L'amer est doulz, la doulceur furieuse, Quant l'en mieulx quide avoir, tout est en vein; Ore est amour salvage, ore est soulein, The English language of Chaucer is far from possessing the polish of old French, which already attains some degree of perfection in this minor species of literature. Nevertheless, the idiom of the Anglo-Saxon poet, a heterogeneous medley of various dialects, has become the stock of modern English. A courtier, a partisan of the house of Lancaster, a Wickliffite, faithless to his convictions, a traitor to his party, now banished, then travelling in foreign countries, at one time in favour, in disgrace at another, Chaucer had met Petrarch at Padua ; instead of ascending to Saxon sources, he borrowed the spirit of his songs from the troubadours of Provence and the admirer of Laura, and from Boccaccio the character of his tales. In the Court of Love, Chaucer's lady assures him of happiness in the month of May; every thing succeeds well with any one who can wait. The first of May arrives, the birds perform the service in honour of the love of the poet, who is threatened with happiness; the eagle sings the Veni Creator, and the nightingale sighs Domine labia mea aperies. The Ploughman, still the groundwork of old Piers Ploughman, is not deficient in spirit; the clergy, ladies and lords, are the objects of the poet's attacks : The poet composed at his castle of Dunnington, beneath Chaucer's oak, his " Canterbury Tales," in the style of the Decameron. The English literature of the middle ages was in its origin disfigured by the Roman literature; modern English literature disguised itself at his birth in that of Italy. In France this mania for imitation may perhaps have deprived the age of Louis XIV of an originality which would otherwise have graced it; but, as Racine, Boileau, Bossuet, Fénélon, had happily drawn from none but Greek and Latin sources, the genius of the great monarch was found to harmonize with the genius of Athens and of Rome; from this high alliance sprung works which, drawn from models, must in all times serve as models for future works. Wickliff must be numbered amongst the English authors of Chaucer's age. His first act of reform was an English translation of the Vulgate, which is still consulted as a monument of the language. Treading in his footsteps, Luther translated the Bible into German, but from the Hebrew text. From the time of Alfred the Great, the founder of British liberty, the nation never was wholly excluded from power. The poems, chronicles, and romances of England have an element which was formerly wanting to ours, the popular element. The dramatic action in the works of our neighbours is vivified by it, and hence arise beauties of contrast with religious, aristocratic, and chivalric manners. One is much surprised to find in Barbour, the Scot, and cotemporary with Chaucer, the subjoined verses on liberty: an immortal feeling seems to have imparted immortal youth to the language; the style and the words still possess fresh vigour : Ah, freedom is a noble thing! Freedom makes man to have a liking; He lives at ease that freely lives; A noble heart may have none ease, Our French poets were then far removed from that dignity of language of which Dante had set an example in Italy. SENTIMENT OF POLITICAL LIBERTY-WHY DIFFERENT POLITICAL institutions have not less influence than morals upon literature. If the sentiment of liberty displays itself less at this period amongst the writers of our country than amongst those of England, the cause is to be found in the dissimilar positions of both; having attained an unequal degree of public power by different roads, they could not have the same language. It is worth our while to pause here for a moment, in order to extract from poetry the philosophy of history, which is often found concealed under it; we shall better understand how French and English poetry have been led to speak of liberty, or to leave it unnoticed, when we recall to mind the part which each people performed in its national institutions. In what relates to England, I shall only have to transcribe a few |