mind, poffeffing much native humour, and enriched by long experience and extenfive information, should exhibit characters, fuch as are there found, with ftriking resemblance to nature and living manners.

Chaucer, for the time when he wrote, was a very learned, and a very powerful master in his art. When he began his Canterbury Tales, English could fcarcely be called the predominant language of the country. French was yet used in all publick proceedings; and also in schools, as the language, into which the Claffics were conftrued. To enrich his English style, therefore, he confulted the best foreign fources. With the graces of the Provençal poetry all Europe was then in admiration and he not only adopted words and phrafeology from that dialect; but, from a close study of Dante's fublimity, the elegance of Petrarca, and the style and manners of Boccaccio, he gained copiousness, harmony, and whatever was formed to give poetical expreffion.

Of his metres, fome were originally his own, and others by him firft introduced into our language, from the Provençal: in the former of which, he has (with a small alteration) been followed by Spenfer; and, in the latter, by Milton.

In the Second Nonnes Tale, Chaucer has taken three ftanzas together from the beginning of the 33d Canto of Dante's Paradifo; which copy from the Italian remains, as yet, unnoticed by his commentators. Dr. Johnfon has faid of Chaucer, "was the first English verfifier, who wrote "poetically." An expreffion, taken from that excellent treatise, The Defenfe of Poefy, by Sir Philip Sidney; who fays, one may

" that he

be a

poet, without verfing, and a versifier, " without poetry.'

The Canterbury Tales, by which Chaucer is more generally known as a poet, were the works of his latest years: at the earliest, not begun before 1382, his 54th year; nor much advanced before 1339, his 61ft. The

laft

laft hiftorical fact, mentioned in them, is the death of Barnardo Vifconti, Duke of Milan, who died in prison, in 1385.

Of these Tales, it is much lamented by every reader, that fix are entirely wanting, and fome others left imperfect. Amongst his other poems, The Rhyme of Sir Thopas, the first poetical fatire in our language, ftands a perpetual monument of his tafte; and Troilus, or The House of Fame, had fingly been fufficient to secure his name to pofterity. The latter of which, and fome of his tales, and other pieces, have excited the imitation of two of our greatest latter poets, Dryden and Pope.

Against his diction, his uncouth and obfolete terms (as they are called), the general prejudice is unreasonably ftrong. Chaucer is not now what he was, before the year 1775. In that year, Mr. Tyrwhitt, a gentleman, who can never be named, without refpect and gratitude, by any fcholar, or reader of Chaucer, published the Canterbury Tales, with a Gloffary, Notes, and Illuftrations, executed with method

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method, acumen, and perfpicuity, no where exceeded, among all the commentators on books. In this edition, the text is published in its original purity; and a reader, to go through with it, has only to confult his faithful guide, the editor; who will equally amuse and instruct him, on the pilgrimage. Of corruptions in the text of Chaucer, every page, fentence, almost every line would afford example, before the publication of this edition. To take the inftance, which offers itself most readily to thofe, who have not at hand the different editions of Chaucer to compare; that couplet of Pope, in his Epiftle of Eloifa to Abelard,

Love, free as air, at fight of human ties, Spreads his light wings, and in a moment fliesis taken from Chaucer's Frankeleines Tale,

Love wol not be conftreined by maistrie.
Whan maistrie cometh, the God of Love anon
Beteth his winges, and, farewel, he is gon.

Bishop Warburton, in his notes on Pope, has quoted thefe lines of Chaucer, from that vile

edition,

edition, published by Mr. Urry; and they stand,

Love will not be confin'd by maisterie:

When maisterie comes, the Lord of Love anon
Flutters his wings, and forthwith is he gone.—

by which it is feen, that, in three lines, are four words, which do not belong to Chaucer.

If in any one paffage, or even couplet, the harmony and flow of this antient poet's lines will ftand in compare with thofe, from the polished pen of Dryden, he is not surely to be called "obfolete." In the Knightes Tale, he describes the morning,

The befy larke, the meffager of day,
Saleweth in hire fong the morwe gray;
And firy Phebus rifeth up fo bright,
That all the orient laugheth of the fight,
And with his ftrēměs drieth in the greves
The filver drōpes, hanging on the leves.

which lines Dryden renders,

The morning lark, the meffenger of day,
Saluteth in her fong the morning gray;
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And