to part with self-control, or violate the inward law.
We speak of the patriot as sacrificing himself to the public weal.
Do we mean that he sacrifices what is most properly himself,
the principle of piety and virtue? Do we not feel that however
great may be the good which through his sufferings accrues to
the State, a greater and purer glory redounds to himself; and
that the most precious fruit of his disinterested services is the
strength of resolution and philanthropy which is accumulated in
his own soul? .
The advantages of civilization have their peril. In such a
state of society, opinion and law impose salutary restraint, and
produce general order and security. But the power of opinion
grows into a despotism, which more than all things represses
## p. 3520 (#498) ###########################################
3520
WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING
original and free thought, subverts individuality of character, re-
duces the community to a spiritless monotony, and chills the
love of perfection. Religion, considered simply as the principle
which balances the power of human opinion, which takes man
out of the grasp of custom and fashion, and teaches him to refer
himself to a higher tribunal, is an infinite aid to moral strength
and elevation.
An important benefit of civilization, of which we hear much
from the political economist, is the division of labor, by which
arts are perfected. But this, by confining the mind to an
unceasing round of petty operations, tends to break it into little-
ness. We possess improved fabrics, but deteriorated men.
Another advantage of civilization is, that manners are refined
and accomplishments multiplied; but these are continually seen
to supplant simplicity of character, strength of feeling, the love
of nature, the love of inward beauty and glory. Under outward
courtesy we see a cold selfishness, a spirit of calculation, and
little energy of love.
I confess I look round on civilized society with many fears,
and with more and more earnest desire that a regenerating spirit
from heaven, from religion, may descend upon and pervade it.
I particularly fear that various causes are acting powerfully
among ourselves, to inflame and madden that enslaving and
degrading principle, the passion for property. For example, the
absence of hereditary distinctions in our country gives prominence
to the distinction of wealth, and holds up this as the chief prize
to ambition. Add to this the epicurean, self-indulgent habits
which our prosperity has multiplied, and which crave insatiably
for enlarging wealth as the only means of gratification. This
peril is increased by the spirit of our times, which is a spirit of
commerce, industry, internal improvements, mechanical invention,
political economy, and peace. Think not that I would disparage
commerce, mechanical skill, and especially pacific connections
among States.
But there is danger that these blessings may by
perversion issue in a slavish love of lucre. It seems to me that
some of the objects which once moved men most powerfully are
gradually losing their sway, and thus the mind is left more open
to the excitement of wealth. For example, military distinction is
taking the inferior place which it deserves: and the consequence
will be that the energy and ambition which have been exhausted
in war will seek new directions; and happy shall we be if they
## p. 3521 (#499) ###########################################
WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING
3521
"
do not flow into the channel of gain. So I think that political
eminence is to be less and less coveted; and there is danger that
the energies absorbed by it will be spent in seeking another
kind of dominion, the dominion of property. And if such be the
result, what shall we gain by what is called the progress of
society? What shall we gain by national peace, if men, instead
of meeting on the field of battle, wage with one another the
more inglorious strife of dishonest and rapacious traffic? What
shall we gain by the waning of political ambition, if the intrigues
of the exchange take place of those of the cabinet, and private
pomp and luxury be substituted for the splendor of public life?
I am no foe to civilization. I rejoice in its progress. But I
mean to say that without a pure religion to modify its tendencies,
to inspire and refine it, we shall be corrupted, not ennobled by
it. It is the excellence of the religious principle, that it aids
and carries forward civilization, extends science and arts, multi-
plies the conveniences and ornaments of life, and at the same
time spoils them of their enslaving power, and even converts
them into means and ministers of that spiritual freedom which
when left to themselves they endanger and destroy.
In order, however, that religion should yield its full and best
fruit, one thing is necessary; and the times require that I should
state it with great distinctness. It is necessary that religion
should be held and professed in a liberal spirit. Just as far as
it assumes an intolerant, exclusive, sectarian form, it subverts
instead of strengthening the soul's freedom, and becomes the
heaviest and most galling yoke which is laid on the intellect and
conscience. Religion must be viewed, not as a monopoly of
priests, ministers, or sects, not as conferring on any man a right
to dictate to his fellow-beings, not as an instrument by which
the few may awe the many, not as bestowing on one a preroga-
tive which is not enjoyed by all; but as the property of every
human being and as the great subject for every human mind.
It must be regarded as the revelation of a common Father to
whom all have equal access, who invites all to the like immedi-
ate communion, who has no favorites, who has appointed no
infallible expounders of his will, who opens his works and word
to every eye, and calls upon all to read for themselves, and to
follow fearlessly the best convictions of their own understandings.
Let religion be seized on by individuals or sects, as their spe-
cial province; let them clothe themselves with God's prerogative
VI-221
## p. 3522 (#500) ###########################################
3522
WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING
of judgment; let them succeed in enforcing their creed by penal-
ties of law, or penalties of opinion; let them succeed in fixing a
brand on virtuous men whose only crime is free investigation –
and religion becomes the most blighting tyranny which can
establish itself over the mind. You have all heard of the out-
ward evils which religion, when thus turned into tyranny, has
inflicted; how it has dug dreary dungeons, kindled fires for the
martyr, and invented instruments of exquisite torture. But to
me all this is less fearful than its influence over the mind.
When I see the superstitions which it has fastened on the con-
science, the spiritual terrors with which it has haunted and
subdued the ignorant and susceptible, the dark appalling views
of God which it has spread far and wide, the dread of inquiry
which it has struck into superior understandings, and the servil-
ity of spirit which it has made to pass for piety-when I see
all this, the fire, the scaffold, and the outward inquisition, terri-
ble as they are, seem to me inferior evils. I look with a solemn
joy on the heroic spirits who have met, freely and fearlessly, pain
and death in the cause of truth and human rights. But there
are other victims of intolerance on whom I look with unmixed
sorrow. They are those who, spell-bound by early prejudice or
by intimidations from the pulpit and the press, dare not think;
who anxiously stifle every doubt or misgiving in regard to their
opinions, as if to doubt were a crime; who shrink from the
seekers after truth as from infection; who deny all virtue which
does not wear the livery of their own sect; who, surrendering to
others their best powers, receive unresistingly a teaching which
wars against reason and conscience; and who think it a merit to
impose on such as live within their influence, the grievous
bondage which they bear themselves. How much to be deplored
is it, that religion, the very principle which is designed to raise
men above the judgment and power of man, should become the
chief instrument of usurpation over the soul!
## p. 3523 (#501) ###########################################
3523
GEORGE CHAPMAN
(1559? -1634)
EORGE CHAPMAN, the translator of Homer, is of all the Eliza-
bethan dramatists the most undramatic. He is akin to
Marlowe in being more of an epic poet than a playwright;
but unlike his young compeer "of the mighty line," who in his suc-
cessive plays learnt how to subdue an essentially epic genius to the
demands of the stage, Chapman never got near the true secret of
dramatic composition. Yet he witnessed the growth of the glorious
Elizabethan drama, from its feeble beginning in Gorboduc' and
'Gammer Gurton's Needle' through its
very flowering in the immortal master-
pieces. He was born about 1559, five years
before Marlowe, the "morning star" of the
English drama, and he died in 1634, sur-
viving Shakespeare, in whom it reached its
maturity, and Beaumont, Middleton, and
Fletcher, whose works foreshadow decay.
From his native town Hitchin he passed
on to Oxford, where he distinguished him-
self as a classical scholar. Then for six-
teen years nothing definite is known about
him. His life has been called one of the
great blanks of English literature. He is
sometimes sent traveling on the Continent,
as a convenient means of accounting for this gap, and also to explain
the intimate acquaintance with German manners and customs and
the language displayed in his tragedy Alphonsus, Emperor of Ger-
many,' which argues at least for a trip to that country. In 1594 he
published the two hymns in the Shadow of Night'; and soon after
he must have begun writing for the stage, for his first extant
comedy, 'The Blind Beggar of Alexandria,' was acted in 1596, and
two years later he appears in Francis Meres's famous enumeration of
the poets and wits of the time. Hereafter his life is to be dated by
his publications.
GEORGE CHAPMAN
He occupies a position unique among the Elizabethans, because
of his wide culture and the diverse character of his work. Though
held together by his strong personality, it yet can be divided into
the distinct groups of comedies, tragedies, poems, and translations.
## p. 3524 (#502) ###########################################
GEORGE CHAPMAN
3524
>>
The first of these is the weakest, for Chapman was not a comic
genius. The Blind Beggar of Alexandria' and 'An Humorous Day's
Mirth deserve but a passing mention. In 1605 All Fooles' was
published, acted six years earlier under the name The World
Runs on Wheels. ' It is a realistic satire, with some good scenes and
character-drawing. 'The Gentleman Usher' is full of poetry and
ingenious situations. 'Monsieur D'Oline' contains also some good
comedy work. The Widow's Tears' tells the well-known story of
the Ephesian matron; though coarse, it is handled not without comic
talent. In his comedy work Chapman is neither new nor original;
he followed in Jonson's footsteps, and suggests moreover Terence,
Plautus, Fletcher, and Lyly. He has wit, satire, and sarcasm; but
along with these, poor construction and little invention. He was
going against his grain, and we have here the frankest expression of
"pot-boiling to be found among the Elizabethan dramatists. Writing
for the stage was the only kind of literature that really paid; the
playhouse was to the Elizabethan what the paper-covered novel is to
a modern reader. This accounts for the enormous dramatic produc-
tivity of the time, and also explains why the most finely endowed
minds, in need of money, produced dramas instead of other imagi-
native work. By the time he wrote his comedies, Chapman had
already won his place as poet and translator, but it earned him no
income.
Pope, one hundred and twenty-five years later, made a for-
tune by his translation of Homer. But then the number of readers
had increased, and publishers could afford to give large sums to a
popular author. Chapman takes rank among the dramatists mainly
by his four chief tragedies: 'Bussy d'Ambois,' 'The Revenge of
Bussy d'Ambois,' The Conspiracy of Charles, Duke of Byron,' and
The Tragedy of Charles, Duke of Byron. ' They are unique among
the plays of the period, in that they deal with almost contemporary
events in French history; not with the purpose of exciting any feel-
ing for or against the parties introduced, but in calm ignoring of
public opinion, they bring recent happenings on the stage to suit the
dramatist's purpose. He drew his material mainly from the Historiæ
Sui Temporis' of Jacques Auguste de Thou, but he troubled him-
self little about following it with accuracy, or even painting the
characters of the chief actors as true to life. In these tragedies,
more than in the comedies, we get sight of Chapman the man;
indeed, it is his great failing as playwright that his own individuality
is constantly cropping out. He alone, of all the great Elizabethan
dramatists, was unable to go outside of himself and enter into the
habits and thoughts of his characters. Chapman was too much of a
scholar and a thinker to be a successful delineator of men. His is the
drama of the man who thinks about life, not of one who lives it in
## p. 3525 (#503) ###########################################
GEORGE CHAPMAN
3525
its fullness.
