who inverted the order of poetical excellence, and who preferred Lucilius to Virgil; fo there might be readers in England, fo devoted to POPE, as to prefer him to Milton; and the author thought and knew there were actually many fuch readers and judges; who feemed not to recollect, that, in every language, he is the trueft and most genuine poet, whofe works most powerfully strike the imagination with what is Great, Beautiful, and New.

AN

ESS SAY

ON THE

WRITINGS and GENIUS

O F

POP E.

F

SECT.

VII.

Of the TEMPLE of FAME.

EW difquifitions are more amufing,

or perhaps more instructive, than those which relate to the rife and gradual increase of literature in any kingdom: And among the various fpecies of literature, the origin and progress of poetry, however shallow reasoners may despise it, is a subject of no fmall utility. For the manners and cuf

Vol. II.

B

toms,

toms, the different ways of thinking and of living, the favorite paffions, perfuits, and pleasures of men, appear in no writings fo strongly marked, as in the works of the poets in their respective ages; so that in these compofitions, the hiftorian, the moralift, the politician, and the philofopher, may, each of them, meet with abundant matter for reflection and obfervation.

POETRY made it's first appearance in Britain, as perhaps in most other countries, in the form of chronicles, intended to perpetuate the deeds both of civil and military heroes, but mostly the latter. Of this fpecies is the chronicle of Robert of Glocefter; and of this fpecies alfo was the fong, or ode, which William the Conqueror, and his followers, fung at their landing in this kingdom from Normandy. The mention of which event, will naturally remind us of the check it gave to the native strains of the old British poetry, by an introduction of foreign manners, cuftoms, images, and

language.

vence;

how

language. These ancient ftrains were,
ever, fufficiently harfh, dry, and uncouth.
And it was to the Italians we owed any
thing that could be called poetry: from
whom Chaucer copied largely, as they are
faid to have done from the bards of Pro-
and to which Italians he is perpe-
tually owning his obligations, particularly to
Boccace and Petrarch. But Petrarch had
great advantages, which Chaucer wanted,
not only in the friendship and advice of
Boccace, but ftill more in having found fuch
a predeceffor as Dante. In the year 1359,
Boccace fent to Petrarch a copy of Dante,
whom he called his father, written with his
own hand. And it is remarkable, that he
accompanied his prefent with an apology
for fending this poem to Petrarch, who, it
feems, was jealous of Dante, and in the
answer speaks coldly of his merits. This
circumstance, unobferved by the generality
of writers, and even by Fontanini, Cref-
cembini, and Muratori, is brought for-
ward and related at large, in the third
volume, page 507, of the very entertaining
Memoirs

B 2

Memoirs of the life of Petrarch. In the year. 1363, Boccace, driven from Florence by the plague, vifited Petrarch at Venice, and. carried with him Leontius Pilatus, of Theffalonica, a man of genius, but of haughty, rough, and brutal manners; from this fingular man, who perished in a voyage from Conftantinople to Venice, 1365, Petrarch received a Latin translation of the Iliad and Odyffey. Muratori, in his 1. book, Della Perfetta Poefia, p. 18, relates, that a very few years after the death of Dante, 1321, a moft curious work on the Italian poetry, was written by a M. A. di Tempo, of which he had feen a manufcript in the great library at Milan, of the year 1332, and of which this is the title; Incipit Summa Artis Ritmici vulgaris dictaminis. Ritmorum vulgarium feptem sunt genera. 1. Eft Sonetus. 2. Ballata. 3. Cantio extenfa. 4. Rotundellus. 5. Mandrialis, 6. Serventefius. 7. Motus confectus. But whatever Chaucer might copy from the Italians, yet the artful and entertaining plan of his Canterbury Tales,