tribute more effectually to the interests of literature and the general diffusion of knowledge.

"The only excuse," says Mr. Hippisley, "for the publication of the present volume must consist in apparent or possible utility: the wellinformed reader, who has already been abundantly supplied with works of professed antiquaries, scholars, or critics will discover in these pages little of novelty or interest. It is therefore my desire that this work should be received not as intended for the scholar or the man of letters, but as originating from a belief that some elementary knowledge in Early English literature might be imparted to the young and unpractised student in a more compendious form than has hitherto been adopted."

This is extremely well put, and very fairly argued. To sift what is excellent from what is mediocre, the corn from the chaff, the pure essence from the noxious grasses with which it is combined, is highly meritorious in itself, and there can be no doubt that by performing it dexterously, a writer may acquire a niche in the temple of Fame, at no great distance fromt he illustrious originals. The history of literature is in fact the moral and intellectual history of mankind. The character of a period is stamped upon its productions; not unfrequently those productions are the most faithful chroniclers of the period. The songs of the troubadours and the provinceaux minstrels are the only authentic records of the history of their times; and the picturesque views of many a well-fought field, with the exterminating hate that nerved the arms of the Moors and Christians, still shine in the Spanish metrical romances. In fact, the materials of the history of the middle ages are borrowed entirely from these sources. In this kind of historical interest there is no national literature more fertile than our own. Chaucer alone exhibits in his own proper person, independently of the literary charms with which his work abounds, an index of the intellectual state of the age, and reflects as in a mirror the manners and opinions of his times. Dante supplies a valuable commentary upon Italian history: he passes in review the most conspicuous characters of the age, and makes strong allusions to the events which marked their careers; but in those particulars the northern is even superior. Dante is particular-Chaucer is universal. His works may be regarded as an epoch in the language, as laying the foundation for an immediate change.

All literature must at first be didactic or sound, for a barbarous age is incapable of estimating the true and legitimate pleasures of an art. This illustrates the position occupied by Chaucer. In him the age may be said to be represented, he is an epoch in himself, "the pleasant field amid surrounding barrenness." Tyrwhitt, in observing upon the earliest court appointment of Chaucer in 1367, seems disappointed at not being able to discover, that it was granted to him in consequence of his poetical fame; we have no

proof that it excited much interest at the court of Edward; nor is it probable that a literary reputation was much appreciated by the mailed knights, who made it their boast that they could not read or write. Of the other powers Mr. Hippisley writes thus :

"The hostility to elegant literature, entertained by the schoolmen and the clergy of Chaucer's day, was much like that professed by the sophists and philosophers of Athens towards the poets and dramatists. In all ages, indeed, there have been two parties in literature, one of which has been strongly opposed to all learning which did not immediately bear, either upon religion, or practical utility. In the age of St. Jerome, and in that of Gregory, the Great, the anti-classical spirit became conspicuous amongst the Christian clergy. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the style of their Latin writing evince some degree of attention to the best authors; but the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries are marked, in Europe, by a decline of learning among the clerical orders, caused principally by the relaxed and indolent habits of the seculars, as well as regulars, and by the introduction into the universities, chiefly through the mendicant friars, of the scholastic philosophy.

"Meanwhile the vernacular literatures received a polish from the genius of distinguished laymen, which they had scarcely hitherto possessed. Of these, Dante, Petrarch and Bocaccio in Italy, and Chaucer in England, are the most conspicuous in the fourteenth century."

It was not until a much later period that the Canterbury Tales acquired their celebrity. Mr. Hippisley details their progress to notoriety, and the varieties of contemporary criticism with clearness and conciseness. The ground has been so often travelled, that we shall refrain from any lengthened disquisition on the merits of the subject. The lovers and admirers of the pure well of English undefiled, will find that our author treats the subject in the true spirit of enlightened criticism; but we shall let the author speak for himself.

