the descriptions of persons, and their very habits. For an example, I see BAUCIS and PHILEMON as perfectly before me, as if some ancient painter had drawn them; and all the Pilgrims in the Canterbury Tales, their humours, their features, and the very dress, as distinctly as if I had supped with them at the Tabard in Southwark." Yet even there

library seems to have been composed. THE WIFE OF BATHES TALE has been shewn above to be taken from Gower, and the Fable of the COCK AND THE FOX, which makes the ground of THE NONNES PREESTES TALE, is clearly borrowed from a collection of Esopean and other Fables, by Marie, a French poetess, whose collection of Lais has been mentioned before." Marie wrote in the reign of St. Louis, about the middle of the thirteenth century. This fable, which consists of but thirty-eight lines, and which Mr. Tyrwhitt has copied from MS. Harl. 978. f. 76, furnishes (he observes) convincing proof, how able Chaucer was to work up an excellent tale out of very small materials." Ibid. p. 177.

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9 After stating very probable grounds for believing that the work of THE CANTERBURY TALES was not begun in 1382, and was not much advanced before 1389, Mr. Tyrwhitt adds, "They who believe the pilgrimage to have been real, and to have happened in 1383, may support their opinion by the following inscription, which is still to be read upon the Inn now called the Talbot, in Southwark: This is the Inn where Sir Jeffrey Chaucer and the twenty-nine Pilgrims lodged, in their journey to Canterbury, anno 1383.' Though the present inscription is evidently of a very recent date, we might suppose it to have been propagated to us by a succession of faithful transcripts from the very time; but unluckily there is too good reason to be assured that the first inscription of this sort was not earlier than the last century. Mr.

too the figures of Chaucer are 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

Speght, who appears to have been inquisitive concerning this Inn in 1597, has left us this account of it in his Glossary, v. TABARD. A jaquet or sleevelesse coate, worne of times past by Noblemen in the warres, but now only by Heraults, and is called theyre coate of Armes in servise. It is the signe of an Inne in Southwarke by London, within the which was the lodging of the Abbot of Hyde by Winchester. This was the Hostelry where Chaucer and the other Pilgrims met together, and with Henry Baily their hoste, accorded about the manner of their journey to Canterbury. And whereas through time it hath been much decaied, it is now by Master J. Preston, with the Abbot's house thereto adjoyned, newly repaired, and with convenient roomes much encreased, for the receipt of many guests.'

"If any inscription of this kind had then been there, he would hardly have omitted to mention it; and therefore I am persuaded it has been put up since his time, and most probably when the sign was changed from the Tabard to the Talbot, in order to preserve the ancient glory of the House, notwithstanding its new title. Whoever furnished the date, must be allowed to have at least invented plausibly."-C. T. iv. 124.

Mr. Warton observes, that there is an Inn at Burford in Oxfordshire, which accommodated Pilgrims on their road to Saint Edward's shrine in the Abbey of Gloucester. A long room, with a series of Gothick windows, still remains, which was their refectory. Leland mentions such another. ITIN. ii. 70." HIST. OF ENG. POET. ¡¡. 397.

the comparison of the two poets, and I have saved myself one half of that labour, by 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 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 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, 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, 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 con

ceit (as he tells you) left him in his misery; a miserable conceit. On these occasions the poet should endeavour 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 occasion? He would certainly have made Arcite witty on his death-bed. He had com-. plained 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 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 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.

I have thus far, to the best of my knowledge, been an upright judge betwixt the parties in competition, not meddling with the design nor 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 he knows also 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 forgive any conceit which came in his way; but swept, like a drag-net, great and 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 beau

The poet alluded to is Cowley; on whom, in compliance with the fashion of the day, our author is lavish of encomium in his early discourses. In the present century, only two editions of this poet's works (complete) have been issued from the press, exclusive of the general republication of the English poets by the booksellers of London.