He does not get into the hearts of men. He has too
many theories. Homer had become the ruling influence in his life,
and he looked at things from the Homeric point of view and presented
life epically. He is at his best in single didactic or narrative pas-
sages, and exquisite bits of poetry are prodigally scattered up and
down the pages of his tragedies. Next to Shakespeare he is the
most sententious of dramatists. He sounded the depths of things in
thought which theretofore only Marlowe had done. He is the most
metaphysical of dramatists.
Yet his thought is sometimes too much for him, and he becomes
obscure. He packs words as tight as Browning, and the sense is
often more difficult to unravel. He is best in the closet drama.
'Cæsar and Pompey,' published in 1631 but never acted, contains
some of his finest thoughts.
Chapman also collaborated with other dramatists. 'Eastward Ho,'
in 1605, written with Marston and Jonson, is one of the liveliest and
best constructed Elizabethan comedies, combining the excellences of
the three men without their faults. Some allusion to the Scottish
nation offended King James; the authors we confined in Fleet
Prison and barely escaped having their ears and noses slit. With
Shirley he wrote the comedy The Ball' and the tragedy 'Chabot,
Admiral of France. '
Chapman wrote comedies to make money, and tragedies because
it was the fashion of the day, and he studded these latter with
exquisite passages because he was a poet born. But he was above
all a scholar with wide and deep learning, not only of the classics
but also of the Renaissance literature. From 1613 to 1631 he does
not appear to have written for the stage, but was occupied with his
translations of Homer, Hesiod, Juvenal, Musæus, Petrarch, and others.
In 1614, at the marriage of the Princess Elizabeth, was performed
in the most lavish manner the 'Memorable Masque of the two Hon-
orable Houses or Inns of Court; the Middle Temple and Lyncoln
Inne. ' Chapman also completed Marlowe's unfinished 'Hero and
Leander. '
His fame however rests on his version of Homer. The first
portion appeared in 1598: 'Seven Bookes of the Iliade of Homer,
Prince of Poets; Translated according to the Greeke in judgment of
his best Commentaries. ' In 1611 the Iliad complete appeared, and
in 1615 the whole of the Odyssey; though he by no means reproduces
Homer faithfully, he approaches nearest to the original in spirit and
grandeur. It is a typical product of the English Renaissance, full of
vigor and passion, but also of conceit and fancifulness. It lacks the
simplicity and the serenity of the Greek, but has caught its noble-
ness and rapidity. As has been said, "It is what Homer might have
## p. 3526 (#504) ###########################################
3526
GEORGE CHAPMAN
written before he came to years of discretion. " Yet with all its
shortcomings it remains one of the classics of Elizabethan literature.
Pope consulted it diligently, and has been accused of at times re-ver-
sifying this instead of the Greek. Coleridge said of it:—
"The Iliad is fine, but less equal in the translation [than the Odyssey], as
well as less interesting in itself. What is stupidly said of Shakespeare is
really true and appropriate of Chapman: Mighty faults counterpoised by
mighty beauties. . . . It is as truly an original poem as the 'Faerie
Queen'; it will give you small idea of Homer, though a far truer one than
Pope's epigrams, or Cowper's cumbersome, most anti-Homeric Miltonisms.
For Chapman writes and feels as a poet, -as Homer might have written had
he lived in England in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. In short, it is an
exquisite poem in spite of its frequent and perverse quaintnesses and awk-
wardness, which are however amply repaid by almost unexampled sweetness
and beauty of language, all over spirit and feeling. "
Keats's tribute, the sonnet On First Looking into Chapman's
Homer,' attests another poet's appreciation of the Elizabethan's par-
aphrase. Keats diligently explored this "new planet" that swam
into his ken, and his own poetical diction is at times touched by the
quaintness and fancifulness of the elder poet he admired.
Lamb, that most sympathetic critic of the old dramatists, speaks
of him as follows:-
"Webster has happily characterized the 'full and heightened' style of
Chapman, who of all the English play-writers perhaps approaches nearest to
Shakespeare in the descriptive and didactic, in passages which are less purely
dramatic. He could not go out of himself, as Shakespeare could shift at
pleasure, to inform and animate other existences, but in himself he had an
eye to perceive and a soul to embrace all forms and modes of being. He
would have made a great epic poet, if indeed he has not abundantly shown
himself to be one; for his 'Homer is not so properly a translation as the
stories of Achilles and Ulysses rewritten. The earnestness and passion which
he has put into every part of these poems would be incredible to a reader
of more modern translations.
The great obstacle to Chapman's trans-
lations being read is their unconquerable quaintness. He pours out in the
same breath the most just and natural, and the most violent and crude
expressions. He seems to grasp at whatever words come first to hand while
the enthusiasm is upon him, as if all others must be inadequate to the divine
meaning. But passion (the all-in-all in poetry) is everywhere present, raising
the low, dignifying the mean, and putting sense into the absurd. He makes
his readers glow, weep, tremble, take any affection which he pleases, be
moved by words, or in spite of them be disgusted and overcome their dis-
gust. »
## p. 3527 (#505) ###########################################
GEORGE CHAPMAN
3527
ULYSSES AND NAUSICAA
From the Translation of Homer's Odyssey
ST
TRAIGHT rose the lovely Morn, that up did raise
Fair-veil'd Nausicaa, whose dream her praise
To admiration took; who no time spent
To give the rapture of her vision vent
To her loved parents, whom she found within.
Her mother set at fire, who had to spin
A rock, whose tincture with sea-purple shined;
Her maids about her. But she chanced to find
Her father going abroad, to council call'd
By his grave Senate; and to him exhaled
Her smother'd bosom was:- "Loved sire," said she,
"Will you not now command a coach for me,
Stately and complete? fit for me to bear
To wash at flood the weeds I cannot wear
Before re-purified? Yourself it fits
To wear fair weeds, as every man that sits
In place of council. And five sons you have,
Two wed, three bachelors, that must be brave
In every day's shift, that they may go dance;
For these three last with these things must advance
Their states in marriage; and who else but I,
Their sister, should their dancing rites supply? "
This general cause she shew'd, and would not name
Her mind of nuptials to her sire, for shame.
He understood her yet, and thus replied:
"Daughter! nor these, nor any grace beside,
I either will deny thee, or defer,
Mules, nor a coach, of state and circular,
Fitting at all parts. Go; my servants shall
Serve thy desires, and thy command in all. "
The servants then commanded soon obey'd,
Fetch'd coach, and mules join'd in it. Then the Maid
Brought from the chamber her rich weeds, and laid
All up in coach; in which her mother placed
A maund of victuals, varied well in taste,
And other junkets. Wine she likewise fill'd
Within a goat-skin bottle, and distill'd
Sweet and moist oil into a golden cruse,
Both for her daughter's and her handmaid's use,
To soften their bright bodies, when they rose
Cleansed from their cold baths. Up to coach then goes
## p. 3528 (#506) ###########################################
3528
GEORGE CHAPMAN
Th' observed Maid; takes both the scourge and reins;
And to her side her handmaid straight attains.
Nor these alone, but other virgins, graced
The nuptial chariot. The whole bevy placed,
Nausicaa scourged to make the coach-mules run,
That neigh'd, and paced their usual speed, and soon
Both maids and weeds brought to the river-side,
Where baths for all the year their use supplied.
Whose waters were so pure they would not stain,
But still ran fair forth; and did more remain
Apt to purge stains, for that purged stain within,
Which by the water's pure store was not seen.
These, here arrived, the mules uncoach'd, and drave
Up the gulfy river's shore, that gave
Sweet grass to them. The maids from coach then took
Their clothes, and steep'd them in the sable brook;
Then put them into springs, and trod them clean
With cleanly feet; adventuring wagers then,
Who should have soonest and most cleanly done.
When having thoroughly cleansed, they spread them on
The flood's shore, all in order. And then, where
The waves the pebbles wash'd, and ground was clear,
They bathed themselves, and all with glittering oil
Smooth'd their white skins; refreshing then their toil
With pleasant dinner, by the river's side.
Yet still watch'd when the sun their clothes had dried.
Till which time, having dined, Nausicaa
With other virgins did at stool-ball play,
Their shoulder-reaching head-tires laying by.
Nausicaa, with the wrists of ivory,
The liking stroke strook, singing first a song,
As custom order'd, and amidst the throng
Made such a shew, and so past all was seen,
As when the chaste-born, arrow-loving Queen,
Along the mountains gliding, either over
Spartan Taygetus, whose tops far discover,
Or Eurymanthus, in the wild boar's chace,
Or swift-hooved hart, and with her Jove's fair race,
The field Nymphs, sporting; amongst whom, to see
How far Diana had priority
(Though all were fair) for fairness; yet of all,
(As both by head and forehead being more tall)
Latona triumph'd, since the dullest sight
Might easily judge whom her pains brought to light;
## p. 3529 (#507) ###########################################
GEORGE CHAPMAN
3529
Nausicaa so, whom never husband tamed,
Above them all in all the beauties flamed.
But when they now made homewards, and array'd,
Ordering their weeds; disorder'd as they play'd,
Mules and coach ready, then Minerva thought
What means to wake Ulysses might be wrought,
That he might see this lovely-sighted maid,
Whom she intended should become his aid,
Bring him to town, and his return advance.
Her mean was this, though thought a stool-ball chance:
The queen now, for the upstroke, strook the ball
Quite wide off th' other maids, and made it fall
Amidst the whirlpools. At which outshriek'd all,
And with the shrick did wise Ulysses wake;
Who, sitting up, was doubtful who should make
That sudden outery, and in mind thus strived:-
"On what a people am I now arrived?
At civil hospitable men, that fear
The gods? or dwell injurious mortals here,
Unjust and churlish? Like the female cry
Of youth it sounds. What are they? Nymphs bred high
On tops of hills, or in the founts of floods,
In herby marshes, or in leavy woods?