"Shakspeare is the earliest of our great and distinguished poets, who gives evidence of a fine taste and relish for the comic powers of Chaucer. There is, indeed, much in the comic genius of our eldest poet, which closely resembles that of his admirer and imitator. In the use of Satirical Parodies, the two poets appear to have been animated by the same spirit. Chaucer, in his Rhyme of Sir Thopas, openly ridicules the metrical romances of his day. In the minute discriminations of trees and of birds in the Parliament of Fowles,' and in the allusions to the pomp of Cambuscan's feast, and Custance's wedding, in the Knight's, and in the Man of Lawe's Tale, the tedious descriptions which frequently occur in contemporary poetry seem to be tacitly satirized. In the jocose style, also, in which the gravest philosophical subjects are treated in the Nonne's Priest's Tale, and in the medical advice which Pertelotte gives to Chaunticlere, the pedantry and quackery of the day are probably condemned. All this is much in the spirit of our great dramatist; and for the satire contained in the Rhyme of Sir Thopas,' an exact parallel may be found in the play performed before the Court in Hamlet,' and in the

bombastic language of Pistol; in both of which, the turgid and affected style of contemporary play-writers is exposed.

"The only one of Shakspeare's comic characters, which has fairly survived the change of society and religion, intervening between his time and that of Chaucer, is the Host of the Merry Wives of Windsor.' The pedant, the ignorant curate, and the country justice of the Elizabethan period, were very different characters from the learned clerks, the friar, or the frankelein of the fourteenth century: and the Euphist had no parrallel in that day. The Host, familiar with all his guests, yet discriminating in the titles of courtesy applied to each, preserves, in real life, the same station in society, the same professional character, in both ages. The poetical part, also, which he is called upon to enact, is the same in the drama as in the Canterbury Pilgrimage.' In both, he is the centre upon which the plot turns, the president and director of the whole proceedings: and as mediator, the Host of the Garter may even yet more aptly be compared to the Grecian Chorus than Harry Bailey himself.

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"Perhaps the closest similarity between the comic genius of the two poets may be seen, in the clear markings which each has left us of the personal defects of their characters. We have before us the portraits of Slender or of Falstaff, of the Reve or of the Host, as distinctly as if they had been painted instead of written. But the most striking coincidence between Chaucer and Shakspeare in this respect, exists in the fiery features common to the Sompnour and Bardolph. The very terms employed by the two Poets are the same. The fire-red cherubim's face of the drunken Sompnour, with its whelks and knobs,' is a clear and evident prototype of the malmsey-nosed knave,' whose face is described by Fluellen as all bubucles, and whelks, and knobs, and flames of fire.' From the days of Skakspeare, the comic powers of Chaucer have been the constant theme of admiration both with critics and poets. In allegorical description he may have been excelled by Spenser, in pathos by Shakspeare, in sublimity by Milton; but in true comic humour, and more especially in the delineation of professional characters, he has few equals, no superiors. Pope, with the intention of selecting a favourable specimen of his comic powers, has modernized the Merchant's Tale, and the Prologue of the Wife of Bathe. Dryden, in his choice of the Nonne's Priest's Tale, has fixed upon one of our author's works, which, while it equally abounds in wit with the selections of Pope, is less objectionable on the score of indecency. Warton gives the preference to the Miller's Tale, a work which Tyrwhitt supposes original, but which is now believed to have been borrowed from a common source with one of the stories of Masuccio."

The attempt of Dryden to array Chaucer in a new and fashionable dress of his own cutting out, was not successful. He fancied that if he had been obliged to omit some beauties, he had supplied others which might balance the poetical account; but in that, his improvements and additions are as great blemishes.

"Compare, says our Author, in this point of view his character of the Good Parson, and his introductory lines to the Wife of Bathe's Tale, with the originals of these two celebrated passages. In the former we have a

cold and unnecessary allusion to the politics of Richard the Second and his successor. In the latter we find the fairy mythology of Chaucer supplanted by the popular creed introduced by Shakspeare. In this latter respect indeed, Pope, in his January and May,' is equally faulty with Dryden. But the imitations of Pope have all the freshness of original poems: while the lines of Dryden, from their very closeness and similarity, are constantly reminding us of the original; and this more particularly in the most descriptive passages."

Pope's refinement was better and more enduring; but Dryden's will ever be regarded and esteemed. The original is far beyond both, for no translation, no refaciments can afford an equivalent for the works of a poet of other days. His idiom is in keeping with the habits, opinions, and humours of his age. It gives vividness and reality to the picture, which becomes thin and indistinct by passing through the hands of the varnisher; and so rigid are Mr. Hippisley's antiquarian notions on this subject, that he holds even a modernised orthography to be inadmissible as transporting us from the days of the Plantagenets to those of the Stuarts. The review of Chaucer's writings closes with this elegant passage.

