turn. 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
meantime, to follow the thread of my discourse (as thoughts, according
to Mr Hobbs, have always some connexion), 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, Heroic 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 adorned and amplified our barren tongue from the Provencal, which
was then the most polished of all the modern languages; but this subject
has been copiously treated by that