bed their natures better, than by the marks which the poet
gives them. The matter and manner of their tales, and of their
telling, are so suited to their different educations, humours, and
callings, that each of them would be improper in any other mouth.
Even the grave and serious characters are distinguished by their
several sorts of gravity; their discourses are such as belong to
their age, their calling, and their breeding; such as are becoming of
them, and of them only. Some of his persons are vicious, and some
virtuous; some are unlearned, or (as Chaucer calls them) lewd, and
some are learned. Even the ribaldry of the low characters is
different; the Reeve, the Miller, and the Cook, are several men, and
distinguished from each other as much as the mincing Lady Prioress,
and the broad-speaking gap-toothed Wife of Bath. But enough of this;
there is such a variety of game springing up before me, that I am
distracted in my choice, and know not which to follow. It is
sufficient to say, according to the proverb, that here is God's
plenty. We have our forefathers and great-granddames all before us,
as they were in Chaucer's days; their general characters are still
remaining in mankind, and even in England, though they are called by
other names than those of monks, and friars, and canons, and
lady-abbesses, and nuns; for mankind is ever the same, and nothing
lost out of nature, though every thing is altered. May I have leave
to do myself the justice, (since my enemies will do me none, and are
so far from granting me to be a good poet, that they will not allow
me so much as to be a Christian, or a moral man,) may I have leave, I
say, to inform my reader, that I have confined my choice to such
tales of Chaucer as savour nothing of immodesty. If I had desired
more to please than to instruct, the Reeve, the Miller, the Shipman,
the Merchant, the Sumner, and, above all, the Wife of Bath, in the
prologue to her tale, would have procured me as many friends and
readers as there are beaux and ladies of pleasure in the town. But I
will no more offend against good manners. I am sensible, as I ought
to be, of the scandal I have given by my loose writings; and make
what reparation I am able, by this public acknowledgment. If any
thing of this nature, or of profaneness, be