nature. In the serious part of poetry, the advantage is wholly on Chaucer's side; for tho' the Englishman has borrow'd many tales from the Italian, yet it appears that those of Boccace were not generally of his own making, but taken from authors of former ages, and by him only model'd; so that what there was of invention in either of them may be judg'd equal. But Chaucer has refin'd on Boccace, and has mended the stories which he has borrow'd, in his way of telling; tho' prose allows more liberty of thought, and the expression is more easy when unconfin'd by numbers. Our countryman carries weight, and yet wins the race at disadvantage. I desire not the reader should take my word, and therefore I will set two of their discourses on the same subject, in the same light, for every man to judge betwixt them. I translated Chaucer first, and, amongst the rest, pitch'd on The Wife of Bath's Tale; not daring, as I have said, to adventure on her prologue, because 't is too licentious: there Chaucer introduces an old woman of mean parentage, whom a youthful knight of noble blood was forc'd to marry, and consequently loath'd her; the crone being in bed with him on the wedding night, and finding his aversion, endeavors to win his affection by reason, and speaks a good word for herself (as who could blame her?) in hope to mollify the sullen bridegroom. She takes her topics from the benefits of poverty, the advantages of old age and ugliness, the vanity of youth, and the silly pride of ancestry and titles without inherent virtue, which is the true nobility. When I had clos'd Chaucer, I return'd to Ovid, and translated some more of his fables; and by this time had so far forgotten The Wife of Bath's Tale, that, when I took up Boccace, unawares I fell on the same argument of preferring virtue to nobility of blood, and titles, in the story of Sigismonda; which I had certainly avoided for the resemblance of the two discourses, if my memory had not fail'd me. Let the reader weigh them both; and if he thinks me partial to Chaucer, 't is in him to right Boccace.

I prefer in our countryman, far above all his other stories, the noble poem of Palamon and Arcite, which is of the epic kind, and perhaps not much inferior to the Ilias or the Eneis: 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 disposition full as artful; only it includes a greater length of time, as taking up seven years at least; but Aristotle has left undecided the duration of the action; which yet is easily reduc'd into the compass of a year, by a narration of what preceded the return of Palamon to Athens. I had thought for the honor of our

nation, and more particularly for his, whose laurel, tho' unworthy, I have worn after him, that this story was of English growth, and Chaucer's own; but I was undeceiv'd by Boccace; for, casually looking on the end of his seventh Giornata, I found Dioneo (under which name he shadows himself) and Fiametta (who represents his mistress, the natural daughter of Robert, King of Naples), of whom these words are spoken: Dioneo e Fiametta gran pezza cantarono insieme d' Arcita, e di Palamone: by which it appears that this story was written before the time of Boccace; but, the name of its author being wholly lost, Chaucer is now become an original; and I question not but the poem has receiv'd many beauties by passing thro' his noble hands. Besides this tale, there is another of his own invention, after the manner of the Provençals, call'd The Flower and the Leaf; with which I was so particularly pleas'd, 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 justice to others, I owe somewhat to myself not that I think it worth my time to enter the lists with one M- or one B, but barely to take notice, that such men there are who have written scurrilously against me, without any provocation. M- who is in orders, pretends amongst the rest this quarrel to me, that I have fallen foul on priesthood: if I have, I am only to ask pardon of good priests, and am afraid his part of the reparation will come to little. Let him be satisfied that he shall not be able to force himself upon me for an adversary. I contemn him too much to enter into competition with him. His own translations of Virgil have answer'd his criticisms on mine. If (as they say he has declar'd in print) he prefers the version of Ogleby to mine, the world has made him the same compliment for 't is agreed on all hands, that he writes even below Ogleby: that, you will say, is not easily to be done; but what cannot M- bring about? I am satisfied, however, that while he and I live together, I shall not be thought the worst poet of the age. It looks as if I had desir'd him underhand to write so ill against me; but upon my honest word I have not brib'd him to do me this service, and am wholly guiltless of his pamphlet. "T is true, I should be glad if I could persuade him to continue his good offices, and write such another critique on anything of mine: for I find by experience he has a great stroke with the reader, when he condemns any of my poems, to make the world have a better opinion of them. He has taken some pains with my poetry, but nobody will be persuaded to take the same with his. If I had taken to the

Church, (as he affirms, but which was never in my thoughts,) I should have had more sense, if not more grace, than to have turn'd 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 so I have done with him for ever.