"On a general review of the history of Chaucer's reputation, we may say that his language, which seems chiefly to have attracted the notice of his immediate successors, rude as it now appears, was with reference to his own age in itself a marvel. How just were the grounds upon which the critics of the days of Henry the Eighth extolled his learning, will be more fully shown in the following chapter. His pathetic powers, which engaged the admiration of the poets and critics of the age of Elizabeth, continue even now to rival his genuine comic humour. Without, therefore, attempting to defend the ribaldry of some of his ludicrous tales, the homeliness of his diction, or the occasional lameness of his versification (on all of which failings he himself, with his usual candour and modesty, I had almost said naïveté, observes), in all the sterling and substantial qualities of a true poet, he may well bear a comparison with the masterspirits of all ages. The vigorous yet finished painting-both of scenes and characters, serious as well as ludicrous-with which his works abound, are still, notwithstanding the roughness of their clothing, beauties of a highly poetical nature. The ear may not always be satisfied, but the mind of the reader is always filled; and even the roughness of his verse, which may offend some readers, is in many instances-at least in the case of his earlier poems-rather to be attributed to the errors of transcribers (that mis-writing and misse-metring' against which he warns his copyists) than to his own negligence."

After the preliminary view of Chaucer's works, taken in connexion with the time in which he lived, our author passes on to the biography of his bard, dwelling with affectionate admiration on every incident of his life. The literary pursuits of the bard are thus sketched.

"In extent and variety of attainment, Chaucer is, perhaps, with reference to his opportunities, inferior to no poet of any age or nation. It was

not possible that he should have possessed the Greek scholarship, or even the extent of the Latin acquirements of Ben Jonson or of Milton. Yet it is very certain that not even these two learned authors evince in their writings either a stronger attachment to elegant literature, or a deeper acquaintance with the abstruse questions of their day, than does our eldest English poet.

"In elegant literature, amidst the variety which his translations and citations are continually presenting to us, Virgil, Ovid, Statius, Livy, and Dante, appear to have been his favourite authors. To the Italian works of Bocaccio, our poet seems to have been less addicted than has been generally supposed: since it is plain from his own authority that he was indebted to that author for the originals, neither of his Troilus and Cresseide, nor of his Clerk's Tale. Petrarch he characterizes very appropriately, as,

"The laureat poete

Whose rethorike swete

Enlumined al Itaille of poetry;'

whereas Dante is judiciously styled by him the greate poete of Itaille.' "In French literature, nothing existed in the days of Chaucer, which we should now term classical; but the attention of the poet to the most popular French works of his day, is evinced by his translation of the Roman de la Rose, as well as from his borrowing the materials for his Nonne's Priest's, and Frankelein's Tales, from the 'Lais' of Marie de France.

"From the preceding observations, it will appear, that, besides his acquirements in French and Italian, Chaucer was intimately acquainted with all the best Latin classics procurable in his day. Previous to the days of Poggio Bracciolini, and the revivers of classical literature, the conventual and other libraries were chiefly filled with the controversial works of the fathers and schoolmen. These were diligently studied in Latin; but Greek was scarcely known.

"Amongst the Latin fathers, the works of St. Austin and Tertullian are occasionally alluded to by Chaucer; but it is not always safe to infer his knowledge of an author, from mere illusion to his name. On some of the

popular questions of his day, such as those regarding celibacy, or the philosophy of dreams, he seems to have been possessed of two or three text-books, from whence, on various occasions, he discharges an overwhelming, and generally an unexpected, mass of learning. The catalogue of his Doctour of Physicke's Library, is, probably, derived from some source of this kind, though it contains the name of one author, who may be regarded as a contemporary with Chaucer. On the two questions above alluded to, Macrobius's Commentary on the Somnium Scipionis of Cicero, was his chief authority for the philosophy of dreams; as was a treatise of St. Jerome, on the topic of the question of celibacy. To this he added a tract, entitled 'Epistola Valerii ad Rufinum de non ducendâ Uxore; and, perhaps, a chapter of the 'Polycraticon' of John of Salisbury, in which the former treatises are embodied and cited."

A freedom from credulity and superstition was one of his most striking characteristics. Priests and alchymists suffer beneath his lash,