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in the choice of words, and harmony of numbers: now, the words are the colouring of the work, which in the order of nature is laft to be confidered. The defign, the difpofition, the manners, and the thoughts, are all before it: where any of those are wanting or imperfect, fo much wants or is imperfect in the imitation of human life; which is in the very definition of a poem. Words indeed, like glaring colours, are the first beauties that arife, and ftrike the fight: but if the draught be falfe or lame, the figures illdifpofed, the manners obfcure or inconfiftent, or the thoughts unnatural, then the finest colours are but daubing, and the piece is a beautiful monfter at the best. Neither Virgil nor Homer were deficient in any of the former beauties; but in this laft, which is expreffion, the Roman poet is at leaft equal to the Grecian, as I have faid elsewhere; fupplying the poverty of his language by his musical ear, and by his diligence. But to return: our two great poets, being fo different in their tempers, one choleric and fanguine, the other phlegmatic and melancholic: that which makes them excel in their feveral ways, is, that each of them has followed his own natural inclination, as well in forming the defign, as in the execution of it. The very heroes fhew their authors; Achilles is hot, impatient, revengeful, Impiger, Iracundus, inexorabilis, acer, &c. Æneas patient, confiderate, careful of his people, and merciful to his enemies ever fubmiffive to the will of heaven, quò fata, trahunt, retrahuntque, fequamur. I could please myfelf with enlarging on this fubject, but am forced to defer it to a fitter time. From all I have faid I will only draw this inference, that the action of Homer being more full of vigour than that of Virgil, according to the temper of the writer, is of confequence

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more pleafing to the reader. One warms you by degrees; the other fets you on fire all at once, and never intermits his heat. 'Tis thé fame difference which Longinus makes betwixt the effects of eloquence in Demofthenes, and Tully. One perfuades; the other commands. You never cool while you read Homer, even not in the fecond book, (a graceful flattery to his countrymen ;) but he haftens from the fhips, and concludes not that book till he has made you an amends by the violent playing of a new machine. From thence he hurries on his action with variety of events, and ends it in lefs compass than two months. This vehemence of his, I confefs, is more fuitable to my temper; and therefore I have translated his first book with greater pleasure than any part of Virgil: but it was not a pleasure without pains: the continual agitations of the fpirits must needs be a weakning of any conftitution, especially in age; and many paufes are required for refreshment betwixt the heats; the Iliad of itself being a third part longer than all Virgil's works together.

This is what I thought needful in this place to say of Homer. I proceed to Ovid and Chaucer; confidering the former only in relation to the latter. With Ovid ended the golden age of the Roman tongue: from Chaucer the purity of the English tongue began. The manners of the poets were not unlike: both of them were well-bred, well-natured, amorous, and libertine, at least in their writings, it may be alfo in their lives. Their ftudies were the fame, philosophy and philology. Both of them were known in aftronomy, of which Ovid's books of the Roman feasts, and Chaucer's treatife of the Aftrolabe, are fufficient witneffes. But Chaucer was likewise an aftrologer, as were Virgil, Horace, Perfius, and Manilius. Both

writ with wonderful facility and clearness: neither were great inventors; for Ovid only copied the Grecian fables; and most of Chaucer's ftories were taken from his Italian contemporaries, or their predeceffors. Boccace his Decameron was first published; and from thence our Englishman has borrowed many of his Canterbury tales: yet that of Palamon and Arcite was written in all probability by fome Italian wit, in a former age; as I fhall prove hereafter: the tale of Grizild was the invention of Petrarch; by him fent to Boccace; from whom it came to Chaucer: Troilus and Creffida was alfo written by a Lombard author; but much amplified by our English translator, as well as beautified; the genius of our countrymen in general being rather to improve an invention, than to invent themselves; as is evident not only in our poetry, but in many of our manufactures. I find I have anticipated already, and taken up from Boccace before I come to him: but there is fo much lefs behind; and I am of the temper of moft kings, who love to be in debt, are all for prefent money, no matter how they pay it afterwards: befides, the nature of a preface is rambling; never wholly out of the way, nor in it. This I have learned from the practice of honest Montaign, and return at my pleafure to Ovid and Chaucer, of whom I have little more to say. Both of them built on the inventions of other men; yet fince Chaucer had fomething of his own, as The Wife of Bath's Tale, The Cock and the Fox, which I have tranflated, and fome others, I may juftly give our countryman the precedence in that part; fince I can remember nothing of Ovid which was wholly his. Both of them understood the manners, under which name I comprehend the paffions, and, in a larger fenfe, the defcriptions of perfons, and their very habits: for an

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example, I see Baucis and Philemon as perfectly before me, as if fomé antient painter had drawn them; and all the pilgrims in the Canterbury tales, their humours, their features, and the very drefs, as diftinctly as if I had fupped with them at the Tabard in Southwark: yet even there too the figures in Chaucer are much more lively, and fet in a better light: which though I have not time to prove; yet I appeal to the reader, and am fure he will clear me from partiality. The thoughts and words remain to be confidered in the comparison of the two poets; and I have faved myself one half of that labour, by owning that Ovid lived when the Roman tongue was in its meridian; Chaucer, in the dawning of our language: therefore that part of the comparison stands not on an equal foot, any more than the diction of Ennius and Ovid; or of Chaucer and our present English. The words are given up as a poft not to be defended in our poet, because he wanted the modern art of fortifying. The thoughts remain to be confidered: and they are to be measured only by their propriety; that is, as they flow more or lefs naturally from the persons defcribed, on fuch and fuch occafions. The vulgar judges, which are nine parts in ten of all nations, who call conceits and jingles wit, who see Ovid full of them, and Chaucer altogether without them, will think me little lefs than mad, for preferring the Englishman to the Roman: yet, with their leave, I must presume to fay, that the things they admire are only glittering trifles, and fo far from being witty, that in a ferious poem they are naufeous, because they are unnatural. Would any man, who is ready to die for love, describe his paffion like Narciflus? Would he think of inopem me copia fecit, and a dozen more of fuch expreffions, poured on the neck of one another, and fignifying all

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the fame thing? If this were wit, was this a time to be witty, when the poor wretch was in the agony of death! This is juft John Littlewit in BartholomewFair, who had a conceit (as he tells you) left him in his mifery; a miserable conceit. On thefe occafions the poet fhould endeavour to raise pity: but instead of this, Ovid is tickling you to laugh. Virgil never made ufe of fuch machines, when he was moving you to commiferate the death of Dido: he would not deftroy what he was building. Chaucer makes Arcite violent in his love, and unjust in the pursuit of it: yet when he came to die, he made him think more reafonably: he repents not of his love, for that had altered his character; but acknowledges the injuftice of his proceedings, and refigns Emilia to Palamon. What would Ovid have done on this occafion? He would certainly have made Arcite witty on his deathbed. He had complained he was farther off from poffeffion, by being fo near, and a thousand such boyisms, which Chaucer rejected as below the dignity of the fubject. They, who think otherwife, would by the fame reafon prefer Lucan and Ovid to Homer and Virgil, and Martial to all four of them. As for the turn of words, in which Ovid particularly excels all poets; they are fometimes a fault, and fometimes a beauty, as they are used properly or improperly; but in ftrong paffions always to be fhunned, because paffions are ferious, and will admit no playing. The French have a high value for them; and I confefs, they are often what they call delicate, when they are introduced with judgment; but Chaucer writ with more fimplicity, and followed nature more closely, than to use them. I have thus far, to the best of my knowledge, been an upright judge betwixt the parties in competition, not meddling with the defign nor

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