versification; but, in the mean time, he has not only misrepresented the
story, but marred the character of the poem. He has endeavoured to
correct its extravagancies by new refinements and additions of another
cast; but he did not consider that extravagancies are essential to a
poem of such a structure, and even constitute its beauties. An attempt
to unite order and exactness of imagery with a subject formed on
principles so professedly romantic and anomalous, is like giving
Corinthian pillars to a Gothic palace. When I read Pope's elegant
imitation of this piece, I think I am walking among the modern monuments
unsuitably placed in Westminster Abbey.--T. WARTON.

Little can be added to T. Warton's masterly appreciation of the
characteristic merit of this poem. May I be just allowed to mention,
that there is less harmony of versification in this poem, than in most
of the preceding, particularly the Rape of the Lock, Elegy to an
Unfortunate Lady, and, above all, the Epistle of Eloisa. The pause is
too generally at the end of the line, and on the fourth and fifth
syllable. Pope bids

The Muses raise
The golden trumpet of eternal praise.

Chaucer with a bolder personification sends for Eolus, "that king of
Thrace," from "his cave of stone," to sound his "trump of gold." These
circumstances may designate in some measure the character of either
poem. I must confess I think there can be no comparison between the bold
trump of Eolus which he set

To his mouth
And blew it east, and west, and south,
And north, as loud as any thunder,

and the delicate but less animated tone of the Muses in Pope.--BOWLES.

If Chaucer was indebted to any of the Italian poets for the idea of his
House of Fame, it was to Petrarca, who in his Trionfo della Fama has
introduced many of the most eminent characters of ancient times. It must
however be observed, that the poem of Petrarca is extremely simple and
inartificial, and consists only in supposing that the most celebrated
men of ancient Greece and Rome pass in review before him; whilst that of
Chaucer is the work of a powerful imagination, abounding with beautiful
and lively descriptions, and forming a connected and consistent whole.
Pope's Temple of Fame is one of the noblest, though earliest,
productions of the author, displaying a fertile invention and an
uncommon grandeur and facility of style. It is confessedly founded on
Chaucer's