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

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. I will only say 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 translation of Juvenal. The guardian angels of kingdoms were machines too ponderous for him to manage; and therefore he rejected them, as Dares did the whirlbats of Eryx, when they were thrown before him by Entellus. Yet from that preface he plainly took his hint: for he began immediately upon the story, tho' he had the baseness not to acknowledge his benefactor, but, instead of it, to traduce me in a libel.

I shall say the less of Mr. Collier, because in many things he has tax'd me justly; and I have pleaded guilty to all thoughts and expressions of mine which can be truly argued of obscenity, profaneness, or immorality; and retract them. If he be my enemy, let him triumph; if he be my friend, as I have given him no personal occasion to be otherwise, he will be glad of my repentance. It becomes me not to draw my pen in the defense of a bad cause, when I have so often drawn it for a good one. Yet it were not difficult to prove that in many places he has perverted my meaning by his glosses, and interpreted my words into blasphemy and bawdry, of which they were not guilty. Besides that, he is too much given to horseplay in his raillery, and comes to battle like a dictator from the plow. I will not say: "The zeal of God's house has eaten him up; " but I am sure it has devour'd some part of his good manners and civility. It might also be doubted whether it were altogether zeal which prompted him to this rough manner of proceeding: perhaps it became not one of his function to rake into the rubbish of ancient and modern plays; a divine might have employ'd his pains to better purpose than in the nastiness of Plautus

and Aristophanes; whose examples, as they excuse not me, so it might be possibly suppos'd that he read them not without some pleasure. They who have written commentaries on those poets, or on Horace, Juvenal,

and Martial, have explain'd some vices which, without their interpretation, had been unknown to modern times. Neither has he judg'd impartially betwixt the former age and us.

There is more bawdry in one play of Fletcher's, call'd The Custom of the Country, than in all ours together. Yet this has been often acted on the stage in my remembrance. Are the times so much more reform'd now than they were five and twenty years ago? If they are, I congratulate the amendment of our morals. But I am not to prejudice the cause of my fellow poets, tho' I abandon my own defense they have some of them answer'd for themselves, and neither they nor I can think Mr. Collier so formidable an enemy that we should shun him. He has lost ground at the latter end of the day, by pursuing his point too far, like the Prince of Condé at the battle of Seneffe: from immoral plays to no plays, ab abusu ad usum, non valet consequentia. But being a party, I am not to erect myself into a judge. As for the rest of those who have written against me, they are such scoundrels that they deserve not the least notice to be taken of them. B and M— are only distinguish'd from the crowd by being remember'd to their infamy:

Demetri, teque Tigelli
Discipulorum inter jubeo plorare cathedras.

The land, if not restrain'd, had met your way,

Projected out a neck, and jutted to the

sea.

Hibernia, prostrate at your feet, ador'd,
In you, the pledge of her expected lord,
Due to her isle; a venerable name;

His father and his grandsire known to fame:

Aw'd by that house, accustom'd to command,

The sturdy kerns in due subjection stand, Nor hear the reins in any foreign hand.

At your approach, they crowded to the port;

And scarcely landed, you create a court: As Ormond's harbinger, to you they run; For Venus is the promise of the sun.

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The waste of civil wars, their towns destroy'd,

Pales unhonor'd, Ceres unemploy'd,
Were all forgot; and one triumphant day
Wip'd all the tears of three campaigns

The storm at their return, the ladies' fear:
But these, and other things, I must forbear.
The field is spacious I design to sow,
With oxen far unfit to draw the plow:
The remnant of my tale is of a length
To tire your patience, and to waste my
strength;

And trivial accidents shall be forborne,
That others may have time to take their

turn;

As was at first enjoin'd us by mine host That he whose tale is best, and pleases most,

Should win his supper at our common cost. And therefore where I left, I will

pursue

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This ancient story, whether false or true,
In hope it may be mended with a new.
The prince I mention'd, full of high renown,
In this array drew near th' Athenian town;
When in his pomp and utmost of his pride,
Marching, he chanc'd to cast his eye aside, 40
And saw a choir of mourning dames, who
lay

By two and two across the common way:
At his approach they rais'd a rueful cry,
And beat their breasts, and held their hands
on high,

Creeping and crying, till they seiz'd at last His courser's bridle, and his feet embrac'd. "Tell me," said Theseus, "what and

whence you are, And why this funeral pageant you prepare. Is this the welcome of my worthy deeds, To meet my triumph in ill-omen'd weeds ? Or envy you my praise, and would destroy With grief my pleasures, and pollute my joy?

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Or are you injur'd, and demand relief? Name your request, and I will ease your grief."

The most in years of all the mourning