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was purely original and his own. admirable piece, even exclusive of it's poetry, is highly valuable, as it preferves to us the liveliest and exactest picture of the manners, customs, characters, and habits of our forefathers, whom he has brought before our eyes acting as on a stage, suitably to their different orders and employments. With these portraits the driest antiquary must be delighted; by this plan, he has more judiciously connected these stories which the guests relate, than Boccace has done his novels: whom he has imitated, if not excelled, in the variety of the fubjects of his tales. It is a common mistake, that Chaucer's excellence lay in this manner of treating light and ridiculous fubjects; but whoever will attentively confider the noble poem of Palamon and Arcite, will be convinced that he equally excels in the pathetic and the fublime. It would be matter of curiofity to know with certainty, who was the first author of this interesting tale. It is plain, by a paffage in Boccace, that it was in being before his time. It

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has been by fome afcribed to a writer almost unknown, called Alanus de Infulis. I have lately met with an elegy in Joannes Secundus occafioned by this Story; it is in his third book, and is thus intitled: *" In Hiftoriam de rebus a Thefeo geftis duorumque rivalium certamine, Gallicis numeris ab illuftri dam Matrona fuaviffime confcriptam." Perhaps this compliment was addreffed to Madam de Scudery, who is faid to have tranflated Chaucer into modern French. Among other instances of vanity, the French are perpetually boasting, that they have been our masters in many of the polite arts, and made earlier improvements in literature. But it may be asked, what cotemporary poet can they name to stand in competition with Chaucer? In carefully examining the curious work of the prefident Fauchet, on the characters of the ancient French poets, I can find none of this age, but barren chroniclers, and harsh romancers in rhime, without the elegance, elevation, invention, or harmony of Chaucer.

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Pafquiere informs us, that it was about the time of Charles VI. 1380, that les chants royaux, balades, rondeaux, and pastorales, began to be in vogue; but these compofitions are low and feeble, in comparison of the venerable English bard. Froiffart the valuable hiftorian, about the fame time wrote very indifferent verses. Charles of Orleans, father of Lewis XII. left a manuscript of his poems. At his death Francis Villon was thirty-three years old; and John Marot, the father of Clement, was then born. According to Boileau, whofe teftimony fhould be regarded, Villon was the firft who gave any form and order to the French poetry.

Villon fceut le premier, dans ces fiecles groffieurs,
D'ebroüiller l'art confus de nos vieux Romanciers *:

But Villon was merely a pert and infipid ballad-monger, whofe thoughts and diction were as low and illiberal, as his life.

THE HOUSE of FAME, as Chaucer entitled his piece, gave the hint of the

• L' Art Poet. chan. i.

poem

before

us,

us, though the design is in truth improved and heightened by the masterly hand of POPE. It is not improbable, that this fubject was fuggefted to our author, not only by Dryden's tranflations of Chaucer, of which POPE was fo fond, but likewife, by that celebrated paper of Addison, in the Tatler, called the Tables of Fame, to which the great worthies of antiquity are introduced, and feated according to their refpective merits and characters; and which was published fome years before this poem was written. Chaucer himself borrowed his defcription from Ovid, in the beginning of the twelfth book of his Metamorphofes, from whence he has closely copied the fituation and formation of the edifice.

Orbe locus medio eft inter terrafque fretumque,
Coeleftefque plagas, triplicis confinia mundi,
Unde quod eft ufquam, quamvis regionibus abfit,
Infpicitur, penetratque cavas vox omnis ad aures *.

Ovid has introduced fome allegorical perfonages, but has not distinguished them with any picturesque epithets;

• Ver. 40.

Illic

Illic CREDULITAS, illic temerarius ERROR,
Vanaque LÆTITIA eft, confternatique TIMORES,
SEDITIOQUE recens, dubioque auctore SUSURRI*.

Dryden tranflated this paffage of Ovid; and POPE, who evidently formed himself upon Dryden, could not but have frequently read it with pleasure, particularly the following harmonious lines.

'Tis built of brafs, the better to diffuse

The spreading founds, and multiply the News ;
Where echos in repeated echos play:

A mart for ever full, and open night and day.
Nor filence is within, nor voice express,
But a deaf noife of founds that never cease,
+ Confus'd, and chiding, like the hollow roar
Of tides, receding from th' infulted fhore:
Or like the broken thunder, heard from far,
When Jove to distance drives the rolling war.

• Ver. 63.

+ Confus'd, &c.

This is more poetically expreffed than the fame image in our author.

Sudden I heard a wild promifcuous found,

Like broken thunders that at distance roar,
Or billows murm'ring on the hollow fhore.
Dryden's lines are fuperior to the original.
Qualia de pelagi, fiquis procul audiat, undis
Vol. II.
C

Effe

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