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THE Wife

of Bath is the other piece of Chaucer which Pope selected to imitate. One cannot but wonder at his choice, which perhaps nothing but his youth could excuse. Dryden, who is known not to be nicely scrupulous, informs us, that he would not versify it on account of its indecency. Pope, however, has omitted or foftened the groffer and more offenfive passages. Chaucer afforded him many subjects of a more fublime and ferious species; and it were to be wished Pope had exercised his pencil on the pathetic story of the patience of Grifilda, or Troilus and Cressida, or the Complaint of the Black Knight; or, above all, on Cambuscan and Canace. From the accidental circumstance of Dryden and Pope's having copied the gay and ludicrous parts of Chaucer, the common notion seems to have arisen, that Chaucer's vein of poetry was chiefly turned to the light and the ridiculous, But they who look into Chaucer will foon be convinced of this prevailing prejudice, and will find his comic vein, like that of Shakespear, to be only like one of mercury, imperceptibly mingled with a mine of gold.

Mr. Hughes withdrew his contributions to a volume of Mifcellaneous Poems, published by Steel, because this prologue was to be inferted in it.

"The want of a few lines," says Mr. Tyrwhitt, "to introduce The Wife of Bath's Prologue, is perhaps one of those defects which Chaucer would have supplied, if he had lived to finish his work. The extraordinary length of it, as well as the vein of pleasantry that runs through it, is very fuitable to the character of the speaker. The greatest part must have been of Chaucer's own invention, though one may plainly fee that he had been reading the popular invectives against marriage and women in general; fuch as the Roman de la Rose, Valerius ad Rufinum de non ducendâ uxore, and particularly Hyeronymus contra Jovinianum. The holy Father, by way of recommending celibacy, has exerted all his learning and eloquence (and he certainly was not deficient in either) to collect together and aggravate whatever he could could find to the prejudice of the female sex. Among other things he has inferted his own tranflation (probably) of a long extract from what he calls, Liber aureolus Theophrasti de nuptiis. Next to him in order of time was the treatise, entitled, Epistola Valerii ad Rufinum de non ducendâ uxore, ns. Reg. 12. D. iii. It has been printed (for the fimilarity of its sentiments I suppose) among the works of St. Jerome, though it is evidently of a much later date. Tanner (from Wood's MSS. Collection) attributes it to Walter Map. (Bib. Brit. v. Map.) I should not believe it to be older; as John of Salisbury, who has treated of the same subject in his Polycrat. 1. viii. c. xi., does not appear to have seen it. To these two books Jean de Meun has been obliged for fome of the feverest strokes in his Roman de la Rose; and Chaucer has tranffused the quintessence of all the three works (upon the subject of matrimony) into his Wife of Bath's Prologue and Merchant's Tale." WARTON,

THE WIFE OF BATH.

FROM CHAUCER*.

BEHOLD the woes of matrimonial life,

And hear with rev'rence an experienc'd wife!
To dear-bought wisdom give the credit due,
And think for once, a woman tells you true.

In

* I have a curious book, entitled, A Commentary upon the

Two Tales of our ancient, renowned, and ever-living Poet,

1

Sir JEFFREY CHAUCER, Knight;

who, for his rich fancy, pregnant invention, and present compo. fure, deserved the countenance of a Prince, and of his laureat honours:

THE MILLER'S TALE;

AND

THE WIFE OF BATH.

Printed by William Godbid, and to be fold by Peter Dring at the Sun, in the Poultry, near the Rofe tavern. 1665.

The Author in the Dedication figns himself R. B.; and in the advertisement says,

"This comment was an affay whereto the author was importuned by perfons of quality, to compleat with brief, pithy, and proper illufirations, suitable to the subject!"

It appears from it, that the character of Chaucer was not well understood by the age in which this book was written; as it appears the Comment was undertaken to point out the humourous and truly comic talent of our ancient bard, which was not at the time appreciated. A short specimen will fuffice:

"Of

In all these trials I have borne a part,
I was myself the scourge that caus'd the smart;
For, fince fifteen, in triumph have I led
Five captive husbands from the church to bed.
Christ saw a wedding once, the Scripture says,
And faw but one, 'tis thought, in all his days;

"Of five husbands scolynge am I

5

10

Whence

Welcome the fixth whenever he shall dy. "The thought is taken: all flesh is mortal; but of all flesh she "would have none more mortal than her husband's. She would ever " have her aged husband's look like Death's head; meantime her " fage admonitions are never wanting to bid him remember his end. "Life is a trouble, but of all others the is most troubled with his "life. Thus dictates the of her husband's pilgrimage; which by "how much the shorter, it is for her all the better," &c.

However trifling such things may appear, I mention them, to shew the light in which Chaucer's character was held at the time; and I shall add a few words from the Appendix, to shew the Author's good fenfe.

"Appendix to Comments.

"After fuch time as the AUTOR, upon the instancy of fundry "perfons of quality, had finished his Comments upon these Two "TALES, the perusal of them begot that influence over the " clear and weighty judgements of the stricteft and rigidest Cen"fors; as their high approvement of them induced their impor"tunity to the AUTHOR to go on with the reft, as he had fuc"cefsfully done with these two first: ingeniously protesting, " that they had not read any fubject discourfing by way of IL"LUSTRATION, and running DESCANT, on such light, but "HARMLESS fancies, more handsomely couched, or modeftly "shadowed. All which, though urgently pressed, could make no " impreffion on the AUTHOR, for his definite answer was this, "That his age, without any other appellant, might render his apo"logy; and privilege him from COMMENTING ON CONCEPTIONS, "being never so pregnant, being interveined with levity; saying, "Of fuch light toys hee'd ta'n a long adieu."

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