well be furprized, after confidering the delicacy and decorum with which Chaucer has drawn his heroine, to find him polluting the portrait of her virgin character in the beginning of the poem with fo low and pitiful a joke as this, "But whether that the children had or none, I rede it not, therefore I let it gone." (p. 305.) But there is, in these lines, no joke intended. Crefeide is uniformly reprefented by Chaucer as a Widow. Thus, in the first book, when the ladies of Troy are going in proceffion to the temple of Minerva, "Among thefe other folke was Crefeida, Thefe lines are quoted by Mr. G. himself. To them we fhall add the following charming ftanza, which contains the answer of Crefeide to Pandarus, when urged by him to join in a festival of pleasure : "Eighe! God forbid, quod fhe; what, be ye mad? Is that a widowe's life, to God you fave? Let maidins gon to daunce, and young wives," The fixteenth chapter gives fome account of a fequel, or fixth book, to Chaucer's poem; which fequel is ufually called "The Teftament of Crefeide," and which appears to have been written by Robert Henryfon, fchoolmaster of Dumfermline in Scotland, about the end of the reign of Henry VIII. It has great merit, but is deficient in delicacy, and refufes to harmonize with Chaucer's production. Mr. Godwin then proceeds to obferve that the critics and commentators on Shakespeare feem hardly to confider that great poet as, at all, indebted to Chaucer for his ftory of" Troilus and Creffida," although it is furely difficult to conceive that Shakespeare was not well acquainted with fo celebrated a work of his illuftrious predeceffor. There is pofitive evidence, however. that with regard to this ftory, Shakespeare 'principally followed Chaucer. His other fources were Chapman's tranflation of Homer, the Troy book of Lydgate, and Caxton's Hiftory of the Deftruction of Troy. But, in the ancients, there is no trace of the particular ftory of "Troilus and Crefeide." It occurs, indeed in Lydgate and Caxton; but the character of Pandarus is entirely wanting, except a fingle mention of him by Lydgate, with an exprefs reference to Chaucer as his authority. Our author's conclufion is therefore, we think, wellfounded, when he fays that "Shakespeare has taken the story of Chaucer with all its imperfections and defects, and has copied the feries of its incidents with his cuftomary fidelity." (p. 318.) Our Our author here inftitutes a comparison between the merits of Chaucer and of Shakespeare in the management of this story; and he gives, upon the whole, the preference to Shakespeare. The grounds of his decifion are generally juft: but his criticifm is, fometimes, we think, equivocal. Chaucer's poem, he fays, "is written in that style which has unfortunately been fo long impofed upon the world as dignified, claffical, and chafte" (p. 318.); and he afterwards obferves that "one of the most formidable adverfaries of true poetry is an attribute which is generally mifcalled dignity." (p. 324.) Our author, we believe, intended to say that, in every poem of a dramatic nature, the style should be carefully adapted to the different characters; which is certainly true: but he has not, we apprehend, expreffed himfelf happily. It will not, we think, be readily granted that any ftyle is the worse for being" dignified, claffical, and chafte." It should, indeed, be natural, and vary with the fpeaker, as well as with the fubject; but no man of good tafte, we imagine, confiders as excellencies the vulgarifms, quibbles, and indelicate double meanings of Shakespeare. Our author himfelf, indeed, allows that, in delicacy, Chaucer greatly furpaffes Shakespeare. "In Chaucer Troilus is the pattern of an honourable lover, choosing rather every extremity, and the loss of life, than to divulge, whether in a direct or an indirect manner, any thing which might compromife the reputation of his mistress, or lay open her name as a topic for the comments of the vulgar." The fentence which follows refpecting Crefeide, we copy with unmingled fatisfaction, for a reafon which our readers will readily conceive. "Crefeide, however (as Mr. Urry has obferved,) fhe proves at laft a falfe unconftant whore, yet in the commencement, and for a confiderable time, preferves thofe ingenuous manners, and that propriety of conduct, which are the brightest ornaments of the female cha- ' racter." (p. 325.) Even Pandarus, our author obferves, is, in Chaucer, a friendly, kind-hearted man, who, rather than not contribute to the happiness of the man whom he loves, is content to overlook the odium to which his proceedings are intitled. Shakespeare has depraved every one of thefe characters. "His Troilus" fays Mr. G., "fhews no reluctance to render his amour a subject of notoriety to the whole city; his Creffida, (for example in the fcene with the Grecian chiefs, to all of whom he is a total ftranger,) alfumes the manners of the most abandoned prostitute; and his Pandarus enters upon his vile occupation, not from any venial partiality to the defires of his friend, but