Or are they high-spoke men I now am near?
I'll prove and see. " With this the wary peer
Crept forth the thicket, and an olive bough
Broke with his broad hand; which he did bestow
In covert of his nakedness, and then
Put hasty head out. Look how from his den
A mountain lion looks, that, all embrued
With drops of trees, and weatherbeaten-hued,
Bold of his strength goes on, and in his eye
A burning furnace glows, all bent to prey
On sheep, or oxen, or the upland hart,
His belly charging him, and he must part
Stakes with the herdsman in his beasts' attempt,
Even where from rape their strengths are most exempt:
So wet, so weather-beat, so stung with need,
Even to the home-fields of the country's breed
Ulysses was to force forth his access,
Though merely naked; and his sight did press
The eyes of soft-haired virgins. Horrid was
His rough appearance to them; the hard pass
He had at sea stuck by him. All in flight
The virgins scattered, frighted with this sight,
## p. 3530 (#508) ###########################################
GEORGE CHAPMAN
3530
About the prominent windings of the flood.
All but Nausicaa fled; but she fast stood:
Pallas had put a boldness in her breast,
And in her fair limbs tender fear comprest.
And still she stood him, as resolved to know
What man he was; or out of what should grow
His strange repair to them.
THE DUKE OF BYRON IS CONDEMNED TO DEATH
From the Tragedy of Charles, Duke of Byron›
Y HORROR of death, let me alone in peace,
And leave my soul to me, whom it concerns;
You have no charge of it; I feel her free:
How she doth rouse, and like a falcon stretch
B
Her silver wings; a threatening death with death;
At whom I joyfully will cast her off.
I know this body but a sink of folly,
The groundwork and raised frame of woe and frailty;
The bond and bundle of corruption;
A quick corse, only sensible of grief,
A walking sepulchre, or household thief:
A glass of air, broken with less than breath,
A slave bound face to face to death, till death.
And what said all you more? I know, besides,
That life is but a dark and stormy night
Of senseless dreams, terrors, and broken sleeps;
A tyranny, devising pains to plague
And make man long in dying, racks his death;
And death is nothing: what can you say more?
I bring a long globe and a little earth,
Am seated like earth, betwixt both the heavens,
That if I rise, to heaven I rise; if fall,
I likewise fall to heaven; what stronger faith
Hath any of your souls? what say you more?
Why lose I time in these things? Talk of knowledge,
It serves for inward use. I will not die
Like to a clergyman; but like the captain
That prayed on horseback, and with sword in hand,
Threatened the sun, commanding it to stand;
These are but ropes of sand.
## p. 3531 (#509) ###########################################
3531
FRANÇOIS RENÉ AUGUSTE CHÂTEAUBRIAND
(1768-1848)
ISCOUNT
V
DE CHÂTEAUBRIAND, the founder of the romantic
school in French literature, and one of the most brilliant
and polished writers of the first half of the nineteenth cen-
tury, was born at St. Malo in Brittany, September 14th, 1768. On the
paternal side he was a direct descendant of Thierri, grandson of
Alain III. , who was king of Armorica in the ninth century. Destined
for the Church, he became a pronounced skeptic, and entered the
army. In his nineteenth year he was presented at court, and became
acquainted with men of letters like La
Harpe, Le Brun, and Fontanes. At the
outbreak of the Revolution he quitted the
service, and embarked for America in Jan-
uary, 1791. Tiring of the restraints of
civilization, he plunged into the virgin
forests of Canada, and for several months
lived with the savages. This remarkable
experience inspired his most notable ro-
mantic work.
CHÂTEAUBRIAND
Returning to France in 1792, he cast his
lot with the Royalists, was wounded at
Thionville, and finally retired to England,
where for eight years he earned a bare sup-
port by teaching and translating. His first book was the 'Essay on
Revolutions (1797), which displayed some imagination, little reflec-
tion, and an affectation of misanthropy and skepticism. The subse-
quent change in his convictions followed on the death of his pious
mother in 1798. Returning to France he published Atala,' an idyll
à la mode, founded on the loves of two young savages. Teeming
with glowing descriptions of nature, and marked by elevation of
sentiment combined with a sensuousness almost Oriental, this barbaric
'Paul and Virginia' immediately established the author's fame.
Thus encouraged, in the following year he gave the world his
'Genius of Christianity,' in which the poetic and symbolic features of
Christianity are painted in dazzling colors and with great charm of
style. The enormous success of this book during the first decade of
the century unquestionably did more to revive French interest in
religion than the establishment of the Concordat itself. Napoleon
## p. 3532 (#510) ###########################################
3532
FRANÇOIS RENE AUGUSTE CHÂTEAUBRIAND
testified his gratitude by appointing the author secretary to the em-
bassy at Rome, and afterward minister plenipotentiary to the Valais.
When the Duke d'Enghien was assassinated (March 21st, 1804), Châ-
teaubriand resigned from the diplomatic service, although the ink
was scarcely dry in which the First Consul had signed his new com-
mission. Two years later the successful author departed on a senti-
mental pilgrimage to the Holy Land. He visited Asia Minor, Egypt,
and Spain, where amid the ruins of the Alhambra he wrote The
Last of the Abencerrages. To this interesting tour the world owes
the 'Itinerary from Paris to Jerusalem' (1811), that book which in
Saintsbury's opinion remains "the pattern of all the picturesque
travels of modern times. "
With the publication of the 'Itinerary the literary career of
Châteaubriand virtually closes. On the return of the Bourbons to
power, the man of letters was tempted to enter the exciting arena
of politics, becoming successively ambassador at Berlin, at the court
of St. James, delegate to the Congress of Verona, and Minister of
Foreign Affairs. In 1830, unwilling to pledge himself to Louis
Philippe, he relinquished the dignity of peer of the realm accorded
him in 1815, and retired to a life of comparative poverty, which was
brightened by the friendship and devotion of Madame Récamier.
Until his death on the 4th of July, 1848, Châteaubriand devoted
himself to the completion of his Mémoires d'Outre-Tombe,' an auto-
biographical work which was published posthumously, and which,
although diffuse and even puerile at times, contains much brilliant
writing.
His contemporaries pronounced Châteaubriand the foremost man
of letters of France, if not of all Europe. During the last half of
this century his fame has sensibly diminished both at home and
abroad, and in the history of French literature he is chiefly signifi-
cant as marking the transition from the old classical to the modern
romantic school. Yet while admitting the glaring faults, exaggera-
tions, affectations, and egotism of the author of the Genius of
Christianity, a fair criticism admits his best passages to be unsur-
passed for perfection of style and gorgeousness of coloring. 'Atala'
is a classic with real life in it even yet,-powerful, interesting, and
even thrilling, in spite of its theatricality, and often magnificent in
description.
In 1811 Châteaubriand was elected to the French Academy as
the successor of the poet Chénier. Among his works not already
mentioned are ‘René' (1807), a sort of sequel to 'Atala'; 'The Mar-
tyrs' (1810); 'The Natchez' (1826), containing recollections of Amer-
ica; an Essay on English Literature' (2 vols. ); and a translation of
Milton's 'Paradise Lost' (1836).
## p. 3533 (#511) ###########################################
FRANÇOIS RENÉ AUGUSTE CHÂTEAUBRIAND
3533
CHRISTIANITY VINDICATED
From The Genius of Christianity›
D
URING the reign of the Emperor Julian commenced a perse-
cution, perhaps more dangerous than violence itself, which
consisted in loading the Christians with disgrace and con-
tempt. Julian began his hostility by plundering the churches;
he then forbade the faithful to teach or to study the liberal arts
and sciences. Sensible, however, of the important advantages of
the institutions of Christianity, the emperor determined to estab-
lish hospitals and monasteries, and after the example of the
gospel system to combine morality with religion; he ordered a
kind of sermons to be delivered in the pagan temples.
From the time of Julian to that of Luther, the Church, flour-
ishing in full vigor, had no occasion for apologists; but when
the Western schism took place, with new enemies arose new
defenders. It cannot be denied that at first the Protestants had
the superiority, at least in regard to forms, as Montesquieu has
remarked. Erasmus himself was weak when opposed to Luther,
and Theodore Beza had a captivating manner of writing, in
which his opponents were too often deficient.
It is natural for schism to lead to infidelity, and for heresy to
engender atheism. Bayle and Spinoza arose after Calvin, and
they found in Clarke and Leibnitz men of sufficient talents to
refute their sophistry. Abbadie wrote an apology for religion,
remarkable for method and sound argument. Unfortunately his
style is feeble, though his ideas are not destitute of brilliancy.
"If the ancient philosophers," observes Abbadie, "adored the
Virtues, their worship was only a beautiful species of idolatry. "
While the Church was yet enjoying her triumph, Voltaire
renewed the persecution of Julian. He possessed the baneful
art of making infidelity fashionable among a capricious but
amiable people. Every species of self-love was pressed into this
insensate league. Religion was attacked with every kind of
weapon, from the pamphlet to the folio, from the epigram to the
sophism. No sooner did a religious book appear than the author
was overwhelmed with ridicule, while works which Voltaire was
the first to laugh at among his friends were extolled to the
skies. Such was his superiority over his disciples that he some-
times could not forbear diverting himself with their irreligious
## p. 3534 (#512) ###########################################
3534
FRANÇOIS RENÉ AUGUSTE CHÂTEAUBRIAND
enthusiasm. Meanwhile the destructive system continued to
spread throughout France. It was first adopted in those provin-
cial academies, each of which was a focus of bad taste and fac-
tion. Women of fashion and grave philosophers alike read
lectures on infidelity. It was at length concluded that Christ-
ianity was no better than a barbarous system, and that its fall
could not happen too soon for the liberty of mankind, the promo-
tion of knowledge, the improvement of the arts, and the general
comfort of life.
If no
To say nothing of the abyss into which we were plunged by
this aversion to the religion of the gospel, its immediate conse-
quence was a return, more affected than sincere, to that mythol-
ogy of Greece and Rome to which all the wonders of antiquity
were ascribed. People were not ashamed to regret that worship
which had transformed mankind into a herd of madmen, mon-
sters of indecency, or ferocious beasts. This could not fail to
inspire contempt for the writers of the age of Louis XIV. , who
however had reached the high perfection which distinguished
them only by being religious.
one ventured to oppose
them face to face, on account of their firmly established reputa-
tion, they were nevertheless attacked in a thousand indirect
ways. It was asserted that they were unbelievers in their hearts;
or at least that they would have been much greater characters
had they lived in our times. Every author blessed his good
fortune for having been born in the glorious age of the Diderots
and d'Alemberts, in that age when all the attainments of the
human mind were ranged in alphabetical order in the Encyclo-
pédie,' that Babel of the sciences and of reason.
