purity of the English tongue began. The manners of the poets were
not unlike: both of them were well-bred, well-natured, amorous, and
libertine, at least in their writings--it may be also in their lives.
Their studies were the same--philosophy and philology. Both of them were
known in astronomy, of which Ovid's books of the Roman feasts, and
Chaucer's treatise of the Astrolabe, are sufficient witnesses. But
Chaucer was likewise an astrologer, as were Virgil, Horace, Persius, and
Manilius. Both writ with wonderful facility and clearness: neither were
great inventors; for Ovid only copied the Grecian fables, and most of
Chaucer's stories were taken from his Italian contemporaries, or their
predecessors. Boccace's Decameron was first published; and from thence
our Englishman has borrowed many of his Canterbury tales; yet that of
Palamon and Arcite was written in all probability by some Italian wit,
in a former age; as I shall prove hereafter. The tale of Grizzild was
the invention of Petrarch; by him sent to Boccace; from whom it came to
Chaucer. Troilus and Cressida was also written by a Lombard author; but
much amplified by our English translator, as well as beautified; the
genius of our countrymen in general being rather to improve an
invention, than to invent themselves; as is evident not only in our
poetry, but in many of our manufactures. I find I have anticipated
already, and taken up from Boccace before I come to him; but there is so
much less behind; and I am of the temper of most kings, who love to be
in debt, are all for present money, no matter how they pay it
afterwards: besides, the nature of a preface is rambling; never wholly
out of the way, nor in it. This I have learned from the practice of
honest Montaign, and return at my pleasure to Ovid and Chaucer, of whom
I have little more to say. Both of them built on the inventions of other
men; yet since Chancer had something of his own, as the Wife of Bath's
Tale the Cock and the Fox, which I have translated, and some others, I
may justly give our countryman the precedence in that part; since I can
remember nothing of Ovid which was wholly his. Both of them understood
the manners, under which name I comprehend the passions, and, in a
larger sense the descriptions of persons, and their very habits: for an
example, I see Baucis and Philemon as perfectly before me, as if some
ancient painter had drawn them; and all the pilgrims in the Canterbury
tales, their humour