real world altogether, and luxuriating only among the brighter hues and more varied forms of fiction, call up, with Milton, "hini who left half-told the story of Cambuscan bold," or go to the magnificent and finished delineations of the Knight's tale, to the picture of Lycurgus, "the great king of Thrace, who like a Griffin looked about," or to the desolate horrors of the forest where "stood the temple of Mars armipotent," and the statue of the god of war himself, with

"The wolf that stood before him at his feet,
With eyes blood-red, and of a man did eat."

Or. if you would linger over the scenery of a fairy land of gentler
aspect and softer fascination, when from among many other examples
of the same florid warmth of conception and honied eloquence, which
might be quoted from the other productions of this author, we name
only the allegory of the Flower and the Leaf, can we refer to any other
delineation that poetic inspiration ever prompted, more richly gilded
with all the sweetest hues and radiances of poetry? Still, however, it
is in giving forceful utterance to the passions and affections of the
human heart that this great poet is ever greatest.
In simple, but
yet most soul-subduing pathos, what writer of any age shall take pre-
cedence of him to whom we owe-passing over many other almost
equally touching delineations-the two tales of Constance and Griselda,
the last of which in particular is a creation of almost stainless and per-
fect beauty? But it is his admirable tact in describing and exposing
the ridiculous in human character, that constitutes perhaps the attribute
of Chaucer's genius in which he stands most alone. In humour, indeed,
in satire, in rich and sometimes almost riotous jollity, in short, in comic
power, by whatever name it may be called, it is hardly too much to
affirm that he never has been equalled. We cannot here enumerate
the many passages throughout his writings that might be quoted in
illustration of this part of his poetic character; but we would refer gener-
ally to the prologues interspersed among the Canterbury tales as almost
all of them inimitably admirable as examples of what we would describe
-as well as to the tales of the Miller, the Reeve, the Wife of Bath, the
Friar, the Sompnour, the Merchant, the Shipman, as particularly dis-
tinguished by the same species of excellence.

Several of Chaucer's compositions have been imitated or paraphrased in modern times. Indeed we believe a modernized version of the whole, or at least of the greater part of the Canterbury tales, was published in the beginning of the last century; but it probably was not very skilfully done. Dryden's admirable imitations of the Flower and Leaf, and of various parts of the Canterbury tales, published in his Fables, are familiar to all readers of English poetry-as are also those of the Wife of Bath's prologue, and of the Merchant's tale of January and May, so spiritedly executed by Pope. The Temple of Fame of the latter writer is also, as is well known, founded upon Chaucer's House of Fame; but the scheme and conduct of the one poem are in many respects quite distinct from those of the other. The finest part of Pope's poem, the description of the six columns on which the great "heirs of fame" are elevated, is entirely his own, in conception as in execution. Wordsworth has given us a version of the Prioress's tale, constructed on the principle of the least departure from the original

language that is necessary to render it intelligible to modern ears. It is executed with the taste and delicacy that might be expected from the author; but the tale in question is not calculated to diffuse a fair impression of the glories of the morning-star of English poetry,' as Wordsworth himself has finely designated Chaucer. If we remember aright, a translation of the whole of the Canterbury tales upon this principle was suggested and recommended some years ago in a paper in the Retrospective Review, and some very happy specimens given of the manner in which the task might be accomplished. Finally, in mentioning the several modern imitations of Chaucer, we ought not to forget a very noble one of the Squire's tale, (the famous unfinished story of Cambuscan) which appeared in the second volume of the Liberal, and the author of which, we think, intimated his intention, if his health should permit, of endeavouring to carry on and conclude the poem. We are not aware that he has fulfilled his promise; but there are few things we should like better to see than the completion of that attempt.

We cannot here enter into the controversy with regard to the versification of Chaucer. Mr Tyrrwhitt, in his admirable edition of the Canterbury tales, (the only part of Chaucer's works by the by that has yet been well edited,) unfolded with great ability and force of argument the doctrine, that the verse in which these poems are written, however irregular it may seem, is in truth as correctly rythmical as that now in use. The reason why it appears to be otherwise being, that we have now ceased to pronounce the final e in many words in which it was audible and constituted a distinct syllable in Chaucer's time. Up, we believe, to the appearance of the recent edition of the poems of Surrey and Wyatt by the late Dr Scott, Mr Tyrrwhitt's theory upon this subject was held to be the true one; but many critics and philologists have since been of opinion that it has been overturned by the exami nation of it given in that work. Mr Southey, we observe, in his selections from our ancient poets just published, speaks in one place of the universal opinion being now against the regular character of Chaucer's verse; but he afterwards acknowledges that he found he had spoken upon this head somewhat too hastily. For our own parts we will merely say, that we regard Dr Scott's arguments as quite inconclusive. The editor of the last edition of Warton's History of English Poetry, long ago promised an examination of Mr Tyrrwhitt's Essay, in a supplementary volume to that publication, but the book, we believe, never has appeared, although the writer to whom we refer is perhaps better qualified than any one else to elucidate this interesting subject. His opinion, we gather from some hints he gives in his notes to Warton, is adverse to Tyrrwhitt's views.