It was therefore necessary to prove that on the contrary the
Christian religion, of all the religions that ever existed, is the
most humane, the most favorable to liberty and to the arts and
sciences; that the modern world is indebted to it for every
improvement from agriculture to the abstract sciences, from the
hospitals for the reception of the unfortunate to the temples
reared by the Michael Angelos and embellished by the Raphaels.
It was necessary to prove that nothing is more divine than its
morality, nothing more lovely and more sublime than its tenets,
its doctrine, and its worship; that it encourages genius, corrects
the taste, develops the virtuous passions, imparts energy to the
ideas, presents noble images to the writer, and perfect models.
to the artist; that there is no disgrace in being believers with
•
## p. 3535 (#513) ###########################################
FRANÇOIS RENÉ AUGUSTE CHÂTEAUBRIAND
3535
Newton and Bossuet, with Pascal and Racine. In a word, it was
necessary to summon all the charms of the imagination and all
the interests of the heart to the assistance of that religion
against which they had been set in array.
The reader may now have a clear view of the object of our
work. All other kinds of apologies are exhausted, and perhaps
they would be useless at the present day. Who would now sit
down to read a work professedly theological? Possibly a few
sincere Christians who are already convinced. But, it may be
asked, May there not be some danger in considering religion in
a merely human point of view? Why so? Does our religion
shrink from the light? Surely one great proof of its divine
origin is, that it will bear the test of the fullest and severest
scrutiny of reason. Would you have us always open to the
reproach of enveloping our tenets in sacred obscurity, lest their
falsehood should be detected? Will Christianity be the less true
for appearing the more beautiful? Let us banish our weak
apprehensions; let us not, by an excess of religion, leave religion
to perish. We no longer live in those times when you might
say, "Believe without inquiring. " People will inquire in spite
of us; and our timid silence, in heightening the triumph of the
infidel, will diminish the number of believers.
It is time that the world should know to what all those
charges of absurdity, vulgarity, and meanness, that are daily
alleged against Christianity, may be reduced. It is time to
demonstrate that instead of debasing the ideas, it encourages
the soul to take the most daring flights, and is capable of
enchanting the imagination as divinely as the deities of Homer
and Virgil. Our arguments will at least have this advantage,
that they will be intelligible to the world at large and will
require nothing but common-sense to determine their weight and
strength. In works of this kind authors neglect, perhaps rather
too much, to speak the language of their readers. It is neces-
sary to be a scholar with a scholar, and a poet with a poet. The
Almighty does not forbid us to tread the flowery path, if it
serves to lead the wanderer once more to him; nor is it always
by the steep and rugged mountain that the lost sheep finds its
way back to the fold.
We think that this mode of considering Christianity displays
associations of ideas which are but imperfectly known.
not, however, be accomplished everywhere; for instance, over the
broad street I must next take-actually, as mischief would have
## p. 3512 (#490) ###########################################
3512
ADELBERT VON CHAMISSO
it, at the very moment the boys came out of school. A cursed
hunchbacked rogue-I see him yet-spied out instantly that
I had no shadow. He proclaimed the fact with a loud outcry
to the whole assembled literary street youth of the suburb,
who began forthwith to criticize me and to pelt me with mud.
"Decent people are accustomed to take their shadow with them
when they go into the sunshine. " To defend myself from them
I threw whole handfuls of gold amongst them, and sprang into
a hackney coach which some compassionate soul procured for me.
As soon as I found myself alone in the rolling carriage, I
began to weep bitterly. The presentiment must already have
arisen in me that on earth, far as gold transcends merit and vir-
tue in estimation, so much higher than gold itself is the shadow
valued; and as I had earlier sacrificed wealth to conscience, I
had now thrown away the shadow for mere gold. What in the
world could and would become of me!
FROM WOMAN'S LOVE AND LIFE'
HOU ring upon my finger,
My little golden ring,
Against my fond bosom I press thee,
And to thee my fond lips cling.
THOU
Τ
My girlhood's dream was ended,
Its peaceful, innocent grace,
Forlorn I woke, and so lonely,
In desolate infinite space.
Thou ring upon my finger,
Thou bringest me peace on earth,
And thou my eyes hast opened
To womanhood's infinite worth.
I'll love and serve him forever,
And live for him alone;
I'll give him my life, but to find it
Transfigured in his own.
Thou ring upon my finger,
My little golden ring,
Against my fond bosom I press thee,
And to thee my fond lips cling.
Translation of Charles Harvey Genung.
## p. 3513 (#491) ###########################################
3513
WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING
(1780-1842)
D
R. CHANNING, the recognized leader although not the origi-
nator of the Unitarian movement in this country, was a
man of singular spirituality, sweetness of disposition, purity
of life, and nobility of character. He was thought by some to be
austere and cold in temperament, and timid in action; but this was
rather a misconception of a life given to conscientious study, and an
effort to allow due weight to opposing arguments. He was not liable
to be swept from his moorings by momentary enthusiasm.
As a
writer he was clear and direct, admirably
perspicuous in style, without great orna-
ment, much addicted to short and simple
sentences, though singularly enough an
admirer of those which were long and
involved. A critic in Fraser's Magazine
wrote of him:-"Channing is unquestion-
ably the first writer of the age. From his
writings may be extracted some of the
richest poetry and richest conceptions,
clothed in language-unfortunately for our
literature-too little studied in the day in
which we live. "
He was of "blue blood," - the grand- WILLIAM E. CHANNING
son of William Ellery, one of the signers
of the Declaration,- and was born at Newport, Rhode Island, April
7th, 1780. He was graduated at Harvard College with high honors in
1798, and first thought of studying medicine, but was inclined to the
direction of the ministry. He became a private tutor in Richmond,
Virginia, where he learned to detest slavery. Here he laid the seeds
of subsequent physical troubles by imprudent indulgence in asceti-
cism, in a desire to avoid effeminacy. He entered upon the study of
theology, which he continued in Cambridge; he was ordained in
1803, and soon became pastor of the Federal Street Church in Bos-
ton, in charge of which society he passed his ministerial life. In
the following year he was associated with Buckminster and others
in the liberal Congregational movement, and this led him into a posi-
tion of controversy with his orthodox brethren,-one he cordially
disliked. But he could not refrain from preaching the doctrines of
the dignity of human nature, the supremacy of reason, and religious
freedom, of whose truth he was profoundly assured.
## p. 3514 (#492) ###########################################
3514
WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING
It has been truly said that Channing was too much a lover of
free thought, and too desirous to hold only what he thought to be
true, to allow himself to be bound by any party ties. "I wish," he
himself said, "to regard myself as belonging not to a sect but to the
community of free minds, of lovers of truth and followers of Christ,
both on earth and in heaven. I desire to escape the narrow walls of
a particular church, and to stand under the open sky in the broad
light, looking far and wide, seeing with my own eyes, hearing with
my own ears, and following Truth meekly but resolutely, however
arduous or solitary be the path in which she leads. "
He was greatly interested in temperance, in the anti-slavery
movement, in the elevation of the laboring classes, and other social
reforms; and after 1824, when Dr. Gannett became associate pastor,
he gave much time to work in these directions. His death occurred
at Bennington, Vermont, April 2d, 1842. His literary achievements
are mainly or wholly in the line of his work,- sermons, addresses,
and essays; but they were prepared with scrupulous care, and have
the quality naturally to be expected from a man of broad and cath-
olic spirit, wide interests, and strong love of literature. His works,
in six volumes, are issued by the American Unitarian Association,
which also publishes a 'Memorial' by his nephew, William Henry
Channing, in three volumes.
THE PASSION FOR POWER
From The Life and Character of Napoleon Bonaparte'
is
HE passion for ruling, though most completely developed in
to no forms of government. It is
the chief peril of free States, the natural enemy of free
institutions. It agitates our own country, and still throws an
uncertainty over the great experiment we are making here in
behalf of liberty.
It is the distinction of republican
institutions, that whilst they compel the passion for power to
moderate its pretensions, and to satisfy itself with more limited
gratifications, they tend to spread it more widely through the
community, and to make it a universal principle. The doors of
office being opened to all, crowds burn to rush in. A thousand
hands are stretched out to grasp the reins which are denied to
none. Perhaps in this boasted and boasting land of liberty, not
a few, if called to state the chief good of a republic, would
place it in this: that every man is eligible to every office, and
## p. 3515 (#493) ###########################################
WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING
3515
that the highest places of power and trust are prizes for univer-
sal competition. The superiority attributed by many to our
institutions is, not that they secure the greatest freedom, but give
every man
chance of ruling; not that they reduce the power
of government within the narrowest limits which the safety of
the State admits, but throw it into as many hands as possible.
The despot's great crime is thought to be that he keeps the
delight of dominion to himself, that he makes a monopoly of it;
whilst our more generous institutions, by breaking it into parcels
and inviting the multitude to scramble for it, spread this joy
more widely. The result is that political ambition infects our
country and generates a feverish restlessness and discontent,
which to the monarchist may seem more than a balance for our
forms of liberty. The spirit of intrigue, which in absolute gov-
ernments is confined to courts, walks abroad through the land;
and as individuals can accomplish no political purposes single-
handed, they band themselves into parties, ostensibly framed for
public ends, but aiming only at the acquisition of power. The
nominal sovereign,- that is, the people,-like all other sov-
ereigns, is courted and flattered and told that it can do no wrong.
Its pride is pampered, its passions inflamed, its prejudices made
inveterate. Such are the processes by which other republics have
been subverted, and he must be blind who cannot trace them
among ourselves. We mean not to exaggerate our dangers. We
rejoice to know that the improvements of society oppose many
checks to the love of power. But every wise man who sees its
workings must dread it as one chief foe.
This passion derives strength and vehemence in our country
from the common idea that political power is the highest prize
which society has to offer. We know not a more general delu-
sion, nor is it the least dangerous. Instilled as it is in our
youth, it gives infinite excitement to political ambition. It turns
the active talents of the country to public station as the supreme
good, and makes it restless, intriguing, and unprincipled. It
calls out hosts of selfish competitors for comparatively few
places, and encourages a bold, unblushing pursuit of personal
elevation, which a just moral sense and self-respect in the com-
munity would frown upon and cover with shame.
