ere he shines. I deny not, likewise, that, living in our early days of poetry, he writes not always of a piece, but sometimes mingles trivial things with those of greater moment. Sometimes also, though not often, he runs riot, like Ovid, and knows not when he has said enough. But there are more great wits besides Chaucer, whose fault is their excess of conceits, and those ill-sorted. An author is not to write all he can, but only all he ought. Having observed this redundancy in Chaucer (as it is an easy matter for a man of 10 ordinary parts to find a fault in one of greater), I have not tied myself to a literal translation; but have often omitted what I judged unnecessary, or not of dignity enough to appear in the company of better thoughts. I have presumed farther in some places; and added somewhat of my own where I thought my author was deficient, and had not given his thoughts their true lustre, for want of words in the beginning of our language. And to this I was the more emboldened, because (if I may be permitted to say it of myself) I found I had a soul congenial to his, and that I had 20 been conversant in the same studies. Another poet in another age may take the same liberty with my writings; if at least they live long enough to deserve correction.

...

But there are other judges who think I ought not to have translated Chaucer into English, out of a quite contrary notion. They suppose there is a certain veneration due to his old language; and that it is a little less than profanation and sacrilege to alter it. They are farther of opinion, that somewhat of his good sense will suffer in this transfusion, and much of the beauty of his thoughts will infallibly be 30 lost, which appear with more grace in their old habit. . . If the first end of a writer be to be understood, then, as his language grows obsolete, his thoughts must grow obscure. When an ancient word for its sound and significancy deserves to be revived, I have that reasonable veneration for antiquity to restore it. All beyond this is superstition. Words are not like landmarks, so sacred as never to be removed.

Customs are changed; and even statutes are silently repealed, when the reason ceases for which they were enacted. As for the other part of the argument, that his thoughts will lose of their original beauty, by the innovation of words in the first place, not only their beauty, but their being is lost, where they are no longer understood; which is the present case. I grant that something must be lost in all transfusion, that is, in all translations; but the sense will remain, which would otherwise be lost, or at least be maimed, when it is scarce intelligible, and that but to a few. 10 How few are there who can read Chaucer, so as to understand him perfectly! And if imperfectly, then with less profit and no pleasure. 'Tis not for the use of some old Saxon friends that I have taken this pains with him let them neglect my version, because they have no need of it. I made it for their sakes who understand sense and poetry as well as they, when that poetry and sense is put into words which they understand. I will go farther, and dare to add, that what beauties I lose in some places I give to others which had them not originally. But in this I may be 20 partial to myself. Let the reader judge: and I submit to his decision. Yet I think I have just occasion to complain of them, who, because they understand Chaucer, would deprive the greater part of their countrymen of the same 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 sum, I seriously protest, that no man ever had, or can have, a greater veneration for Chaucer than myself. I have translated some part of his works, only that I might perpetuate his memory, or at least refresh it 30 amongst my countrymen. If I have altered him anywhere for the better, I must at the same time acknowledge that I could have done nothing without him: Facile est inventis addere is no great commendation; and I am not so vain to think I have deserved a greater.

NOTES.

MILTON.

Cadmus slew the

He sowed some of its

P. 4, 1. 26. those fabulous dragons' teeth. dragon that guarded the well of Ares. teeth and there sprang up the men called "the sown men," who all killed each other except five who were the ancestors of the Thebans. The teeth that Cadmus did not sow came into the possession of Eetes, King of Colchis: one of the tasks he gave to Jason, who won the golden fleece, was to sow those teeth and kill the armed warriors who would spring from them.

P. 5, 1. 22. Palladian oil. The oil burnt while studying at night-time was like a sacrifice to Pallas Minerva, the goddess of wisdom.

P. 6, 1. 10. be a doctor in his book, be a teacher in his book. Cf. Lat. doceo, I teach.

1. 24. the school of Pythagoras... the old philosophy of this island. Pythagoras was a famous Greek philosopher who flourished B.C. 540-510. He is said to have visited the Druids of Gaul, but even that report is fictitious, and he can scarcely have been in Britain. A great feature of his religious doctrine was the transmigration of the soul (metempsychosis) from one man at his death into another man, and into animals, and from animals into men.

1. 27. Julius Agricola. He was governor of Britain under Rome, from A.D. 78 to 85. His biography was written by his son-in-law, Tacitus, the great Roman historian.

1. 29. the grave and frugal Transylvanian._During the first half of the 17th century Hungarians came to England to study, and carried Presbyterian principles home with them, so that the controversies of the English Church were transplanted into Transylvania.

