Excerpt from A Specimen of Chaucer's Language With Explanatory Notes: A Philological Essay

Sir geoffrey chaucer is one of the most illustrious literary characters in English history. The writings of this poet were received by his contemporaries with such general applause and admiration, that after his death, as well as in his lifetime, there were many literary men of his imitators (such as Occleve, Lydgate and others), who took a pride in styling themselves his disciples. The most celebrated authors of his time. And for centuries afterwards, paid him without exception, the highest honours; and that mark of distinction and autho rity, which in old times was stamped upon the writings and memory of Chaucer, seems to have remained unim paired up to our days. Thus Camden, when speaking of Woodstock, which he supposes to be Chaucer' s birthi place, says, that, having nothing in it else remarkable, it boasts of having produced our English Homer, GM frey Chaucer. And Dryden, who I self, as well as a judicious critic, calls him the father of English poetry. Both these statements, though they contain a very high praise, indicate, however, an opi nion, which has been very common among those exami ners of Chaucer's works, to whom we can give credit for taste and discernment. Now as we certainly can give this credit to Mr. Dryden, we cannot do better than quote his own words. We will hear him then a little upon this subject. As he (chaucer) is the father of English poetry, so I hold him in the same degree of veneration as the Grecians held Homer or the Romans Virgil; he is a perpetual fountain of good sense, learned in all sciences, and therefore speaks properly on all sub jects; as he knew what to say, so he knows also when to leave off, a continence which is practised by few writers, and scarcely by any of the Ancients excepting Virgil and Horace. Chaucer followed Nature every where, but was never so bold as to go beyond her and there is a great difference of being poe'ta ai nimis paela, if we may believe Catullus, as much as betwixt a mo dest behaviour and affectation. The verse of Chaucer I confess is not harmonious to us, but it is like the elo quence of one whom Tacitus commends, it was auribw ialina tamparia accommodata. They who lived with him, and some time after him, thought it musical, and it con tinnes so even in our judgment if compared with the numbers of Lydgate and Gower his contemporaries. There is the rude sweetness of a Scotch tune in it, -which is natural and pleasing though not perfeet, a) Ste. And, in fact, this poet excelled in all the different kinds of composition in which he wrote; for if we except the unavoidable defects of the language of his time, we find in his works all the beauties that can be wished for in any of his different writings. And that rude and defective language he has considerably reformed.

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