and
he certainly was not deficient in either, to collect together and
aggravate whatever he could find to the prejudice of the female sex.
Among other things he has inserted his own translation (probably) of a
long extract from what he calls, Liber Aureolus Theophrasti de Nuptiis.
Next to him in order of time was the treatise entitled, Epistola Valerii
ad Rufinum de non ducenda uxore. It has been printed, for the similarity
of its sentiments I suppose, among the works of St. Jerome, though it is
evidently of a much later date. Tanner, from Wood's MSS. Collection,
attributes it to Walter Mapes. I should not believe it to be older; as
John of Salisbury, who has treated of the same subject in his Polycrat.
l. viii. c. xl. does not appear to have seen it. To these two books Jean
de Meun has been obliged for some of the severest strokes in his Roman
de la Rose; and Chaucer has transfused the quintessence of all the three
works upon the subject of matrimony, into his Wife of Bath's Prologue
and Merchant's Tale."

The lines of Pope in the piece before us are spirited and easy and have,
properly enough, a free colloquial air. The tale, to which this is the
prologue, has been versified by Dryden, and is supposed to have been of
Chaucer's own invention; as is the exquisite vision of the Flower and
the Leaf, which has received a thousand new graces from the spirited and
harmonious Dryden. It is to his Fables, (next to his Music Ode,) written
when he was above seventy years old, that Dryden will chiefly owe his
immortality; and among these, particularly to the well-conducted tale of
Palamon and Arcite, the pathetic picture of Sigismunda, the wild and
terrible graces of Theodore and Honoria, and the sportive pleasantry of
Cymon and Iphigenia. The warmth and melody of these pieces has never
been excelled in our language; I mean in rhyme. It is mortifying and
surprising to see the cold and contemptuous manner in which Dr. Johnson
speaks of these capital pieces, which he says "require little criticism,
and seem hardly worth the rejuvenescence, as he affectedly calls it,
which Dryden has bestowed upon them." It is remarkable, that in his
criticisms he has not even mentioned the Flower and Leaf.

These pieces of Chaucer were not the only ones that were versified by
Pope. Mr. Harte assured me, that he was convinced by some circumstances
which Fenton, his friend, communicated to him, that Pope wrote the
characters, that make the introduc