, "This eulogium must
be acknowledged to be written in a spirit of ridiculous and impertinent
exaggeration." And he then says as truly, that it is "full of novelty and
surprise, is every where alive, comprises the most powerful portrait of
chivalry that was perhaps ever believed, and possesses every thing in
splendour and in action that can most conspicuously point out the scenes
of the narrative to the eye of the reader." Dryden's version is indeed
what Warton has pronounced it to be--"the most animated and harmonious
piece of versification in the English language."

If you ask what reconciles you to the prevalent confusion of manners in
this noble poem, it is the earnest simple spirit with which the Knight
goes on relating as if he believed every word. It is, as we said, with
Chaucer as with Shakspeare. Shakspeare mixes times of the world, and we
bear it. Iachimo, a complete modern Italian--a more courtly Iago--serves
under Lucius, general to some emperor--we forget which, if we ever
knew--of old Rome; and beguiles, to the death almost, that Posthumus
Leonatus--a Celt, by the by, with two Latin names--to whom Jupiter--not
exactly the supreme deity of the Celto-British Pantheon--descends in
actual presence. We, the auditors, or the readers, meanwhile, breathe no
whisper of doubt or dissatisfaction. Why should we? We believe with eye,
and ear, and imagination, and heart; and are as fain of our
wildly-compounded--_real-unreal_--dream, as the birds are of the dawning.
Hamlet, born and bred in the court of our own Elizabeth, and abruptly
called up to Town, on the point of graduating with honours at Oxford, is
shown to our credulous apprehension rooted upon a soil and in a century
when and where there were no human shapes to be met with but bloodthirsty
Vikings and invulnerable Berserkers. And we take all in excellent part.
Why shall we not? We gain past all computation by the slight intellectual
concession. Besides, we cannot well help ourselves; for we are not the
Masters. The enchanter is the Master:--who sets us down, not after the
saying of Horace, now in Greece and now in Britain--but in Britain and in
Greece at one and the same moment.

Shakspeare commingles widely divided times; and why, two hundred years
before him, shall not Chaucer? It requires practice to read Chaucer. Not
only do you need familiarizing to a form of the language, which is not
your own, but much more to a simplicity of style, which at first appea