painter had drawn them; and all the pilgrims in the Canterbury Tales, their humors, their features, and the very dress, as distinctly as if I had supped with them at the Tabard in Southwark: yet even there too the figures in Chaucer are 5 much more lively and set in a better light, which, though I have not time to prove, yet I appeal to the reader, and am sure he will clear me from partiality. The thoughts and words remain to be considered in the comparison of the two poets: and I have saved myself one half of that labor by 10 owning that Ovid lived when the Roman tongue was in its meridian, Chaucer in the dawning of our language; therefore that part of the comparison stands not on an equal foot, any more than the diction of Ennius and Ovid, or of Chaucer and our present English. The words are given up as a post not 15 to be defended in our poet, because he wanted the modern art of fortifying. The thoughts remain to be considered, and they are to be measured only by their propriety, that is, as they flow more or less naturally from the persons described, on such and such occasions. The vulgar judges, which are nine parts 20 in ten of all nations, who call conceits and jingles wit, who see Ovid full of them and Chaucer altogether without them, will think me little less than mad for preferring the Englishman to the Roman; yet, with their leave, I must presume to say that the things they admire are only glittering trifles, 25 and so far from being witty that in a serious poem they are nauseous because they are unnatural. Would any man who is ready to die for love describe his passion like Narcissus? Would he think of "inopem me copia fecit," and a dozen more of such expressions, poured on the neck of one another 30 and signifying all the same thing? If this were wit, was this a time to be witty, when the poor wretch was in the agony of death? This is just John Littlewit in Bartholomew Fair, who had a conceit (as he tells you) left him in his misery; a miserable conceit. On these occasions the poet should en35 deavor to raise pity; but, instead of this, Ovid is tickling you to laugh. Virgil never made use of such machines when he was moving you to commiserate the death of Dido: he would not destroy what he was building. Chaucer makes Arcite

violent in his love and unjust in the pursuit of it; yet when he came to die he made him think more reasonably: he repents not of his love, for that had altered his character, but acknowledges the injustice of his proceedings and resigns Emilia to Palamon. What would Ovid have done on this 5 occasion? He would certainly have made Arcite witty on his death-bed: he had complained he was farther off from possession by being so near, and a thousand such boyisms, which Chaucer rejected as below the dignity of the subject. They who think otherwise would, by the same reason, prefer Lucan 10 and Ovid to Homer and Virgil, and Martial to all four of them. As for the turn of words, in which Ovid particularly excels all poets, they are sometimes a fault and sometimes a beauty, as they are used properly or improperly, but in strong passions always to be shunned, because passions are 15 serious and will admit no playing. The French have a high value for them, and I confess they are often what they call delicate when they are introduced with judgment; but Chaucer writ with more simplicity, and followed nature more closely, than to use them.

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I have thus far, to the best of my knowledge, been an upright judge betwixt the parties in competition, not meddling with the design or the disposition of it, because the design was not their own and in the disposing of it they were equal. It remains that I say somewhat of Chaucer in particular. In the first place, as he is the father of English poetry, so I hold him in the same degree of veneration as the Grecians held Homer or the Romans Virgil. He is a perpetual fountain of good sense, learned in all sciences, and therefore speaks properly on all subjects. As he knew what to say, so 30 he knows when to leave off; a continence which is practised by few writers, and scarcely by any of the ancients, excepting Virgil and Horace. One of our late great poets is sunk in his reputation because he could never forego any conceit which came in his way, but swept, like a drag-net, great and 35 small. There was plenty enough, but the dishes were ill sorted; whole pyramids of sweetmeats for boys and women, but little of solid meat for men. All this proceeded, not

from any want of knowledge, but of judgment. Neither did he want that in discerning the beauties and faults of other poets, but only indulged himself in the luxury of writing; and perhaps knew it was a fault but hoped the reader would 5 not find it. For this reason, though he must always be thought a great poet, he is no longer esteemed a good writer; and for ten impressions, which his works have had in so many successive years, yet at present a hundred books are scarcely purchased once a twelvemonth; for, as my last Lord Rochester 10 said, though somewhat profanely, "Not being of God, he could not stand."