## p. 3516 (#494) ###########################################
3516
WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING
THE CAUSES OF WAR
From a Discourse delivered before the Congregational ministers of
Massachusetts >
ONE
NE of the great springs of war may be found in a very
strong and general propensity of human nature-in the
love of excitement, of emotion, of strong interest; a pro-
pensity which gives a charm to those bold and hazardous enter-
prises which call forth all the energies of our nature. No state
of mind, not even positive suffering, is more painful than the
want of interesting objects. The vacant soul preys on itself, and
often rushes with impatience from the security which demands
no effort, to the brink of peril. This part of human nature is
seen in the kind of pleasures which have always been preferred.
Why has the first rank among sports been given to the chase?
Because its difficulties, hardships, hazards, tumults, awaken the
mind, and give to it a new consciousness of existence, and a
deep feeling of its powers. What is the charm which attaches
the statesman to an office which almost weighs him down with
labor and an appalling responsibility? He finds much of his
compensation in the powerful emotion and interest awakened by
the very hardships of his lot, by conflict with vigorous minds,
by the opposition of rivals, by the alternations of success and
defeat. What hurries to the gaming tables the man of prosper-
ous fortune and ample resources The dread of apathy, the
love of strong feeling and of mental agitation. A deeper inter-
est is felt in hazarding than in securing wealth, and the tempta-
tion is irresistible.
Another powerful principle of our
nature which is the spring of war, is the passion for superiority,
for triumph, for power. The human mind is aspiring, impatient
of inferiority, and eager for control. I need not enlarge on the
predominance of this passion in rulers, whose love of power is
influenced by its possession, and who are ever restless to extend
their sway.
It is more important to observe that were this de-
sire restrained to the breasts of rulers, war would move with a
sluggish pace. But the passion for power and superiority is uni-
versal; and as every individual, from his intimate union with
the community, is accustomed to appropriate its triumphs to
himself, there is a general promptness to engage in any contest
by which the community may obtain an ascendency over other
·
## p. 3517 (#495) ###########################################
WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING
3517
nations. The desire that our country should surpass all others
would not be criminal, did we understand in what respects it is
most honorable for a nation to excel; did we feel that the glory
of a State consists in intellectual and moral superiority, in pre-
eminence of knowledge, freedom and purity. But to the mass
of the people this form of pre-eminence is too refined and un-
substantial. There is another kind of triumph which they better
understand: the triumph of physical power, triumph in battle,
triumph not over the minds but the territory of another State.
Here is a palpable, visible superiority; and for this a people are
willing to submit to severe privations. A victory blots out the
memory of their sufferings, and in boasting of their extended
power they find a compensation for many woes.
An-
other powerful spring of war is the admiration of the brilliant
qualities displayed in war. Many delight in war, not for its
carnage and woes, but for its valor and apparent magnanimity,
for the self-command of the hero, the fortitude which despises
suffering, the resolution which courts danger, the superiority of
the mind to the body, to sensation, to fear. Men seldom delight
in war, considered merely as a source of misery. When they
hear of battles, the picture which rises to their view is not
what it should be-a picture of extreme wretchedness, of the
wounded, the mangled, the slain; these horrors are hidden under
the splendor of those mighty energies which break forth amidst
the perils of conflict, and which human nature contemplates with
an intense and heart-thrilling delight. Whilst the peaceful sov-
ereign who scatters blessings with the silence and constancy of
Providence is received with a faint applause, men assemble in
crowds to hail the conqueror,—perhaps a monster in human form,
whose private life is blackened with lust and crime, and whose
greatness is built on perfidy and usurpation. Thus war is the
surest and speediest way to renown; and war will never cease
while the field of battle is the field of glory, and the most lux-
uriant laurels grow from a root nourished with blood.
## p. 3518 (#496) ###########################################
3518
WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING
SPIRITUAL FREEDOM
From the Discourse on Spiritual Freedom,' 1830
I
CONSIDER the freedom or moral strength of the individual
mind as the supreme good, and the highest end of govern-
ment.
I am aware that other views are often taken. It is
said that government is intended for the public, for the commu-
nity, not for the individual. The idea of a national interest
prevails in the minds of statesmen, and to this it is thought that
the individual may be sacrificed. But I would maintain that the
individual is not made for the State so much as the State for
the individual. A man is not created for political relations as
his highest end, but for indefinite spiritual progress, and is
placed in political relations as the means of his progress. The
human soul is greater, more sacred than the State, and must
never be sacrificed to it. The human soul is to outlive all
earthly institutions. The distinction of nations is to pass away.
Thrones which have stood for ages are to meet the doom pro-
nounced upon all man's works. But the individual mind sur-
vives, and the obscurest subject, if true to God, will rise to
power never wielded by earthly potentates.
A human being is a member of the community, not as a
limb is a member of the body, or as a wheel is a part of a
machine, intended only to contribute to some general joint
result. He was created not to be merged in the whole, as a
drop in the ocean or as a particle of sand on the seashore, and
to aid only in composing a mass. He is an ultimate being,
made for his own perfection as his highest end; made to main-
tain an individual existence, and to serve others only as far as
consists with his own virtue and progress. Hitherto governments
have tended greatly to obscure this importance of the individual,
to depress him in his own eyes, to give him the idea of an out-
ward interest more important than the invisible soul, and of an
outward authority more sacred than the voice of God in his own
secret conscience. Rulers have called the private man the prop-
erty of the State, meaning generally by the State themselves;
and thus the many have been immolated to the few, and have
even believed that this was their highest destination. These
views cannot be too earnestly withstood. Nothing seems to me
so needful as to give to the mind the consciousness, which gov-
ernments have done so much to suppress, of its own separate
## p. 3519 (#497) ###########################################
WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING
3519
worth. Let the individual feel that through his immortality he
may concentrate in his own being a greater good than that of
nations. Let him feel that he is placed in the community, not
to part with his individuality or to become a tool, but that he
should find a sphere for his various powers, and a preparation
for immortal glory. To me the progress of society consists in
nothing more than in bringing out the individual, in giving him.
a consciousness of his own being, and in quickening him to
strengthen and elevate his own mind.
In thus maintaining that the individual is the end of social
institutions, I may be thought to discourage public efforts and
the sacrifice of private interests to the State. Far from it. No
man, I affirm, will serve his fellow-beings so effectually, so fer-
vently, as he who is not their slave; as he who, casting off every
other yoke, subjects himself to the law of duty in his own mind.
For this law enjoins a disinterested and generous spirit, as man's
glory and likeness to his Maker. Individuality, or moral self-
subsistence, is the surest foundation of an all-comprehending love.
No man so multiplies his bonds with the community, as he who
watches most jealously over his own perfection. There is a beau-
tiful harmony between the good of the State and the moral free-
dom and dignity of the individual. Were it not so, were these
interests in any case discordant, were an individual ever called
to serve his country by acts debasing his own mind, he ought
not to waver a moment as to the good which he should prefer.
Property, life, he should joyfully surrender to the State. But his
soul he must never stain or enslave. From poverty, pain, the
rack, the gibbet, he should not recoil; but for no good of others
ought he to part with self-control, or violate the inward law.
We speak of the patriot as sacrificing himself to the public weal.
Do we mean that he sacrifices what is most properly himself,
the principle of piety and virtue? Do we not feel that however
great may be the good which through his sufferings accrues to
the State, a greater and purer glory redounds to himself; and
that the most precious fruit of his disinterested services is the
strength of resolution and philanthropy which is accumulated in
his own soul? .
The advantages of civilization have their peril. In such a
state of society, opinion and law impose salutary restraint, and
produce general order and security. But the power of opinion
grows into a despotism, which more than all things represses
## p. 3520 (#498) ###########################################
3520
WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING
original and free thought, subverts individuality of character, re-
duces the community to a spiritless monotony, and chills the
love of perfection. Religion, considered simply as the principle
which balances the power of human opinion, which takes man
out of the grasp of custom and fashion, and teaches him to refer
himself to a higher tribunal, is an infinite aid to moral strength
and elevation.
An important benefit of civilization, of which we hear much
from the political economist, is the division of labor, by which
arts are perfected. But this, by confining the mind to an
unceasing round of petty operations, tends to break it into little-
ness. We possess improved fabrics, but deteriorated men.
Another advantage of civilization is, that manners are refined
and accomplishments multiplied; but these are continually seen
to supplant simplicity of character, strength of feeling, the love
of nature, the love of inward beauty and glory. Under outward
courtesy we see a cold selfishness, a spirit of calculation, and
little energy of love.
I confess I look round on civilized society with many fears,
and with more and more earnest desire that a regenerating spirit
from heaven, from religion, may descend upon and pervade it.
I particularly fear that various causes are acting powerfully
among ourselves, to inflame and madden that enslaving and
degrading principle, the passion for property. For example, the
absence of hereditary distinctions in our country gives prominence
to the distinction of wealth, and holds up this as the chief prize
to ambition. Add to this the epicurean, self-indulgent habits
which our prosperity has multiplied, and which crave insatiably
for enlarging wealth as the only means of gratification. This
peril is increased by the spirit of our times, which is a spirit of
commerce, industry, internal improvements, mechanical invention,
political economy, and peace. Think not that I would disparage
commerce, mechanical skill, and especially pacific connections
among States.
But there is danger that these blessings may by
perversion issue in a slavish love of lucre. It seems to me that
some of the objects which once moved men most powerfully are
gradually losing their sway, and thus the mind is left more open
to the excitement of wealth. For example, military distinction is
taking the inferior place which it deserves: and the consequence
will be that the energy and ambition which have been exhausted
in war will seek new directions; and happy shall we be if they
## p. 3521 (#499) ###########################################
WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING
3521
"
do not flow into the channel of gain. So I think that political
eminence is to be less and less coveted; and there is danger that
the energies absorbed by it will be spent in seeking another
kind of dominion, the dominion of property. And if such be the
result, what shall we gain by what is called the progress of
society? What shall we gain by national peace, if men, instead
of meeting on the field of battle, wage with one another the
more inglorious strife of dishonest and rapacious traffic? What
shall we gain by the waning of political ambition, if the intrigues
of the exchange take place of those of the cabinet, and private
pomp and luxury be substituted for the splendor of public life?
