I took to heart the merits of the cause,

And stood content to rule by wholesome laws; 430
Receiv'd the reins of absolute command,

With all the government of house and land,
And empire o'er his tongue, and o'er his hand.
As for the volume that revil'd the dames,
'Twas torn to fragments, and condemn'd to flames.
Now Heav'n, on all my husbands gone, bestow
Pleasures above, for tortures felt below:

That rest they wish'd for, grant them in the grave,
And bless those souls my conduct help'd to save!

THE lines of Pope, in the piece before us, are spirited and easy, and have, properly enough, a free colloquial air. One passage I cannot forbear quoting, as it acquaints us with the writers who were popular in the time of Chaucer. The jocose old woman says, that her husband frequently read to her out of a volume that contained :

"Valerius, whole; and of Saint Jerome, part;
Chrysippus and Tertullian, Ovid's Art,

Solomon's Proverbs, Eloïsa's loves;

With many more than sure the Church approves."

Ver. 359.

Pope has omitted a stroke of humour; for, in the original, she naturally mistakes the rank and age of St. Jerome; the lines must be transcribed:

"Yclepid Valerie and Theophrast,

At which boke he lough alway full fast;

And eke there was a clerk sometime in Rome,

A cardinal, that hightin St. Jerome,

That made a boke agenst Jovinian,
In which boke there was eke Tertullian,
Chrysippus, Trotula, and Helowis,
That was an abbess not ferr fro Paris,
And eke the Parables of Solomon,
Ovid'is art, and bokis many a one."

In the library, which Charles V. founded in France, about the year 1376, among many books of devotion, astrology, chemistry, and romance, there was not one copy of Tully to be found, and no Latin poet but Ovid, Lucan, and Boethius; some French translations of Livy, Valerius Maximus, and St. Austin's City of God. He placed these in one of the towers, called The Tower of the Library. This was the foundation of the present magnificent royal library at Paris.

The tale, to which this is the prologue, has been versified by Dryden, and is supposed to have been of Chaucer's own invention; as is the exquisite Vision of the Flower and the Leaf, which has received a thousand new graces from the spirited and harmonious Dryden. It is to his Fables, (next to his Music Ode,) written when he was above seventy years old, that Dryden will chiefly owe his immortality; and among these, particularly to the wellconducted tale of Palamon and Arcite, the pathetic picture of Sigismunda, the wild and terrible graces of Theodore and Honoria, and the sportive pleasantry of Cymon and Iphigenia,

These pieces of Chaucer were not the only ones that were versified by Pope. Mr. Harte assured me, that he was convinced by some circumstances which Fenton, his friend, communicated to him, that Pope wrote the characters that make the introduction to the Canterbury Tales, published under the name of Betterton.

Warton.

IMITATIONS

OF

ENGLISH POETS.

DONE BY THE AUTHOR IN HIS YOUTH.

THESE imitations of the English Poets, most of which were the productions of a very early age, are valuable and curious, as they serve to shew how soon the author perceived, and how deeply he felt, the impressions communicated by poetical composition. Had this not been the case, it would have been impossible for him to have reflected back, as it were, not only the form of expression, but the turn of thought, of the authors he has imitated; some of whom he has at least equalled in their own style, if not excelled. Under this point of view, it is impossible to approve of the remarks of some of his commentators, who affect to be disgusted at the indecency of these pieces, which were published by Warburton; whilst they have not scrupled to bring before their readers productions attributed to Pope, of a much more indecorous nature, which Warburton had properly rejected. That there are passages, in Chaucer, as objectionable, and in Spenser, as indelicate, as those which have been so fastidiously reprobated, will not be denied ; and why these sportive and characteristic sketches should be brought to so severe an ordeal, and pointed out to the reprehension of the reader as gross and disagreeable, dull and disgusting, it is not easy to perceive,

IMITATIONS OF ENGLISH POETS.

I.

CHAUCER.

Wo

OMEN ben full of ragerie,

Yet swinken nat sans secresie.

Thilke moral shall ye understond,

From schoole-boy's tale of fayre Irelond:
Which to the fennes hath him betake,
To filche the gray ducke fro the lake.
Right then, there passen by the way,
His aunt, and eke her daughters tway.
Ducke in his trowses hath he hent,
Not to be spied of ladies gent.

5

10

"But ho! our nephew, (crieth one)

"Ho! quoth another, Cozen John;"

And stoppen, and lough, and callen out,

This sely clerk full low doth lout:

15

They asken that, and talken this,
"Lo here is Coz, and here is Miss."

But, as he glozeth with speeches soote,
The ducke sore tickleth his erse roote:
Fore-piece and buttons all-to-brest,
Forth thrust a white neck, and red crest.
Te-he, cry'd ladies; clerke not spake :
Miss star'd; and gray ducke crieth Quaake.
"O Moder, Moder, (quoth the daughter)
"Be thilke same thing maids longer a'ter?
"Bette is to pyne on coals and chalke,

Then trust on mon, whose yerde can talke."

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