arrettee it nought my villainy,
Though that I plainly speak in this mattere,
To tellen you her words, and eke her chere:
Ne though I speak her words properly,
For this ye knowen as well as I,
Who shall tellen a tale after a man,
He mote rehearse as nye as ever he can:
Everich word of it been in his charge,
All speke he, never so rudely, ne large.
Or else he mote tellen his tale untrue,
Or feine things, or find words new:
He may not spare, although he were his brother,
He mote as well say o word as another,
Christ spake himself full broad in holy writ,
And well I wote no villainy is it;
Eke Plato saith, who so can him rede,
the words mote been cousin to the dede."

Yet, if a man should have inquired of Boccace or of Chaucer what need
they had of introducing such characters, where obscene words were proper
in their mouths, but very indecent to be heard,--I know not what answer
they could have made; for that reason, such tale shall be left untold by
me. You have here a specimen of Chaucer's language, which is so
obsolete, that his sense is scarce to be understood; and you have
likewise more than one example of his unequal numbers, which were
mentioned before. Yet many of his verses consist of ten syllables, and
the words not much behind our present English; as, for example, these
two lines in the description of the carpenter's young wife:

"Wincing she was, as is a jolly colt,
Long as a mast, and upright as a bolt."

I have almost done with Chaucer when I have answered some objections
relating to my present work. I find some people are offended that I have
turned these tales into modern English, because they think them unworthy
of my pains, and look on Chaucer as a dry, old-fashioned wit not worth
reviving. I have often heard the late Earl of Leicester say that Mr
Cowley himself was of that opinion, who, having read him over at my
lord's request declared he had no taste of him. I dare not advance my
opinion against the judgment of so great an author, but I think it fair,
however, to leave the decision to the public. Mr Cowley was too modest
to set up for a dictator, and being shocked, perhaps, with his old
style, never examined into the depth of his good sense. Chaucer, I
confess, is a rough diamond, and must first be polished ere he shines.
I deny not, likewise, that, living in our early days of poetry, he
writes not always of a piece, but sometimes mingles trivial things with