I am no foe to civilization. I rejoice in its progress. But I
mean to say that without a pure religion to modify its tendencies,
to inspire and refine it, we shall be corrupted, not ennobled by
it. It is the excellence of the religious principle, that it aids
and carries forward civilization, extends science and arts, multi-
plies the conveniences and ornaments of life, and at the same
time spoils them of their enslaving power, and even converts
them into means and ministers of that spiritual freedom which
when left to themselves they endanger and destroy.
In order, however, that religion should yield its full and best
fruit, one thing is necessary; and the times require that I should
state it with great distinctness. It is necessary that religion
should be held and professed in a liberal spirit. Just as far as
it assumes an intolerant, exclusive, sectarian form, it subverts
instead of strengthening the soul's freedom, and becomes the
heaviest and most galling yoke which is laid on the intellect and
conscience. Religion must be viewed, not as a monopoly of
priests, ministers, or sects, not as conferring on any man a right
to dictate to his fellow-beings, not as an instrument by which
the few may awe the many, not as bestowing on one a preroga-
tive which is not enjoyed by all; but as the property of every
human being and as the great subject for every human mind.
It must be regarded as the revelation of a common Father to
whom all have equal access, who invites all to the like immedi-
ate communion, who has no favorites, who has appointed no
infallible expounders of his will, who opens his works and word
to every eye, and calls upon all to read for themselves, and to
follow fearlessly the best convictions of their own understandings.
Let religion be seized on by individuals or sects, as their spe-
cial province; let them clothe themselves with God's prerogative
VI-221
## p. 3522 (#500) ###########################################
3522
WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING
of judgment; let them succeed in enforcing their creed by penal-
ties of law, or penalties of opinion; let them succeed in fixing a
brand on virtuous men whose only crime is free investigation –
and religion becomes the most blighting tyranny which can
establish itself over the mind. You have all heard of the out-
ward evils which religion, when thus turned into tyranny, has
inflicted; how it has dug dreary dungeons, kindled fires for the
martyr, and invented instruments of exquisite torture. But to
me all this is less fearful than its influence over the mind.
When I see the superstitions which it has fastened on the con-
science, the spiritual terrors with which it has haunted and
subdued the ignorant and susceptible, the dark appalling views
of God which it has spread far and wide, the dread of inquiry
which it has struck into superior understandings, and the servil-
ity of spirit which it has made to pass for piety-when I see
all this, the fire, the scaffold, and the outward inquisition, terri-
ble as they are, seem to me inferior evils. I look with a solemn
joy on the heroic spirits who have met, freely and fearlessly, pain
and death in the cause of truth and human rights. But there
are other victims of intolerance on whom I look with unmixed
sorrow. They are those who, spell-bound by early prejudice or
by intimidations from the pulpit and the press, dare not think;
who anxiously stifle every doubt or misgiving in regard to their
opinions, as if to doubt were a crime; who shrink from the
seekers after truth as from infection; who deny all virtue which
does not wear the livery of their own sect; who, surrendering to
others their best powers, receive unresistingly a teaching which
wars against reason and conscience; and who think it a merit to
impose on such as live within their influence, the grievous
bondage which they bear themselves. How much to be deplored
is it, that religion, the very principle which is designed to raise
men above the judgment and power of man, should become the
chief instrument of usurpation over the soul!
## p. 3523 (#501) ###########################################
3523
GEORGE CHAPMAN
(1559? -1634)
EORGE CHAPMAN, the translator of Homer, is of all the Eliza-
bethan dramatists the most undramatic. He is akin to
Marlowe in being more of an epic poet than a playwright;
but unlike his young compeer "of the mighty line," who in his suc-
cessive plays learnt how to subdue an essentially epic genius to the
demands of the stage, Chapman never got near the true secret of
dramatic composition. Yet he witnessed the growth of the glorious
Elizabethan drama, from its feeble beginning in Gorboduc' and
'Gammer Gurton's Needle' through its
very flowering in the immortal master-
pieces. He was born about 1559, five years
before Marlowe, the "morning star" of the
English drama, and he died in 1634, sur-
viving Shakespeare, in whom it reached its
maturity, and Beaumont, Middleton, and
Fletcher, whose works foreshadow decay.
From his native town Hitchin he passed
on to Oxford, where he distinguished him-
self as a classical scholar. Then for six-
teen years nothing definite is known about
him. His life has been called one of the
great blanks of English literature. He is
sometimes sent traveling on the Continent,
as a convenient means of accounting for this gap, and also to explain
the intimate acquaintance with German manners and customs and
the language displayed in his tragedy Alphonsus, Emperor of Ger-
many,' which argues at least for a trip to that country. In 1594 he
published the two hymns in the Shadow of Night'; and soon after
he must have begun writing for the stage, for his first extant
comedy, 'The Blind Beggar of Alexandria,' was acted in 1596, and
two years later he appears in Francis Meres's famous enumeration of
the poets and wits of the time. Hereafter his life is to be dated by
his publications.
GEORGE CHAPMAN
He occupies a position unique among the Elizabethans, because
of his wide culture and the diverse character of his work. Though
held together by his strong personality, it yet can be divided into
the distinct groups of comedies, tragedies, poems, and translations.
## p. 3524 (#502) ###########################################
GEORGE CHAPMAN
3524
>>
The first of these is the weakest, for Chapman was not a comic
genius. The Blind Beggar of Alexandria' and 'An Humorous Day's
Mirth deserve but a passing mention. In 1605 All Fooles' was
published, acted six years earlier under the name The World
Runs on Wheels. ' It is a realistic satire, with some good scenes and
character-drawing. 'The Gentleman Usher' is full of poetry and
ingenious situations. 'Monsieur D'Oline' contains also some good
comedy work. The Widow's Tears' tells the well-known story of
the Ephesian matron; though coarse, it is handled not without comic
talent. In his comedy work Chapman is neither new nor original;
he followed in Jonson's footsteps, and suggests moreover Terence,
Plautus, Fletcher, and Lyly. He has wit, satire, and sarcasm; but
along with these, poor construction and little invention. He was
going against his grain, and we have here the frankest expression of
"pot-boiling to be found among the Elizabethan dramatists. Writing
for the stage was the only kind of literature that really paid; the
playhouse was to the Elizabethan what the paper-covered novel is to
a modern reader. This accounts for the enormous dramatic produc-
tivity of the time, and also explains why the most finely endowed
minds, in need of money, produced dramas instead of other imagi-
native work. By the time he wrote his comedies, Chapman had
already won his place as poet and translator, but it earned him no
income.
Pope, one hundred and twenty-five years later, made a for-
tune by his translation of Homer. But then the number of readers
had increased, and publishers could afford to give large sums to a
popular author. Chapman takes rank among the dramatists mainly
by his four chief tragedies: 'Bussy d'Ambois,' 'The Revenge of
Bussy d'Ambois,' The Conspiracy of Charles, Duke of Byron,' and
The Tragedy of Charles, Duke of Byron. ' They are unique among
the plays of the period, in that they deal with almost contemporary
events in French history; not with the purpose of exciting any feel-
ing for or against the parties introduced, but in calm ignoring of
public opinion, they bring recent happenings on the stage to suit the
dramatist's purpose. He drew his material mainly from the Historiæ
Sui Temporis' of Jacques Auguste de Thou, but he troubled him-
self little about following it with accuracy, or even painting the
characters of the chief actors as true to life. In these tragedies,
more than in the comedies, we get sight of Chapman the man;
indeed, it is his great failing as playwright that his own individuality
is constantly cropping out. He alone, of all the great Elizabethan
dramatists, was unable to go outside of himself and enter into the
habits and thoughts of his characters. Chapman was too much of a
scholar and a thinker to be a successful delineator of men. His is the
drama of the man who thinks about life, not of one who lives it in
## p. 3525 (#503) ###########################################
GEORGE CHAPMAN
3525
its fullness.
He does not get into the hearts of men. He has too
many theories. Homer had become the ruling influence in his life,
and he looked at things from the Homeric point of view and presented
life epically. He is at his best in single didactic or narrative pas-
sages, and exquisite bits of poetry are prodigally scattered up and
down the pages of his tragedies. Next to Shakespeare he is the
most sententious of dramatists. He sounded the depths of things in
thought which theretofore only Marlowe had done. He is the most
metaphysical of dramatists.
Yet his thought is sometimes too much for him, and he becomes
obscure. He packs words as tight as Browning, and the sense is
often more difficult to unravel. He is best in the closet drama.
'Cæsar and Pompey,' published in 1631 but never acted, contains
some of his finest thoughts.
Chapman also collaborated with other dramatists. 'Eastward Ho,'
in 1605, written with Marston and Jonson, is one of the liveliest and
best constructed Elizabethan comedies, combining the excellences of
the three men without their faults. Some allusion to the Scottish
nation offended King James; the authors we confined in Fleet
Prison and barely escaped having their ears and noses slit. With
Shirley he wrote the comedy The Ball' and the tragedy 'Chabot,
Admiral of France. '
Chapman wrote comedies to make money, and tragedies because
it was the fashion of the day, and he studded these latter with
exquisite passages because he was a poet born. But he was above
all a scholar with wide and deep learning, not only of the classics
but also of the Renaissance literature. From 1613 to 1631 he does
not appear to have written for the stage, but was occupied with his
translations of Homer, Hesiod, Juvenal, Musæus, Petrarch, and others.
In 1614, at the marriage of the Princess Elizabeth, was performed
in the most lavish manner the 'Memorable Masque of the two Hon-
orable Houses or Inns of Court; the Middle Temple and Lyncoln
Inne. ' Chapman also completed Marlowe's unfinished 'Hero and
Leander. '
His fame however rests on his version of Homer. The first
portion appeared in 1598: 'Seven Bookes of the Iliade of Homer,
Prince of Poets; Translated according to the Greeke in judgment of
his best Commentaries. ' In 1611 the Iliad complete appeared, and
in 1615 the whole of the Odyssey; though he by no means reproduces
Homer faithfully, he approaches nearest to the original in spirit and
grandeur. It is a typical product of the English Renaissance, full of
vigor and passion, but also of conceit and fancifulness. It lacks the
simplicity and the serenity of the Greek, but has caught its noble-
ness and rapidity. As has been said, "It is what Homer might have
## p. 3526 (#504) ###########################################
3526
GEORGE CHAPMAN
written before he came to years of discretion. " Yet with all its
shortcomings it remains one of the classics of Elizabethan literature.
