you will, are omitted by Pope, and many softened down; nor is
there a single line in which the spirit is not the spirit of satire. The
folly of senile dotage is throughout exposed as unsparingly, though with
a difference in the imitation, as in the original. Even Joseph Warton
and Bowles, affectedly fastidious over-much as both too often are, and
culpably prompt to find fault, acknowledge that Pope's versions are
blameless. "In the art of telling a story," says Bowles, "Pope is
peculiarly happy; we almost forget the grossness of the subject of this
tale, (the Merchant's,) while we are struck by the uncommon ease and
readiness of the verse, the suitableness of the expression, and the
spirit and happiness of the whole." While Dr Warton, sensibly remarking,
"that the character of a fond old dotard, betrayed into disgrace by an
unsuitable match, is supported in a lively manner," refrains from making
himself ridiculous by mealy-mouthed moralities which on such a subject
every person of sense and honesty must despise. Mr Horne keeps foolishly
carping at Pope, or "Mr Pope," as he sometimes calls him, throughout his
interminable--no, not interminable--his hundred-paged Introduction. He
abominates Pope's Homer, and groans to think how it has corrupted the
English ear by its long domination in our schools. He takes up, with
leathern lungs, the howl of the Lakers, and his imitative bray is louder
than the original, "in linked sweetness long drawn out." Such sonorous
strictures are innocent; but his false charge of licentiousness against
Pope is most reprehensible--and it is insincere. For he has the sense to
see Chaucer's broadest satire in its true light, and its fearless
expositions. Yet from his justification of pictures and all their
colouring in the ancient poet, that might well startle people by no
means timid, he turns with frowning forehead and reproving hand to
corresponding delineations in the modern, that stand less in need of it,
and spits his spite on Pope, which we wipe off that it may not corrode.
"This translation was done at sixteen or seventeen," says Pope in a
note to his January and May--and there is not, among the achievements of
early genius, to be found another such specimen of finished art and of
perfect mastery.

Mr. Horne has ventured to give in his volume the Reve's Tale. "It has
been thought," he says, "that an idea of the extraordinary versatility
of Chaucer's genius could not be adequately conveyed, u