Of Bacchus ever fair, and ever young.
The jolly god in triumph comes;
Sound the trumpets, beat the drums;
Flushed with a purple grace

He shows his honest face:

50 The mighty master smiled to see
That love was in the next degree;
'Twas but a kindred-sound to move,

Now give the haut boys breath; he comes, he For pity melts the mind to love.

comes.

Softly sweet, in Lydian measures,
Soon he soothed his soul to pleasures,
War, he sung, is toil and trouble;
Honour but an empty bubble;
Never ending, still beginning,
Fighting still, and still destroying:
If the world be worth thy winning,
60 Think, O think it worth enjoying:
Lovely Thais sits beside thee,
Take the good the gods provide thee.

70

80

90

100

CHRONOS.

20

(Horns, or hunting music within.

From the opera Albion and Albanius, 1685.
Thamesis is the River God Thames, addressing Then, goddess of the silver bow, begin.
Albanius, who represents the Duke of York
(afterward James II.) The latter, in 1679,
had been compelled to retire to Brussels, in
temporary exile, until the excitement against
the Roman Catholics, created by the "Popish
plot," should die away. The flattery of James
is evident: but the song has a haunting
beauty which sets it apart from mere eulogy.

1 Anciently the highest divinity, who presided over
the beginnings of things.

The god of time; ruler of the world before Zeus.
The personification of mockery.

And chase the wild goats o'er summits of Sound the trumpet, beat the drum;

MOMUS.

All, all, of a piece throughout:

(Pointing to Diana,

Thy chase had a beast in view; Thy wars brought nothing about;

Thy lovers were all untrue.

JANUS.

'Tis well an old age is out.

CHRONOS.

And time to begin a new.
Chorus of all.

All, all of a piece throughout:
Thy chase had a beast in view;
Thy wars brought nothing about;
Thy lovers were all untrue.

'Tis well an old age is out,

And time to begin a new.

(To Mars.

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 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,2 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 100 said, though somewhat profanely, "Not being of God, he could not stand.''

(To Venus.

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 betwixt a modest behaviour and affectation. The verse of Chaucer, I confess, is not harmonious to us; but 't is like the eloquence of one whom Tacitus commends, it was auribus istius temporis accommodata:4 they who lived with him,

(Dance of huntsmen, nymphs, warriors, and and some time after him, thought it musical;

lovers.)

ON CHAUCER.

FROM THE PREFACE TO THE FABLES.*

It remains that I say somewhat of Chaucer in particular.

and it continues 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,5 for he would make us believe 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; 't 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 equality of numbers in every verse which we call heroic? was either not known or not always practised

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 in Chaucer's age. It were an easy matter to of our late great poets1 is sunk in his reputa- | tion because he could never forgive any conceit which came in his way, but swept, like a dragnet, 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

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.† 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 Abraham Cowley, who could not "forgive" (1. e. give up, forego) strained fancies and distorted forms of expression.

1

2 New printings.

3 "Overmuch a poet" (said by Martial, not Catul-
lus).

4 "Suited to the ears of that time."
5 That of Thomas Speght, 1597-1602.
6 Measures.

7 The iambic pentameter couplet (see Eng. Lit.,
58, 165, 187).

† Dryden did not understand Chaucer's pronunciation nor sufficiently allow for imperfections in the manuscripts.