Perhaps the truest as well as the most discernible index of a writer's popularity, is in general the number of his imitators in his own or the immediately succeeding generation. The most noticeable, at least, among the immediate effects which are wrought upon a nation's literature by the ascendancy of one man's genius, is in most cases the

There are some observations on this subject by the late Mr James Boswell in the first volume of the last edition of Shakspeare, in 21 vols. by him and Mr Malone, published in 1821, but they are not very profound. Indeed, the writer's views as to English versification in general, are in many respects quite erroneous

rushing up throughout its whole soil of something that has evidently taken both its form and its colour from the spirit of his productions, and which at the same time has seldom any other quality beyond these external resemblances to render it valuable or attractive. As heaven's thunder disdains not to be reverberated by the echoes of earth, so the voice of inspiration awakens, wherever it rings, its multiplying mockeries too, and is responded to from a thousand mimic throats whom it alone has made vocal. No name ever had a more plenteous tribute paid to it of this species of adulation than that of Chaucer. Even from the records of the first century after his death, all unvisited as it was by any gleam of genuine poetic inspiration, one of our antiquaries has reckoned up the names of no fewer than seventy such moilers, the carollings of all of whom are little better than an elaborate and lifeless mimicry of the strains of their mighty progenitor. Many of them, too, seem to have toiled at their occupation with a stout-hearted and untiring perseverance, which the service of Apollo has not always awakened even in the most favoured of its votaries. One of these unwearied moilers aloneLydgate, the once celebrated monk of Bury-has left us above 250 different productions on all sorts of subjects; and seems, indeed, from the hints we have of his history, to have kept a sort of office for the manufacture and sale of poetry, and to have supplied his numerous customers as regularly and expeditiously as if he had been in the habit of throwing off the article by a steam-engine. This inexhaustible affluence of rhymes seems to have excited towards Lydgate in a very singular degree the admiration of his simple contemporaries: his popularity among whom, indeed, contrasted with the neglect and contempt wherewith he has been treated by their descendants, affords one of the most striking examples on record of the strange caprices of national taste, and the shadowy instability of human fame.

John Lydgate.

BORN CIRC. A. d. 1375.—died circ. a. d. 1461.

THE language of a country can only be improved by very slow degrees, and the writers consequently who lived at an early period of its formation, are rather to be estimated by their learning and general excellence of thought, than by their modes of expression. It ought not, therefore, to occasion much surprise, that most of the few authors who flourished in the age immediately succeeding that of Chaucer, exhibit little improvement in point of style, and seem rather to be hovering on the verge of the barbarism which that great poet had, by a sudden flight, left far behind, than ready to advance beyond the line which he had thus traced out. "I consider Chaucer," says Warton, "as a genial day in an English spring. A brilliant sun enlivens the face of nature with an unusual lustre: the sudden appearance of cloudless skies, and the unexpected warmth of a tepid atmosphere, after the gloom and the inclemencies of a tedious winter, fill our hearts with the visionary prospect of a speedy summer, and we fondly anticipate a long continuance of gentle gales and vernal serenity. But winter returns with redoubled horrors: the clouds condense more formidably

