255 a of theon Eclogues, which were written in the year 1603, of Queen Elizabeth; great masters in our lan- މ އ natural son of Sir Thomas Fairfax, father of the first and the parish in the parish of Oteley, in the county of York, Neither of stone thats the time of his birth or death has been ascertained. He observed to Mr. Spence (as the latter informs us innf his ANECDOTES,) that " Michael Drayton was one of the fin af his first pieces, is an evident follower of Spencer too; in heal "Carew (a bad Waller,) Waller himself, and Lordart. Lansdown, are all of one school; as Sir John Suckling, Sir John Mennis, and Prior, are of another. "Crashaw is a worse sort of Cowley; he was a fol- Ahmad, lower too of Petrarch and Marino, but most of Marino. off has He and Cowley were good friends; and the latter has a beer lind, ha good copy of verses on his death.-About his pitch were enabling Stanley, (the author of THE OPINIONS OF PHILOSO-th the assig PHERS,) Randolph, though rather superior, and Sylvestern mary though rather of a lower form. out another copy boom and that he was begotten by him two hundred years after his decease. Milton has acknowledged to me, that Spencer was his original; and many "Cartwright and Bishop Corbet are of this class of poets; and Ruggle, the author of the COUNTER-SCUFFLE, might be admitted among them.-Herbert is lower than Crashaw, Sir John Beaumont higher, and Donne a good deal so." It appears from Ruffhead's Life of Pope, that he once intended to write " a Discourse on the Rise and Progress of English Poetry, as it came from the Provencial Poets," and had classed them according to their several schools and successions in the following order: 66 ÆRA I. RYMER, 2d part, pag. 65, 66, 67, 77. Petrarch, 78. SPENCER, Col. Clout, from the School of Ariosto and besides myself have heard our famous Waller own, that he derived the harmony of his numbers from Here are several mistakes. The first paragraph under Æra II. is unintelligible. We have no English poem by Alabaster. Golding, I believe, translated nothing from the Italian. Sir John Davies and Drayton wrote nearly as soon as Donne. Carew and T. Carey are the same person; and Thomas Carew, the person meant, had published nothing, when Waller wrote his first poem. There is no poet of the name of Baynal. The person meant, I suspect, was-Tho. Randal, in which way the name of · the GODFREY OF BULLOIGNE, which was turned into English by Mr. Fairfax. But to return. Having done with Ovid for this. time, it came into my mind, that our old English poet, Chaucer, in many things resembled him, and that with no disadvantage on the side of the modern author, as I shall endeavour to prove when I compare them; and as I am, and always have been, studious to promote the honour of my native country, so I soon resolved to put their merits to the trial, by turning some of the Canterbury Tales into our language, as it is now refined; for by this means, both the poets being set in the same light, and dressed in the same English habit, story to be compared with story, a certain judgment may be made betwixt them by the reader, without obtruding my opinion on him. Or if I seem partial to my countryman and predecessor in the laurel, the friends of antiquity are not few; and besides many of the learned, Ovid has almost all the beaux, and the whole fair sex, his declared patrons. Perhaps I have assumed somewhat more to myself than they allow me, because I have adventured to sum up the evidence; but the readers are the jury, and their privilege remains entire, to decide according to the merits of the cause; or, if they please, to bring it to another hearing before some other court. In the mean time, to follow the thread of my discourse, (as thoughts, accord Randolph, the poet, was often written in the last century; and Pope might not have known that Randolph, whom he before mentioned, and Tho. Randal, were the same person. but how he was the infinal of Hadelvas, I will not undertake to her. ing to Mr. Hobbes, have always some connection,) so from Chaucer I was led to think on Boccace, who was not only his contemporary," but also pursued the same studies; wrote novels in prose, and many works in verse; particularly is said to have invented the octave rhyme," or stanza of eight lines, which ever since has been maintained by the practice of all Italian writers, who are, or at least assume the title of heroick poets. He and Chaucer, among other things, had this in common, that they refined their mother tongues; but with this difference, that Dante had begun to file their language, at least in verse, before the time of Boccace, who likewise received no little help from his master, Petrarch; but the reformation of their prose was wholly owing to Boccace himself, who is yet the standard of purity in the Italian tongue; though many of his phrases are become obsolete, as in process of time it must needs happen. Chaucer (as you have formerly been told by our learned Mr. Rymer,) first 6 Boccace was born in the year 1313, and consequently was about fifteen years older than Chaucer, who is supposed to have been born in 1328. Boccace died in 1375, and Chaucer in 1400.-Dante died in 1321, aged fifty-six. Petrarch was about nine years older than his scholar, Boccace, and died seventeen months before him. Boccace first introduced the octave stanza into Italy, but he was not the inventor of it, having adopted it from the French Chansons. See Pasquier, RECHERCHES, 1. vii. c. 3; and Crescimben. ISTOR. VOLGAR. POES. vol. i. 1. i. p. 65. 4to. 1731. 66 8" Short View of Tragedy," 8vo. 1693, p. 78. For VOL. III. Q Q " |