indigenous everywhere; legends, hymns, versechronicles and romances. The first imported fashion was the Provençal, or Lemosin. Chaucer composed his complimentary poems in this style; for such things it is well adapted, because its dreams and its allegories throw an obscurity over what in itself is mean and insignificant.The Romance of the Rose, which is the great work of this school, he must have translated for its reputation, and not for its merit. At that time any contribution to the quantity of vernacular verse was useful; but it is impossible not to regret, that the time bestowed upon this long and wearying rigmarole, had not been employed upon the Canterbury Tales.

Most of the poems before his time were composed in short lines, as, I believe it will be found that, the early poems of every country are, because they were designed for recitation; short lines were preferred, because they facilitated recollection, and these lines would be either echoingly alliterative, or have a strong cadence, like the Latin Adonics, or be connected by a quick recurrence of rhymes.

It is not easy to understand Chaucer's system of versification, whether it was metrical or rhythmical; to speak plainer, whether he intended that his verses should consist of a certain number of feet, or like the modern Improvisatori was satisfied, so they were melodious, without restricting himself to any laws, either of length or cadence. I am inclined to think that this was his system, because upon this system, he is more melodious, and the pronunciation which otherwise is required is so variable, that it seems as if it must always have appeared ridiculous. Be that as it may, it is evident that he had well weighed the subject of versification. Avoiding the harshness and obscurity of alliterative rhythm on the one hand, and on the other the frequent recurrence and intricate intertexture of rhymes which are found in some of the romances; he preferred forms less rude than the one, less artificial than the other; less difficult, and therefore more favourable to perspicuity than either.. Chaucer, therefore, became the model of succeeding Poets; the ten-syllable couplet, in which

his best poems are composed, has become our most usual measure; and even when rhyme is disused, that length of line which he considered as best adapted for narrative, is still preferred for it.

Petrarca, Dante, and Chaucer, are the only Poets of the dark ages whose celebrity has remained uninjured by the total change of manners in Europe. The fame of Chaucer has not, indeed, extended so widely as theirs, because English literature has never obtained the same European circulation, as that of the easier languages of the South, and also because our language since his days has undergone a greater alteration than the Italian. To attempt any comparison between three writers, who have so little in common, would be ridiculous; but it may be remarked that Chaucer displays a versatility of talents, which neither of the others seem to have possessed in which only Ariosto has approached, and only Shakspeare equalled him. Few, indeed, have been so eminently gifted, with all the qualifications of a Poet, essential or accidental. He was well versed

in all the learning of his age, even of the abstrusest kind; he had an eye and an ear, for all the sights and sounds of nature; humour to display human follies, and feeling to understand, and to delineate human passions. As a painter of manners, he is accurate as Richardson; as a painter of character, true to the life aud spirit as Hogarth. It is impossible that he can ever regain his popularity, because his language has become obsolete; but his fame will stand. The more he is examined the higher he will rise, in estimation. Old Poets in general are only valuable for their antiquity; Chaucer, on the contrary, is prevented only by his antiquity from being ranked among the greatest Poets of England; far indeed below Shakspeare and Milton, perhaps below Spenser, for his mind was less pure, and his beauties are scattered over a wider and more unequal surface,-but far above all others.

VI. The ornate style originated in Chaucer; he has just left specimens enough to shew that he had tried the experiment, and did not like it. Occleve, and others of his followers, however,

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were loud in their commendations; they copied the peculiarities of their master, and thought they were imitating his beauties. The verses of Stephen Hawes are as full of barbarous sesquipedalian Latinisms, as the prose of the Rambler; but the mixture was too maccaronick for English ears, and never became fashionable. It succeeded better in Scotland; there it disfigured the verses of Sir David Lindsay, and the poems of Gavain Douglas, and continued as late as the days of James I, who, in his Essayes of a Prentice in the Divine Art of Poesie, among the Reulis and Cautelis to be observit and eschewit in Scottis Poesie, especially warns the aspirant to beware of rhyming in termis, quhilk is to say, that your first or hindmost word in the lyne exceed not twa or thre syllabis at the maist, using thre als seindill as ye can. He assigns as a reason, that all long words have a syllable in them so very long, that the length thereof eats up the other syllables in the same word which should be long by position, and so spoils the flowing of the line. Solomon the Second was right in his rule, and not wrong