Pope consulted it diligently, and has been accused of at times re-ver-
sifying this instead of the Greek. Coleridge said of it:—
"The Iliad is fine, but less equal in the translation [than the Odyssey], as
well as less interesting in itself. What is stupidly said of Shakespeare is
really true and appropriate of Chapman: Mighty faults counterpoised by
mighty beauties. . . . It is as truly an original poem as the 'Faerie
Queen'; it will give you small idea of Homer, though a far truer one than
Pope's epigrams, or Cowper's cumbersome, most anti-Homeric Miltonisms.
For Chapman writes and feels as a poet, -as Homer might have written had
he lived in England in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. In short, it is an
exquisite poem in spite of its frequent and perverse quaintnesses and awk-
wardness, which are however amply repaid by almost unexampled sweetness
and beauty of language, all over spirit and feeling. "
Keats's tribute, the sonnet On First Looking into Chapman's
Homer,' attests another poet's appreciation of the Elizabethan's par-
aphrase. Keats diligently explored this "new planet" that swam
into his ken, and his own poetical diction is at times touched by the
quaintness and fancifulness of the elder poet he admired.
Lamb, that most sympathetic critic of the old dramatists, speaks
of him as follows:-
"Webster has happily characterized the 'full and heightened' style of
Chapman, who of all the English play-writers perhaps approaches nearest to
Shakespeare in the descriptive and didactic, in passages which are less purely
dramatic. He could not go out of himself, as Shakespeare could shift at
pleasure, to inform and animate other existences, but in himself he had an
eye to perceive and a soul to embrace all forms and modes of being. He
would have made a great epic poet, if indeed he has not abundantly shown
himself to be one; for his 'Homer is not so properly a translation as the
stories of Achilles and Ulysses rewritten. The earnestness and passion which
he has put into every part of these poems would be incredible to a reader
of more modern translations.
The great obstacle to Chapman's trans-
lations being read is their unconquerable quaintness. He pours out in the
same breath the most just and natural, and the most violent and crude
expressions. He seems to grasp at whatever words come first to hand while
the enthusiasm is upon him, as if all others must be inadequate to the divine
meaning. But passion (the all-in-all in poetry) is everywhere present, raising
the low, dignifying the mean, and putting sense into the absurd. He makes
his readers glow, weep, tremble, take any affection which he pleases, be
moved by words, or in spite of them be disgusted and overcome their dis-
gust. »
## p. 3527 (#505) ###########################################
GEORGE CHAPMAN
3527
ULYSSES AND NAUSICAA
From the Translation of Homer's Odyssey
ST
TRAIGHT rose the lovely Morn, that up did raise
Fair-veil'd Nausicaa, whose dream her praise
To admiration took; who no time spent
To give the rapture of her vision vent
To her loved parents, whom she found within.
Her mother set at fire, who had to spin
A rock, whose tincture with sea-purple shined;
Her maids about her. But she chanced to find
Her father going abroad, to council call'd
By his grave Senate; and to him exhaled
Her smother'd bosom was:- "Loved sire," said she,
"Will you not now command a coach for me,
Stately and complete? fit for me to bear
To wash at flood the weeds I cannot wear
Before re-purified? Yourself it fits
To wear fair weeds, as every man that sits
In place of council. And five sons you have,
Two wed, three bachelors, that must be brave
In every day's shift, that they may go dance;
For these three last with these things must advance
Their states in marriage; and who else but I,
Their sister, should their dancing rites supply? "
This general cause she shew'd, and would not name
Her mind of nuptials to her sire, for shame.
He understood her yet, and thus replied:
"Daughter! nor these, nor any grace beside,
I either will deny thee, or defer,
Mules, nor a coach, of state and circular,
Fitting at all parts. Go; my servants shall
Serve thy desires, and thy command in all. "
The servants then commanded soon obey'd,
Fetch'd coach, and mules join'd in it. Then the Maid
Brought from the chamber her rich weeds, and laid
All up in coach; in which her mother placed
A maund of victuals, varied well in taste,
And other junkets. Wine she likewise fill'd
Within a goat-skin bottle, and distill'd
Sweet and moist oil into a golden cruse,
Both for her daughter's and her handmaid's use,
To soften their bright bodies, when they rose
Cleansed from their cold baths. Up to coach then goes
## p. 3528 (#506) ###########################################
3528
GEORGE CHAPMAN
Th' observed Maid; takes both the scourge and reins;
And to her side her handmaid straight attains.
Nor these alone, but other virgins, graced
The nuptial chariot. The whole bevy placed,
Nausicaa scourged to make the coach-mules run,
That neigh'd, and paced their usual speed, and soon
Both maids and weeds brought to the river-side,
Where baths for all the year their use supplied.
Whose waters were so pure they would not stain,
But still ran fair forth; and did more remain
Apt to purge stains, for that purged stain within,
Which by the water's pure store was not seen.
These, here arrived, the mules uncoach'd, and drave
Up the gulfy river's shore, that gave
Sweet grass to them. The maids from coach then took
Their clothes, and steep'd them in the sable brook;
Then put them into springs, and trod them clean
With cleanly feet; adventuring wagers then,
Who should have soonest and most cleanly done.
When having thoroughly cleansed, they spread them on
The flood's shore, all in order. And then, where
The waves the pebbles wash'd, and ground was clear,
They bathed themselves, and all with glittering oil
Smooth'd their white skins; refreshing then their toil
With pleasant dinner, by the river's side.
Yet still watch'd when the sun their clothes had dried.
Till which time, having dined, Nausicaa
With other virgins did at stool-ball play,
Their shoulder-reaching head-tires laying by.
Nausicaa, with the wrists of ivory,
The liking stroke strook, singing first a song,
As custom order'd, and amidst the throng
Made such a shew, and so past all was seen,
As when the chaste-born, arrow-loving Queen,
Along the mountains gliding, either over
Spartan Taygetus, whose tops far discover,
Or Eurymanthus, in the wild boar's chace,
Or swift-hooved hart, and with her Jove's fair race,
The field Nymphs, sporting; amongst whom, to see
How far Diana had priority
(Though all were fair) for fairness; yet of all,
(As both by head and forehead being more tall)
Latona triumph'd, since the dullest sight
Might easily judge whom her pains brought to light;
## p. 3529 (#507) ###########################################
GEORGE CHAPMAN
3529
Nausicaa so, whom never husband tamed,
Above them all in all the beauties flamed.
But when they now made homewards, and array'd,
Ordering their weeds; disorder'd as they play'd,
Mules and coach ready, then Minerva thought
What means to wake Ulysses might be wrought,
That he might see this lovely-sighted maid,
Whom she intended should become his aid,
Bring him to town, and his return advance.
Her mean was this, though thought a stool-ball chance:
The queen now, for the upstroke, strook the ball
Quite wide off th' other maids, and made it fall
Amidst the whirlpools. At which outshriek'd all,
And with the shrick did wise Ulysses wake;
Who, sitting up, was doubtful who should make
That sudden outery, and in mind thus strived:-
"On what a people am I now arrived?
At civil hospitable men, that fear
The gods? or dwell injurious mortals here,
Unjust and churlish? Like the female cry
Of youth it sounds. What are they? Nymphs bred high
On tops of hills, or in the founts of floods,
In herby marshes, or in leavy woods?
Or are they high-spoke men I now am near?
I'll prove and see. " With this the wary peer
Crept forth the thicket, and an olive bough
Broke with his broad hand; which he did bestow
In covert of his nakedness, and then
Put hasty head out. Look how from his den
A mountain lion looks, that, all embrued
With drops of trees, and weatherbeaten-hued,
Bold of his strength goes on, and in his eye
A burning furnace glows, all bent to prey
On sheep, or oxen, or the upland hart,
His belly charging him, and he must part
Stakes with the herdsman in his beasts' attempt,
Even where from rape their strengths are most exempt:
So wet, so weather-beat, so stung with need,
Even to the home-fields of the country's breed
Ulysses was to force forth his access,
Though merely naked; and his sight did press
The eyes of soft-haired virgins. Horrid was
His rough appearance to them; the hard pass
He had at sea stuck by him. All in flight
The virgins scattered, frighted with this sight,
## p. 3530 (#508) ###########################################
GEORGE CHAPMAN
3530
About the prominent windings of the flood.
All but Nausicaa fled; but she fast stood:
Pallas had put a boldness in her breast,
And in her fair limbs tender fear comprest.
And still she stood him, as resolved to know
What man he was; or out of what should grow
His strange repair to them.
THE DUKE OF BYRON IS CONDEMNED TO DEATH
From the Tragedy of Charles, Duke of Byron›
Y HORROR of death, let me alone in peace,
And leave my soul to me, whom it concerns;
You have no charge of it; I feel her free:
How she doth rouse, and like a falcon stretch
B
Her silver wings; a threatening death with death;
At whom I joyfully will cast her off.
I know this body but a sink of folly,
The groundwork and raised frame of woe and frailty;
The bond and bundle of corruption;
A quick corse, only sensible of grief,
A walking sepulchre, or household thief:
A glass of air, broken with less than breath,
A slave bound face to face to death, till death.
And what said all you more? I know, besides,
That life is but a dark and stormy night
Of senseless dreams, terrors, and broken sleeps;
A tyranny, devising pains to plague
And make man long in dying, racks his death;
And death is nothing: what can you say more?
I bring a long globe and a little earth,
Am seated like earth, betwixt both the heavens,
That if I rise, to heaven I rise; if fall,
I likewise fall to heaven; what stronger faith
Hath any of your souls? what say you more?
Why lose I time in these things? Talk of knowledge,
It serves for inward use. I will not die
Like to a clergyman; but like the captain
That prayed on horseback, and with sword in hand,
Threatened the sun, commanding it to stand;
These are but ropes of sand.
## p. 3531 (#509) ###########################################
3531
FRANÇOIS RENÉ AUGUSTE CHÂTEAUBRIAND
(1768-1848)
ISCOUNT
V
DE CHÂTEAUBRIAND, the founder of the romantic
school in French literature, and one of the most brilliant
and polished writers of the first half of the nineteenth cen-
tury, was born at St. Malo in Brittany, September 14th, 1768. On the
paternal side he was a direct descendant of Thierri, grandson of
Alain III. , who was king of Armorica in the ninth century. Destined
for the Church, he became a pronounced skeptic, and entered the
army. In his nineteenth year he was presented at court, and became
acquainted with men of letters like La
Harpe, Le Brun, and Fontanes. At the
outbreak of the Revolution he quitted the
service, and embarked for America in Jan-
uary, 1791. Tiring of the restraints of
civilization, he plunged into the virgin
forests of Canada, and for several months
lived with the savages. This remarkable
experience inspired his most notable ro-
mantic work.