from the direct and fimple love of what is grofs, impudent, and profligate." (p. 326.) Mr. G's seventeenth chapter contains fuch memoirs as can be collected of Chaucer's two confidential friends, the "moral Gower" and the "philofophical Strode," to whom the Troilus and Crefeide is infcribed; of their hiftory, however, little is with certainty known. But Gower's moral character has been impeached, as deficient both in gratitude and in loyalty. His poem "De Confeffione Amantis" was was undertaken, as he himself informs us, in compliance with the order of Richard II., who meeting the poet one day, on the river, commanded him to come into the royal barge and enjoined him to boke fome new thinge." On the depofition of Richard by his coufin Henry IV., Gower, fays Mr. Godwin in another place (Vol. II. p. 543.), was one of the firft to congratulate the new King upon his unexpected and ill-gotten dignity; and he thought [that] he could never fufficiently exercife his talent in encomiums, upon this great event. On this conduct of Gower, the writer of Chaucer's life, prefixed to Urry's edition of his works, indignantly remarks, that وو 66 "The refpect Chaucer retained for his former mafter Richard, and gratitude for the favours he had received from him, kept him from trampling upon his memory, and bafely flattering the new king, as most of his contemporaries did; and particularly Gower, who, notwithstanding the -obligations he had to Richard II., yet when old, blind, and paft any hopes of honour or advantage, unless the view of keeping what he enjoyed, bafely infulted the memory of his murdered mafter, and as ignominiously flattered his murderer." It is obferved, to the fame purpose, by Mr. Tyrwhitt, that the chief variations which are to be found in the different copies of Gower's work, arife from this circumftance, that "every thing which Gower had faid in praife of Richard in the first edition, is either left out, or converted to the ufe of his fucceffor, in the second." Such conduct certainly appears to us dishonourable in the highest degree. Yet Mr. G. undertakes to vindicate Gower from the "unconfidered cenfures," as he calls them, which have been paffed upon the poet on this account; and the vindication is, in our opinion, one of the weakeft, as well as one of the most reprehenfible, parts of the bock. He begins by obferving that "few particulars in the English hiftory are involved in greater obfcurity than the fluctuations of party during the reign of Richard. But the modern writers upon this topic" he adds, "fpeak with as much peremptorinefs and confidence as if the merits of the cafe were completely before them." (p. 341.) Mr. G. however has, in this cafe at leaft, followed their example. If thefe writers have fuppofed that Gower was under perfonal obligations to Richard, Mr. G. fuppofes, with no greater reason, 'that he was under none. The fum of them, he thinks was confined to fome flattering words, and a condefcending injunction to "boke fome newe thinge." The King's conduct, on this occafion, "has much more," he says, "the air of a trick of ftate, one of the artifices which men in high ftation often fo well understand, for cajoling their inferiors, and giving themselves a fhew of literature and patronage, than any real generofity. The poet, however, took it all in ferious part, and gravely fet himself to compofe an immenfe work, in eight books, and in more than 30,000 verses. "What reward,” asks our author, "did Richard confer upon him for this unexampled ftretch of obedience? We do not know that he even condefcended to tead a fingle verfe of the 30,000 which were thus laid at his feet." The The following is our author's concluding fentence, which is certainly written "with as much peremptorinefs and confidence as if the merits of the cafe were completely before him." "Such was the vaft weight of obligation which the poor poet was bound for ever to remember!" (p. 342.) " Of this vindication it is obvious to remark, that, befide being built on gratuitous fuppofitions, for the truth of which there is not a particle of proof, it places the poet in a point of view which no man of common fense will believe to be a just one. Gower was, at the time of this interview with the king, an old experienced courtier, not likely to be caught by a few fugared words, or imposed on by the cajoling artifices of a man who was not only much younger than himself, but who seems to have had little artifice about him. But, " perhaps," fays Mr. G., "it was not exactly graceful to retract praises bestowed upon his nominal patron, just at the period when his power to reward was no more." (p. 343.) NOT EXACTLY GRACEFUL! Is it thus that Mr. G. talks of the mercenary, time-ferving, panegyrift of a deteftable ufurping traitor? But Mr. G. is willing to attribute the fcandalous disloyalty of Gower to his keen refentment, and virtuous indignation, for the death of his patron, Thomas of Woodstock, whom Mr. G. reprefents as having been murdered by Richard. "Nor can we," fays our author, in another