h language; not aware that French was the language of the
court of England not long before Chaucer's time, and, that, far from
introducing French phrases into the English tongue, the ancient bard was
successfully active in introducing the English as a fashionable dialect,
instead of the French, which had, before his time, been the only
language of polite literature in England. Other instances might be given
of similar oversights, which, in the situation of Dryden, are
sufficiently pardonable.

Upon the whole, in introducing these romances of Boccacio and Chaucer to
modern readers, Dryden has necessarily deprived them of some of the
charms which they possess for those who have perused them in their
original state. With a tale or poem, by which we have been sincerely
interested, we connect many feelings independent of those arising from
actual poetical merit. The delight, arising from the whole, sanctions,
nay, sanctifies, the faulty passages; and even actual improvements, like
supplements to a mutilated statue of antiquity, injure our preconceived
associations, and hurt, by their incongruity with our feelings, more
than they give pleasure by their own excellence. But to antiquaries
Dryden has sufficiently justified himself, by declaring his version made
for the sake of modern readers, who understand sense and poetry as well
as the old Saxon admirers of Chaucer, when that poetry and sense are put
into words which they can understand. Let us also grant him, that, for
the beauties which are lost, he has substituted many which the original
did not afford; that, in passages of gorgeous description, he has added
even to the chivalrous splendour of Chaucer, and has graced with
poetical ornament the simplicity of Boccacio; that, if he has failed in
tenderness, he is never deficient in majesty; and that if the heart be
sometimes untouched, the understanding and fancy are always exercised
and delighted.

The philosophy of Dryden, we have already said, was that of original and
penetrating genius; imperfect only, when, from want of time and of
industry, he adopted the ideas of others, when he should have communed
at leisure with his own mind. The proofs of his philosophical powers are
not to be sought for in any particular poem or disquisition. Even the
"Religio Laici," written expressly as a philosophical poem, only shows
how easily the most powerful mind may entangle itself in sophistical
toils of its own weaving; for the train o