CHÂTEAUBRIAND
Returning to France in 1792, he cast his
lot with the Royalists, was wounded at
Thionville, and finally retired to England,
where for eight years he earned a bare sup-
port by teaching and translating. His first book was the 'Essay on
Revolutions (1797), which displayed some imagination, little reflec-
tion, and an affectation of misanthropy and skepticism. The subse-
quent change in his convictions followed on the death of his pious
mother in 1798. Returning to France he published Atala,' an idyll
à la mode, founded on the loves of two young savages. Teeming
with glowing descriptions of nature, and marked by elevation of
sentiment combined with a sensuousness almost Oriental, this barbaric
'Paul and Virginia' immediately established the author's fame.
Thus encouraged, in the following year he gave the world his
'Genius of Christianity,' in which the poetic and symbolic features of
Christianity are painted in dazzling colors and with great charm of
style. The enormous success of this book during the first decade of
the century unquestionably did more to revive French interest in
religion than the establishment of the Concordat itself. Napoleon
## p. 3532 (#510) ###########################################
3532
FRANÇOIS RENE AUGUSTE CHÂTEAUBRIAND
testified his gratitude by appointing the author secretary to the em-
bassy at Rome, and afterward minister plenipotentiary to the Valais.
When the Duke d'Enghien was assassinated (March 21st, 1804), Châ-
teaubriand resigned from the diplomatic service, although the ink
was scarcely dry in which the First Consul had signed his new com-
mission. Two years later the successful author departed on a senti-
mental pilgrimage to the Holy Land. He visited Asia Minor, Egypt,
and Spain, where amid the ruins of the Alhambra he wrote The
Last of the Abencerrages. To this interesting tour the world owes
the 'Itinerary from Paris to Jerusalem' (1811), that book which in
Saintsbury's opinion remains "the pattern of all the picturesque
travels of modern times. "
With the publication of the 'Itinerary the literary career of
Châteaubriand virtually closes. On the return of the Bourbons to
power, the man of letters was tempted to enter the exciting arena
of politics, becoming successively ambassador at Berlin, at the court
of St. James, delegate to the Congress of Verona, and Minister of
Foreign Affairs. In 1830, unwilling to pledge himself to Louis
Philippe, he relinquished the dignity of peer of the realm accorded
him in 1815, and retired to a life of comparative poverty, which was
brightened by the friendship and devotion of Madame Récamier.
Until his death on the 4th of July, 1848, Châteaubriand devoted
himself to the completion of his Mémoires d'Outre-Tombe,' an auto-
biographical work which was published posthumously, and which,
although diffuse and even puerile at times, contains much brilliant
writing.
His contemporaries pronounced Châteaubriand the foremost man
of letters of France, if not of all Europe. During the last half of
this century his fame has sensibly diminished both at home and
abroad, and in the history of French literature he is chiefly signifi-
cant as marking the transition from the old classical to the modern
romantic school. Yet while admitting the glaring faults, exaggera-
tions, affectations, and egotism of the author of the Genius of
Christianity, a fair criticism admits his best passages to be unsur-
passed for perfection of style and gorgeousness of coloring. 'Atala'
is a classic with real life in it even yet,-powerful, interesting, and
even thrilling, in spite of its theatricality, and often magnificent in
description.
In 1811 Châteaubriand was elected to the French Academy as
the successor of the poet Chénier. Among his works not already
mentioned are ‘René' (1807), a sort of sequel to 'Atala'; 'The Mar-
tyrs' (1810); 'The Natchez' (1826), containing recollections of Amer-
ica; an Essay on English Literature' (2 vols. ); and a translation of
Milton's 'Paradise Lost' (1836).
## p. 3533 (#511) ###########################################
FRANÇOIS RENÉ AUGUSTE CHÂTEAUBRIAND
3533
CHRISTIANITY VINDICATED
From The Genius of Christianity›
D
URING the reign of the Emperor Julian commenced a perse-
cution, perhaps more dangerous than violence itself, which
consisted in loading the Christians with disgrace and con-
tempt. Julian began his hostility by plundering the churches;
he then forbade the faithful to teach or to study the liberal arts
and sciences. Sensible, however, of the important advantages of
the institutions of Christianity, the emperor determined to estab-
lish hospitals and monasteries, and after the example of the
gospel system to combine morality with religion; he ordered a
kind of sermons to be delivered in the pagan temples.
From the time of Julian to that of Luther, the Church, flour-
ishing in full vigor, had no occasion for apologists; but when
the Western schism took place, with new enemies arose new
defenders. It cannot be denied that at first the Protestants had
the superiority, at least in regard to forms, as Montesquieu has
remarked. Erasmus himself was weak when opposed to Luther,
and Theodore Beza had a captivating manner of writing, in
which his opponents were too often deficient.
It is natural for schism to lead to infidelity, and for heresy to
engender atheism. Bayle and Spinoza arose after Calvin, and
they found in Clarke and Leibnitz men of sufficient talents to
refute their sophistry. Abbadie wrote an apology for religion,
remarkable for method and sound argument. Unfortunately his
style is feeble, though his ideas are not destitute of brilliancy.
"If the ancient philosophers," observes Abbadie, "adored the
Virtues, their worship was only a beautiful species of idolatry. "
While the Church was yet enjoying her triumph, Voltaire
renewed the persecution of Julian. He possessed the baneful
art of making infidelity fashionable among a capricious but
amiable people. Every species of self-love was pressed into this
insensate league. Religion was attacked with every kind of
weapon, from the pamphlet to the folio, from the epigram to the
sophism. No sooner did a religious book appear than the author
was overwhelmed with ridicule, while works which Voltaire was
the first to laugh at among his friends were extolled to the
skies. Such was his superiority over his disciples that he some-
times could not forbear diverting himself with their irreligious
## p. 3534 (#512) ###########################################
3534
FRANÇOIS RENÉ AUGUSTE CHÂTEAUBRIAND
enthusiasm. Meanwhile the destructive system continued to
spread throughout France. It was first adopted in those provin-
cial academies, each of which was a focus of bad taste and fac-
tion. Women of fashion and grave philosophers alike read
lectures on infidelity. It was at length concluded that Christ-
ianity was no better than a barbarous system, and that its fall
could not happen too soon for the liberty of mankind, the promo-
tion of knowledge, the improvement of the arts, and the general
comfort of life.
If no
To say nothing of the abyss into which we were plunged by
this aversion to the religion of the gospel, its immediate conse-
quence was a return, more affected than sincere, to that mythol-
ogy of Greece and Rome to which all the wonders of antiquity
were ascribed. People were not ashamed to regret that worship
which had transformed mankind into a herd of madmen, mon-
sters of indecency, or ferocious beasts. This could not fail to
inspire contempt for the writers of the age of Louis XIV. , who
however had reached the high perfection which distinguished
them only by being religious.
one ventured to oppose
them face to face, on account of their firmly established reputa-
tion, they were nevertheless attacked in a thousand indirect
ways. It was asserted that they were unbelievers in their hearts;
or at least that they would have been much greater characters
had they lived in our times. Every author blessed his good
fortune for having been born in the glorious age of the Diderots
and d'Alemberts, in that age when all the attainments of the
human mind were ranged in alphabetical order in the Encyclo-
pédie,' that Babel of the sciences and of reason.
It was therefore necessary to prove that on the contrary the
Christian religion, of all the religions that ever existed, is the
most humane, the most favorable to liberty and to the arts and
sciences; that the modern world is indebted to it for every
improvement from agriculture to the abstract sciences, from the
hospitals for the reception of the unfortunate to the temples
reared by the Michael Angelos and embellished by the Raphaels.
It was necessary to prove that nothing is more divine than its
morality, nothing more lovely and more sublime than its tenets,
its doctrine, and its worship; that it encourages genius, corrects
the taste, develops the virtuous passions, imparts energy to the
ideas, presents noble images to the writer, and perfect models.
to the artist; that there is no disgrace in being believers with
•
## p. 3535 (#513) ###########################################
FRANÇOIS RENÉ AUGUSTE CHÂTEAUBRIAND
3535
Newton and Bossuet, with Pascal and Racine. In a word, it was
necessary to summon all the charms of the imagination and all
the interests of the heart to the assistance of that religion
against which they had been set in array.
The reader may now have a clear view of the object of our
work. All other kinds of apologies are exhausted, and perhaps
they would be useless at the present day. Who would now sit
down to read a work professedly theological? Possibly a few
sincere Christians who are already convinced. But, it may be
asked, May there not be some danger in considering religion in
a merely human point of view? Why so? Does our religion
shrink from the light? Surely one great proof of its divine
origin is, that it will bear the test of the fullest and severest
scrutiny of reason. Would you have us always open to the
reproach of enveloping our tenets in sacred obscurity, lest their
falsehood should be detected? Will Christianity be the less true
for appearing the more beautiful? Let us banish our weak
apprehensions; let us not, by an excess of religion, leave religion
to perish. We no longer live in those times when you might
say, "Believe without inquiring. " People will inquire in spite
of us; and our timid silence, in heightening the triumph of the
infidel, will diminish the number of believers.
It is time that the world should know to what all those
charges of absurdity, vulgarity, and meanness, that are daily
alleged against Christianity, may be reduced. It is time to
demonstrate that instead of debasing the ideas, it encourages
the soul to take the most daring flights, and is capable of
enchanting the imagination as divinely as the deities of Homer
and Virgil. Our arguments will at least have this advantage,
that they will be intelligible to the world at large and will
require nothing but common-sense to determine their weight and
strength. In works of this kind authors neglect, perhaps rather
too much, to speak the language of their readers. It is neces-
sary to be a scholar with a scholar, and a poet with a poet. The
Almighty does not forbid us to tread the flowery path, if it
serves to lead the wanderer once more to him; nor is it always
by the steep and rugged mountain that the lost sheep finds its
way back to the fold.
We think that this mode of considering Christianity displays
associations of ideas which are but imperfectly known.
