inanimated nature even before it becomes
visible, less eminent for beauties of the terrific order:

"While listening to the murmuring leaves he stood,
More than a mile immersed within the wood,
At once the wind was laid; the whispering sound
Was dumb; a rising earthquake rocked the ground;
With deeper brown the grove was overspread,
A sudden horror seized his giddy head,
And his ears tingled, and his colour fled,
Nature was in alarm; some danger nigh
Seemed threatened, though unseen to mortal eye."

It may be doubted, however, whether the simplicity of Boccacio's
narrative has not sometimes suffered by the additional decorations of
Dryden. The retort of Guiscard to Tancred's charge of ingratitude is
more sublime in the Italian original,[12] than as diluted by the English
poet into five hexameters. A worse fault occurs in the whole colouring
of Sigismonda's passion, to which Dryden has given a coarse and
indelicate character, which he did not derive from Boccacio. In like
manner, the plea used by Palamon in his prayer to Venus, is more nakedly
expressed by Dryden than by Chaucer. The former, indeed, would probably
have sheltered himself under the mantle of Lucretius; but he should have
recollected, that Palamon speaks the language of chivalry, and ought
not, to use an expression of Lord Herbert, to have spoken like a
_paillard_, but a _cavalier_. Indeed, we have before noticed it as the
most obvious and most degrading imperfection of Dryden's poetical
imagination, that he could not refine that passion, which, of all
others, is susceptible either of the purest refinement, or of admitting
the basest alloy. With Chaucer, Dryden's task was more easy than with
Boccacio. Barrenness was not the fault of the Father of English poetry;
and amid the profusion of images which he presented, his imitator had
only the task of rejecting or selecting. In the sublime description of
the temple of Mars, painted around with all the misfortunes ascribed to
the influence of his planet, it would be difficult to point out a single
idea, which is not found in the older poem. But Dryden has judiciously
omitted or softened some degrading and some disgusting circumstances; as
the "cook scalded in spite of his long ladle," the "swine devouring the
cradled infant," the "pickpurse," and other circumstances too grotesque
or ludicrous to harmonise with the dreadful group around them. Some
points, also, of sublimity, have escaped the modern poet. Such