than before and those tender buds, and early blossoms, which were called forth by the transient gleam of a temporary sun-shine, are nipped by frosts and torn by tempests." Nothing, however, appears to have taken place but what is common to almost every age of literature, and it would be wrong, perhaps, to understand the elegant comparison of the historian in any but the most restricted sense. It is not the appearance of only a few plants, or of plants wanting in luxuriance, that indicates with certainty the untimely blights of winter. The soil itself may be unfavourable to their growth, and the one or two which have flourished may have owed their increase to particular circumstances, and ought not, therefore, to be regarded as proper indicators of the season or the climate. Chaucer and Gower both enjoyed considerable advantages, and were men possessing much more than the average of talent. We are, therefore, in nowise to consider that literature went back because they were not generally succeeded by writers of greater or equal talent, than we are to consider that winter is returned because the fields are not covered with verdure as rich as the beds of some favoured garden. The most advanced periods of literature exhibit circumstances precisely the same as those to be observed in that of which we are speaking. Milton and Pope are the cynosures of their respective eras; but it would be committing an important error to judge of the general state of literature in those periods from the productions of these poets. Neither of them indicated the common average of talent or learning then prevalent, and when they died there was no more a retrograde motion in literature, than there was in science at the death of Newton. Though, therefore, with the exception of Lydgate himself, the poets of his age were of very inferior merit to Chaucer, notwithstanding the advantage they enjoyed of living thirty or forty years later, we are not from this to infer that the progress of improvement was at a stand. Considering, indeed, the reputation Lydgate obtained, the value that was set upon his productions, and, above all, the wellknown fact, that he opened a school for teaching the art of versification and composition to the sons of the nobility,-considering these circumstances, there is reason to believe that literature was making a sure though slow advance throughout the nation.

The date of Lydgate's birth is not known, but he is said to have enjoyed considerable distinction as a poet, about the year 1430. He was educated at Oxford, but appears to have remained at that university but a short time. On quitting it, he made the tour of France and Italy, and in both these countries studied with ardour and profit. In the one, poetry still retained much of the beauty and raciness which had characterised the Provençal minstrelsy; in the other, Boccaccio had lately ingrafted on the harmonious language of Dante and Petrarch, all the gaiety and varied attractions of romance. To a man of taste like Lydgate, the materials of poetry thus laid before him could hardly fail of appearing of double value when viewed amid the very scenes of their creation. We accordingly find that, when he returned to England, he strenuously devoted himself to the cultivation of the poetic art, drawing the subjects of almost all his pieces from the writings of Boccaccio and French authors, and, in some instances, only translating them. While thus engaged, he was enjoying the retirement and advantages of the rich Benedictine abbey at Bury St Edmund's, of which

he was a monk. His celebrity was probably not a little aided by the circumstance of his being an ecclesiastic, and, as we have already mentioned, the name he acquired by his productions enabled him to open a school in the monastery for the introduction of the young nobility to the knowledge of polite literature. Few circumstances recorded of the present period are better adapted than this to give us a favourable im pression of the state of the public mind. Hitherto the acquirements which fitted a man to shine in the battle-field, or the tournament, were the exclusive pursuit of the higher classes, and they were thought sufficiently well-prepared to adorn their station when they could bear themselves gallantly against an enemy or a rival. We now learn that it was beginning to be thought necessary to exhibit some power of mind, and to imitate the example already set by the nobility of France and Italy in the cultivation of literature. Instead, therefore, of considering as formerly, that it was on the professional minstrel, or the learned clerk only, that the skill in poetry, or science, could confer honour, the young courtiers began to envy the praise they obtained, and gradually acquiring a taste for the lighter accomplishments of the mind, soon became sensible of the universal excellence and dignity of knowledge. Lydgate himself was a very general scholar, and is said to have been acquainted, as far as the learning of his times would allow him, with geometry and astronomy, as well as theology, and the usual science of the schoolmen. According, however, to his own account he was little acquainted with any other language but French; and, if this be true, we have a curious proof in his works of the immense mass of poetical erudition which was imported into this country through the medium of that language, or at least through that in combination with Italian. The illustrations with which Lydgate and others of our very early poets adorned their pages, might be profitably examined with respect to the doubts which furnished matter for the long controversy on the subject of Shakspeare's learning. Chaucer, Gower, and Lydgate, have allusions in their poems to almost every fable and important event, in Greek and Roman history, and even the abstrusest doctrines of Plato and Aristotle find a place in their stories, and are dilated upon with minute ingenuity. The curious mixtures of truth and falsehood, and the equally strange perversions of philosophy which frequently startle the sober reader of such productions, only serve to exhibit in a stronger light the disjointed masses of learning thus brought together, and the inquirer into the literature of this period cannot help being continually tempted to speculate on the state of mind which must have necessarily resulted from so remarkable a confusion of wild tradition with the profoundest discoveries of the human intellect in its most healthy condition.

The catalogue which has been made of Lydgate's writings by the laborious Ritson, would lead us to regard him as one of the most fruitful authors of that or any other age. According to this list, he produced no fewer than two hundred and fifty separate pieces, and even supposing that a large portion of these have been falsely ascribed to him, he would still appear as a writer of indefatigable industry. His chief and best known productions are the Fall of Princes,' the Siege of Thebes,' and the Destruction of Troy.' Among the most popular of his minor pieces was the Dance of Death,' a translation made from