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moral to the allegory; and the two last shew the man of honour and virtue, as well as the poet:

Unblemish'd let me live, or die unknown :
Oh grant an honest fame, or grant me none!

In finishing this Section, we may observe, that POPE's alterations of Chaucer are introduced with judgment and art; that these alterations are more in number, and more important in conduct, than any Dryden has made of the same author. This piece was communicated to Steele, who entertained a high opinion of its beauties, and who conveyed it to Addison. POPE had ornamented the poem with the machinery of guardian angels, which he afterwards omitted. He speaks of his work with a diffidence uncommon in a young poet, and which does him credit.* "No errors (says he to Steele) are so trivial, but they deserve to be mended. I could point to you several; but it is my business to be informed of those faults I do not know; and as for those I do, not to talk of them, but mend them. I am afraid of nothing so much, as to

* Vol. VII. Letters, 8vo. p. 248.

impose

impose any thing upon the world which is unworthy its acceptance."

It would have been matter of curiosity to have known Addison's sentiments of this vision.* His own is introduced, and carried on, with that vein of propriety and poetry, for which this species of his writings is so justly celebrated, and which contribute to place him at the head of allegorical writers, scarce excepting Plato himself.

* See Tatler, No. 81, referred to above.

END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.

Printed by Thomas Maiden, sherboura-Lane,

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