of the Anglo-Saxon poets. Nor did he make these writers the models of his language only: he likewife imitates their alliterative verfification, which confifted in ufing an aggregate of words beginning with the fame letter. He has therefore rejected rhyme, in the place of which he thinks it fufficient to fubftitute a perpetual alliteration. But this imposed constraint of feeking identical initials, and the affectation of obfolete English, by demanding a conftant, and neceffary departure from the natural and obvious forms of expreffion, while it circumscribed the powers of our author's genius, contributed alfo to render his manner extremely perplexed, and to difguft the reader with obfcurities. The Satire is conducted by the agency of several allegorical perfonages, fuch as Avarice, Bribery, Simony, Theology, Confcience, &c.t

It would be improper to pass over a Scotch poet of this period, who has adorned the English language by a ftrain of verfification, expreffion, and poetical imagery, far fuperior to his age. He has written an heroic poem. This is JOHN BARBOUR, Archdeacon of Aberdeen, who was educated at Oxford, 1357, 1365. David Bruce king of Scotland, gave him a

+History of English Poetry, p. 266, 267.

B 3

pen

penfion for life; as a reward for his poem called "The Hiftory of Robert Bruce, King of the Scots". It was printed at Glasgow, 1671.*

And now we are arrived at the second name in Phillips's Theatrum, a poet with whom the history of poetry is by many supposed to have commenced; and who has been pronounced by a critic of unquestionable taste and difcernment, to be the firft English verfifier, who

wrote poetically.‡

GEOFFRY CHAUCER.

"Sir Geoffry Chaucer, the Prince and Cory "phæus, generally fo reputed, till this age "of our English Poets, and as much as we "triumph over his old fashion'd phrase, and "obfolete words, one of the first refiners of "the English language. Of how great esteem "he was in the age wherein he flourished, "namely, the reigns of Henry the 4th; Henry "the 5th; and part of Henry the 6th; ap

pears, befides his being Knight and Poet"Laureat, by the honor he had to be allyed by

* Hiftory of English Poetry, I. 318. † Johns. Dictionar. pref. Warton, P. 34,

p. i.

"mar

દ marriage to the great Earl of Lancaster, John

of Gaunt. How grear a part we have loft "of his works above what we have extant of "him, is manifeft from an author of good credit, who reckons up many confiderable poems, which are not in his published works; befides the Squires Tale which is faid to be "complete in Arundel-House Library."

This great Poet was born about 1328; 2 Edw. 3. and died 25 Oct. 1400, (2 Hen. 4.) fo that Phillips makes a confiderable mistake in fuppofing him to have lived till the reign of Hen. 6. Chaucer had travelled into France and Italy was a master of the languages of thofe countries; and had become perfonally acquainted with Petrarch, at the wedding of Violante, daughter of Galleazzo Duke of Milan, · with the Duke of Clarence. Thefe excurfions added to his knowledge and relish of the works of Dante and Boccace, as well as Petrarch. From Boccace, he borrowed "The Knight's Tale"; to which however he gave many additions, and new beauties of his own. In this poem he displays fuch powers of verfification; that we are furprised, fays Warton, to find in a poet of fuch antiquity numbers fo flowing and nervous; a circumftance, which greatly contributed to render Dryden's paraphrafe of this poem the moft animated and harmonious

piece

piece of verfification in the English language.* "The Romaunt of the Rofe" is tranflated from a French poem entitled " Le Roman de la Rofe", begun by William of Lorris, a student in jurisprudence, who died about 1260; and completed by John of Meun, a native of a little town of that name, fituated on the river Loire near Orleans, who flourished about 1310.+ "Troilus and Creffeide" is faid to be formed on an old history, written by Lollius, a native of Urbino in Italy. Whatever were Chaucer's materials, he has constructed a poem of confiderable merit, in which the viciffitudes of love are depicted in a ftrain of true poetry, with much pathos and fimplicity of fentiment. § Pathetic description is one of Chaucer's peculiar excellences. Warton seems to think that "The House of Fame" was fuggested by fome Provincial compofition. The poem contains great ftrokes of Gothic imagination, yet bordering often on the most ideal and capricious extravagance. Pope has imitated this piece with his. ufual elegance of diction, and harmony of verfification but has not only misreprefented the ftory, but marred the character of the poem. Nothing can be more ingeniously contrived than the occafion on which Chaucer's "Canterbury

* Warton, I. 367. † Ibid. p. 368. ‡ Ibid. 384. § Ibid. p. 385. Ibid, p. 390.

Tales"

Tales" are fuppofed to be recited. A company of pilgrims, on their journey to vifit the shrine of Thomas à Becket at Canterbury, lodge at the Tabarde-Inn in Southwark. Although ftrangers to each other, they are affembled in one room at fupper, as was then the custom, and agree not only to travel together the next morning, but to relieve the fatigue of the journey by telling each a ftory.+ The "Tales" are unequal, and of various merit. Few, if "The any, are perhaps his own invention. Knights Tale", one of his nobleft compofitions, has been already mentioned. That, which deferves the next place, as written in the higher ftrain of poetry, and the poem by which Milton defcribes, and characterizes Chaucer, is "The Squire's Tale." In the "Clerk of Oxenforde's Tale," the clerk declares in his prologues he learned it of Petrarch at Padua§. But it was the invention of Boccace, and the laft in his Decameron. "The Tale of the Nonnes Prieft" is perhaps a story of English growth. January and May, or the Marchaunts Tale," feems to be an old Lombard ftory. Dryden has modernized the tale of the Nonnes Prieft; and Pope, that of January and May; intending perhaps to give patterns of the best of Chaucer's

Warton, P. 398. Ibid. p. 398, §Ibid. p. 415. || Ibid. p. 419

tales