part of his work, (Vol. II. p. 543.) feverely condemn his (Gower's) feelings or his conduct: he experienced an awful joy at feeing the murder of his great protector and patron fo foon and fignally avenged." But how does Mr. G. know that Woodstock was murdered? When the king commanded the governor of Calais to bring him over to London for trial, the answer was, that he had died of an apoplexy. "But," fays our author, "it was afterwards proved that he had, by the king's command, been forcibly fmothered in his bed." (Vol. I. p. 344.) Proved! Yes it was, indeed, proved, in the first parliament of Richard's murderer. But Mr. G. is here rather backward to allow that Richard was murdered. "How King Richard perished is," he says, "a queftion for ever wrapped up in the veil of obfcurity." (p. 345.) Yet he himself (Vol. II. p. 551.) records that Richard perished with hunger. "Either," he adds, "the fufpicious and unrelenting ufurper, irritated by the confpiracy, (which had been entered into by Richard's friends for his rescue) iffued orders for the deftruction of his rival by these cruel means, or, which is the report of the contemporary hiftorians, and is fufficiently co-incident with what we know of the difpofitions of the mifguided prince, hearing of this general maffacre of his friends, he refufed all nourishment, and voluntarily followed them to the tomb." If this last be the true account of Richard's death, his memory ought to be dear to every virtuous and affectionate heart. He doubtlefs had his faults: but such a man we can never fuppofe to have been cruel; and therefore we cannot believe that he would murder his uncle, especially when he was under no temptation to do fo; when he had completely crushed the faction of that turbulent prince, and might, with equal juftice juftice and fafety, have delivered him over to the legal punishment of his repeated treafons. But Henry was a cold-blooded, unfeeling tyrant, equally actuated by ambition and refentment. He was certainly capable of murdering Richard: and, as principle did not ftand in his way, he most probably did fo. As to the pretended perfuafion and decifion of his profligate parliament, they muft, on this occafion, in the eye of every unbiaffed mind, evidently go for nothing. After this vindication, fuch as it is, of the character of Gower, a vindication of which, whatever is not wholly gratuitous, is worse, our ingenious biographer defcends to fome poor common-place lamentations on the capricioufnels of fame. She "It is thus that reputation, applause, and infamy, are diftributed. We may fairly pronounce of Fame that he is not lefs blind than Love. fcatters about her honours and her difgrace with a profufe and undistinguishing hand. She is often the mere echo of popular and fugitive calumnies, and often aggravates them with her own rancorous inventions. Particularly, men like our poet, who have proved themselves the benefactors of mankind, frequently, encounter the barfheft treatment. Men who have accumulated knowledge, and been the luminaries of their times, who have laboured for the delight and instruction of their species, and have recorded in imperishable works their benevolence, their affectionate nature, and their anxiety for the cause of morals and virtue, mankind seem to have a singular satisfaction in regarding, in their personal transactions, with a severe, fastidious, and jaundiced eye." (Pp. 345, 346.) With regard to these pathetic complaints, we fhall fimply obferve that literary men, as well as other men, are fufficiently prone to over-rate and exaggerate their own claims to praife. Many perfons, we fufpect, indeed, will be ready enough to put, in this place, a conftruction on Mr. G's. language, which we do not fuppofe that he had in view. But the conduct of Gower, with regard to Richard, put an end to the friendship which had fubfifted between him and Chaucer for more than forty years. "Chaucer is conftrued as throwing out an indirect farcafm against Gower, in the prologue to his Man of Law's Tale; and the compliment to Chaucer in the epilogue to Gower's De Confeffione Amantis,' is fuppreffed in fome manufcripts of that work, being probably withdrawn by the hand of the author." (p. 346.) The caufe of this diffolution of friendship is, in the highest degree, honourable to Chaucer, who evidently regarded the mean and difloyal conduct of Gower with abhorrence and contempt. The ufurpation of Henry disclosed to the rightly formed mind of Chaucer, such a want of virtue in his former friend, that he was determined to have no farther connection with him. The characters of the two poets, and their conduct on this occafion, are fo well contrafted by Mr. Godwin, that we cannot do better than give the outlines of the contraft. "Chaucer preferved the most inviolable filence. Not one line has he dedicated to this revolution; not in one paffage of his works, is there any mention of Henry of Bolingbroke. Chaucer had many motives which Gower had not to pay his devotions to the new lord of the ascendant [an af fected 1 |