, the superstructure
of a romantic poet on the submerged foundations of Greek verse, no
praise can be too warm or high for the power, the freshness, the
indefatigable strength and inextinguishable fire which animate this
exalted work, and secure for all time that shall take cognizance of
English poetry an honored place in its highest annals for the memory of
Chapman.

CYRIL TOURNEUR

"They, shut up under their roofs, the prisoners of darkness, and
fettered with the bonds of a long night, lay exiled, fugitives from the
eternal providence. For while they supposed to lie hid in their secret
sins, they were scattered under a dark veil of forgetfulness, being
horribly astonished, and troubled with sights.... Sad visions appeared
unto them with heavy countenances. No power of the fire might give them
light: neither could the bright flames of the stars endure to lighten
that horrible night. Only there appeared unto them a fire kindled of
itself, very dreadful: for being much terrified, they thought the things
which they saw to be worse than the sight they saw not.... The whole
world shined with clear light, and none were hindered in their labor:
over them only was spread an heavy night, an image of that darkness
which should afterward receive them: but yet were they unto themselves
more grievous than the darkness." In this wild world of fantastic
retribution and prophetic terror the genius of a great English
poet--if greatness may be attributed to a genius which holds absolute
command in a strictly limited province of reflection and emotion--was
born and lived and moved and had its being. The double mainspring of its
energy is not difficult to define: its component parts are simply
adoration of good and abhorrence of evil: all other sources of emotion
were subordinate to these: love, hate, resentment, resignation,
self-devotion, are but transitory agents on this lurid and stormy stage,
which pass away and leave only the sombre fire of meditative indignation
still burning among the ruins of shattered hopes and lives. More
splendid success in pure dramatic dialogue has not been achieved by
Shakespeare or by Webster than by Cyril Tourneur in his moments of
happiest invention or purest inspiration: but the intensity of his moral
passion has broken the outline and marred the symmetry of his general
design. And yet he was at all points a poet: there is an accent of
indomitable self-reliance, a note of persistence and resista