Chaucer followed nature everywhere, but was never so bold to go beyond her, and there is a great difference of being poeta and nimis poeta; if we believe Catullus, as much as 15 betwixt a modest behavior and affectation. The verse of Chaucer, I confess, is not harmonious to us; but is like the eloquence of one whom Tacitus commends, it was "auribus istius temporis accommodata": they who lived with him, and some time after him, thought it musical; and it continues 20 so even in our judgment, if compared with the numbers of Lydgate and Gower, his contemporaries; there is the rude sweetness of a Scotch tune in it, which is natural and pleasing though not perfect. 'Tis true I cannot go so far as he who published the last edition of him, for he would make us be25 lieve the fault is in our ears, and that there were really ten syllables in a verse where we find but nine; but this opinion is not worth confuting; it is so gross and obvious an error that common sense (which is a rule in everything but matters of faith and revelation) must convince the reader that equal30 ity of numbers in every verse which we call heroic was either not known or not always practised in Chaucer's age. It were an easy matter to produce some thousands of his verses which are lame for want of half a foot and sometimes a whole one, and which no pronunciation can make otherwise. 35 We can only say that he lived in the infancy of our poetry, and that nothing is brought to perfection at the first. We must be children before we grow men. There was an Ennius, and in process of time a Lucilius and a Lucretius, before

Virgil and Horace; even after Chaucer there was a Spenser, a Harrington, a Fairfax, before Waller and Denham were in being, and our numbers were in their nonage till these last appeared. I need say little of his parentage, life, and fortunes: they are to be found at large in all the editions of 5 his works. He was employed abroad, and favored by Edward the Third, Richard the Second, and Henry the Fourth, and was poet, as I suppose, to all three of them. In Richard's time, I doubt, he was a little dipped in the rebellion of the Commons; and, being brother-in-law to John of Gaunt, it 10 was no wonder if he followed the fortunes of that family, and was well with Henry the Fourth when he had deposed his predecessor. Neither is it to be admired that Henry, who was a wise as well as a valiant prince, who claimed by succession, and was sensible that his title was not sound but was 15 rightfully in Mortimer, who had married the heir of York— it was not to be admired, I say, if that great politician should be pleased to have the greatest wit of those times in his interests and to be the trumpet of his praises. Augustus had given him the example, by the advice of Mæcenas, who rec-20 ommended Virgil and Horace to him; whose praises helped to make him popular while he was alive, and after his death have made him precious to posterity. As for the religion of our poet, he seems to have some little bias towards the opinions of Wiclif, after John of Gaunt his patron; somewhat 25 of which appears in the tale of Piers Plowman; yet I cannot blame him for inveighing so sharply against the vices of the clergy in his age: their pride, their ambition, their pomp, their avarice, their worldly interest deserved the lashes which he gave them, both in that and in most of his Canterbury 30 Tales. Neither has his contemporary Boccace spared them. Yet both those poets lived in much esteem with good and holy men in orders; for the scandal which is given by particular priests reflects not on the sacred function: Chaucer's Monk, his Canon, and his Friar took not from the character 35 of his Good Parson. A satirical poet is the check of the laymen on bad priests. We are only to take care that we involve not the innocent with the guilty in the same con

demnation. The good cannot be too much honored nor the bad too coarsely used; for the corruption of the best becomes the worst. When a clergyman is whipped, his gown is first taken off, by which the dignity of his order is secured. If 5 he be wrongfully accused, he has his action of slander; and it is at the poet's peril if he transgress the law. But they will tell us that all kind of satire, though never so well-deserved by particular priests, yet brings the whole order into contempt. Is, then, the peerage of England anything dishonored 10 when a peer suffers for his treason? If he be libelled or any way defamed, he has his Scandalum Magnatum to punish the offender. They who use this kind of argument seem to be conscious to themselves of somewhat which has deserved the poet's lash, and are less concerned for their public capacity 15 than for their private; at least there is pride at the bottom of their reasoning. If the faults of men in orders are only to be judged among themselves, they are all in some sort parties; for, since they say the honor of their order is concerned in every member of it, how can we be sure that they 20 will be impartial judges? How far I may be allowed to speak my opinion in this case I know not, but I am sure a dispute of this nature caused mischief in abundance betwixt a king of England and an archbishop of Canterbury, one standing up for the laws of his land, and the other for the 25 honor (as he called it) of God's Church, which ended in the murder of the prelate and in the whipping of his majesty from post to pillar for his penance. The learned and ingenious Dr. Drake has saved me the labor of inquiring into the esteem and reverence which the priests have had of old, 30 and I would rather extend than diminish any part of it; yet I must needs say that when a priest provokes me without any occasion given him, I have no reason, unless it be the charity of a Christian, to forgive him. Prior læsit is justification sufficient in the Civil Law. If I answer him in his own lan35 guage, self-defence, I am sure, must be allowed me; and if I carry it farther, even to a sharp recrimination, somewhat may be indulged to human frailty. Yet my resentment has not wrought so far but that I have followed Chaucer in his