lefs profit and no pleasure. 'Tis not for the use of fome old Saxon friends, that I have taken these pains with him: let them neglect my verfion, because they have no need of it. I made it for their fakes who understand sense and poetry as well as they, when that poetry and fenfe is put into words which they underftand. I will go farther, and dare to add, that what beauties I lose in fome places, I give to others which had them not originally: but in this I may be partial to myself; let the reader judge, and I submit to his decifion. Yet I think I have just occafion to complain of them, who, because they underftand Chaucer, would deprive the greater part of their countrymen of the fame advantage, and hoard him up, as misers do their grandam gold, only to look on it themselves, and hinder others from making use of it. In fum, I seriously proteft, that no man ever had, or can have, a greater veneration for Chaucer, than myself. I have tranflated fome part of his works, only that I might perpetuate his memory, or at least refresh it, amongst my countrymen. If I have altered him any where for the better, I must at the same time acknowledge, that I could have done nothing without him: Facile eft inventis addere, is no great commendation; and I am not fo vain to think I have deserved a greater. I will conclude what I have to fay of him fingly, with this one remark a lady of my acquaintance, who keeps a kind of correspondence with some authors of the fair sex in France, has been informed by them, that Mademoiselle de Scudery, who is as old as Sibyl, and inspired like her by the fame god of poetry, is at this time tranflating Chaucer into modern French. From which I gather, that he has been formerly tranflated into the old Provencal, (for how she should come to understand old English I know not.) But the matter

of

of fact being true, it makes me think that there is fomething in it like fatality; that, after certain periods of time, the fame and memory of great wits fhould be renewed, as Chaucer is both in France and England. If this be wholly chance, 'tis extraordinary, and I dare not call it more, for fear of being taxed with fuperftition.

Boccace comes laft to be confidered, who, living in the fame age with Chaucer, had the fame genius, and followed the fame ftudies: both writ novels, and each of them cultivated his mother tongue. But the greatest resemblance of our two modern authors being in their familiar ftile, and pleafing way of relating comical adventures, I may pafs it over, because I have tranflated nothing from Boccace of that nature. In the ferious part of poetry, the advantage is wholly on Chaucer's fide; for tho' the Englishman has borrow'd many tales from the Italian, yet it appears that thofe of Boccace were not generally of his own making but taken from authors of former ages, and by him only modelled: fo that what there was of invention in either of them, may be judged equal. But Chaucer has refined on Boccace, and has mended the ftories which he has borrowed, in his way of telling; though profe allows more liberty of thought, and the expreffion is more eafy, when unconfined by numbers. Our countryman carries weight, and yet wins the race at difadvantage. I defire not the reader should take my word and therefore I will fet two of their discourses on the fame fubject, in the fame light, for every man to judge betwixt them. I tranflated Chaucer first, and, amongst the reft, pitched on the wife of Bath's tale; not daring, as I have faid, to adventure on her prologue, because it is too licentious: there Chaucer introduces an old woman of mean parentage, whom a

youthful

youthful knight of noble blood was forced to marry, and confequently loathed her: the crone being in bed with him on the wedding night, and finding his averfion, endeavours to win his affection by reason, and speaks a good word for herself, (as who could blame her?) in hope to mollify the fullen bridegroom. She takes her topicks from the benefits of poverty, the advantages of old age and uglinefs, the vanity of youth, and the filly pride of ancestry and titles without inherent virtue, which is the true nobility. When I had clofed Chaucer, I returned to Ovid, and tranflated fome more of his fables; and by this time had fo far forgotten the wife of Bath's tale, that, when I took up Boccace, unawares I fell on the fame argument of preferring virtue to nobility of blood, and titles, in the ftory of Sigifmunda; which I had certainly avoided for the refemblance of the two difcourfes, if my memory had not failed me. Let the reader weigh them both; and if he thinks me partial to Chaucer, it is in him to right Boccace.

I prefer in our countryman, far above all his other ftories, the noble Poem of Palamon and Arcite, which is of the Epic kind, and perhaps not much inferior to the Ilias or the Æneis: the story is more pleasing than either of them, the manners as perfect, the diction as poetical, the learning as deep and various; and the difpofition full as artful; only it includes a greater length of time, as taking up feven years at leaft; but Ariftotle has left undecided the duration of the action; which yet is eafily reduced into the compafs of a year, by a narration of what preceded the return of Palamon to Athens. I had thought for the honour of our nation, and more particularly for his, whofe laurel, tho' unworthy, I have worn after him, that this story was of English growth, and Chaucer's

own:

own: but I was undeceived by Boccace; for cafually looking on the end of his seventh Giornata, I found Dioneo (under which name he shadows himself) and Fiametta (who reprefents his miftrefs the natural daughter of Robert king of Naples) of whom the fe words are spoken, Dioneo e la Fiametta granpezza contarono infieme d'Arcita, e di Palamone: by which it appears that this ftory was written before the time of Boccace; but the name of its author being wholly loft, Chaucer is now become an original; and I queftion not but the poem has received many beauties by paffing through his noble hands. Befides this tale, there is another of his own invention, after the manner of the Provencals, call'd The Flower and the Leaf; with which I was fo particularly pleafed, both for the invention and the moral, that I cannot hinder myself from recommending it to the reader.

As a corollary to this preface, in which I have done juftice to others, I owe somewhat to myself : not that I think it worth my time to enter the lifts with one Milbourn, and one Blackmore, but barely to take notice, that fuch men there are who have written fcurriloufly against me, without any provocation. Milbourn, who is in Orders, pretends amongst the reft this quarrel to me, that I have fallen foul on priesthood: If I have, I am only to ask pardon of good priefts, and am afraid his part of the reparation will come to little. Let him be fatisfied that he fhall not be able to force himself upon me for an adverfary. I contemn him too much to enter into competition with him. His own tranflations of Virgil have answered his criticisms on mine. If (as they fay, he has declared in print) he prefers the verfion of Ogilby to mine, the world has made him the fame compliment: for it is agreed on all hands,

that

that he writes even below Ogilby: that, you will say, is not eafily to be done; but what cannot Milbourn bring about? I am fatisfied however, that while he and I live together, I fhall not be thought the worst poet of the age. It looks as if I had defired him underhand to write fo ill against me: but upon my honeft word I have not bribed him to do me this fervice, and am wholly guiltless of his pamphlet. 'Tis true, I should be glad, if I could perfuade him to continue his good offices, and write fuch another critick on any thing of mine: for I find by experience he has a great ftroke with the reader, when he condemns any of my poems, to make the world have a better opinion of them. He has taken fome pains with my poetry; but no body will be perfuaded to take the fame with his. If I had taken to the church (as he affirms, but which was never in my thoughts) I should have had more fenfe, if not more grace, than to have turned myself out of my benefice by writing libels on my parishioners. But his account of my manners and my principles, are of a piece with his cavils and his poetry: and fo I have done with him for ever.

As for the City Bard, or Knight Phyfician, I hear his quarrel to me is, that I was the author of Abfalom and Achitophel, which he thinks is a little hard on his fanatic patrons in London.

I

But I will deal the more civilly with his two poems, because nothing ill is to be spoken of the dead: and therefore peace be to the Manes of his Arthurs. will only fay, that it was not for this noble knight that I drew the plan of an Epic poem on king Arthur, in my preface to the tranflation of Juvenal. The guardian angels of kingdoms were machines too ponderous for him to manage; and therefore he rejected

4

them,