1. 32. Hercynian wilderness. The name given by Caesar to the mountains covered with forest in the south and centre of Germany, including what we know as the Black forest, the Thuringian forest, and the Harz mountains.

P. 7, 1. 2. out of Sion. Cf. Luke, ii. 10-11.

1. 6. Wickliff. John Wycliffe (the usual spelling), the religious reformer and theologian, died in 1384. He originated the scheme of and himself assisted in the translation of the Bible into English. That work of his makes him the founder of English prose.

1. 8. Huss. John Huss, the Bohemian religious reformer, was born about 1369. He came under the influence of Wycliffe's writings, and was burnt as a heretic in 1415.

1. 8. Jerome. Jerome of Prague, religious reformer, the friend of Huss and disciple of Wycliffe, was burnt as a heretic in 1416.

1. 8. Luther. Martin Luther (1483-1546), the great originator and leader of the Reformation and founder of Protestantism. The drawing up of the Augsburg Confession in 1530 marks the culmination of the Reformation in Germany.

1. 8. Calvin (1509-1564), the French Protestant reformer, rendered great services to the cause of the Reformation. The Huguenots in France and the Puritans in England followed his teaching.

11. 16-18. to begin... Reformation itself. The Puritan Revolution.

1. 22. this vast city. London.

P. 10, 1. 16. Danegelt, a tax on land raised by Ethelred II. to buy off the Danes. Canute paid his small standing army by regular levies of Danegeld (cf. Ger. geld, money). It was levied for the last time by Henry I.

1. 20. temple of Janus. In Rome the doors of the temple of Janus were thrown open in times of war and closed in times of peace. Janus was an ancient Latin deity and is generally represented in art by two bearded faces.

1. 30. the discipline of Geneva, the Consistorial Court of Discipline established by Calvin (cf. note, p. 7, line 8) at Geneva. It virtually directed all the affairs of the city and controlled

the social and individual life of the citizens.

P. 11, 1. 17. old Proteus, Neptune's herdsman, who had the power when awake of changing his shape into any form he chose, and therefore could only be caught when asleep.

1. 21. Micaiah-Ahab. Cf. 1 Kings, xxii. 8-28.

WALTON.

P. 13, 1. 29. college of Carthusians, an order of monks founded by St. Bruno of Cologne in 1086.

With six companions

he retired to La Chartreuse, near Grenoble, in France.

P. 14, 1. 7. our learned Camden. William Camden (1551-1623), antiquary and historian. He was head-master of Westminster School, and founded a chair of history in Oxford University in 1622. His great work Britannia first appeared in 1586; a sixth and greatly enlarged edition was issued in 1607.

P. 15, 1. 35. fence-months.

is prohibited.

The months during which fishing

P. 21, 1. 7. Sic ego..

BROWNE.

"Thus would I fain be laid to rest

when I am turned to a skeleton."

1. 25. Archimedes, who perished 212 B.C. at the capture of Syracuse by the Romans, was the most celebrated of ancient mathematicians.

P. 22, 1. 6. Alcmena's nights, long by reason of her travail. She was the mother of Hercules.

1. 14. Achilles. Thetis, the mother of Achilles, to prevent him from going to the Trojan war, where she knew he was to perish, sent him to the court of Lycomedes at Scyros, disguised as a girl.

1. 34. Atropos, destroying Fate, "the blind Fury with the abhorred shears that slits the thin-spun life."

P. 23, 1. 7. the prophecy of Elias (Elijah), viz. that the world may last 6000 years.

1. 7. Charles the Fifth (1500-1558). He was crowned emperor of the Holy Roman Empire in 1521. He inherited the Low Countries and Spain, and made himself master of Italy. He resigned his great possessions three years before his death, and retired to the monastery of St. Just in Spain.

1. 13. Janus. Cf. note, p. 10, line 20.

1. 35. Cardan (1501-1576), an Italian mathematician, naturalist, physician, philosopher, and astrologer.

11. 35-36. horoscopal inclination, the position of the stars at the hour of his birth.

P. 24, 1. 1. Hippocrates's patients. Hippocrates (B. C. 460-? 357) was the most celebrated physician of antiquity. His writings show him to have been a profound thinker. He is the author of the maxim, "Life is short and Art is long."

1. 3. entelechĩa, a Greek word meaning 'reality' or 'realization.' Aristotle called the soul the entelechia of the body; i.e. it is that which gives to the body its real meaning.

1. 5. Canaanitish woman. Cf. Matthew, xv. 22.