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    result is sterling poetry . It is so , because Chaucer was a poet . His faculty was simply in poetical selection . This is his peculiarity . Nothing is effected by the medium throu gh which the objects are seen , with the exception of the melody of the versification ; that medium is only the clear and sharp atmosphere of

    his intellect ; there is no colouring , no mistiness . You look at his inventory , and you feel that it is poetry , because it is an inventory of poetical object and attribute . Now this is wholesome food for the young mind ; a thousand times better than the made dishes which in our days are cooked up to pass for poetry . And Chaucer was ,, not only a lover of nature , but a man of the world ;

    and to complete an extraordinary combination , he was also a man of principle , active and zealous for the reformation of such corruptions and abuses as were most rife in his times . Hence , though devoid of the absolute versatility of Shakspeare , he abounds in strokes of humour and character ; and though devoid of the stateliness of Milton , he yet makes us reverence the presence of

    moral principle . Hence , his verbal translation of the poetry which is in nature and in man , may fitly precede their illustrative commentary . This is learning the language of the gods , according to the Hamiltonian system ; and our gifted translator himself selects the best passages , to be construed . It is true there is a yet further selection to be made . The plain-spoken tongue of those

    days often offends our niceness . Some words which were then tolerably reputable ., have since lost caste and been banished from decent society . Nor did even the virtuous scruple to tell of very unmannerly doings . On these points , the present editor interposes . He has discharged this portion of his office with much good taste and sound discretion . Without being fastidious

    himself , they must be very fastidious to whom he has left any cause of offence . His dealings with the orthography and accentuation are also creditable to his judgment . The noble music of Chaucer ' s verse is freed from the seeming and exaggerated difficulties of reproducing it from its appropriate instrument , the human voice .

    It may now be read at sight . Heartily do we thank the editor for his hearty labours in this good work . We hope he will be encouraged , next , to see what he can do , for the same class of readers , with the chivalric pictures by which the halls of the Faery Queen are tapestried . The youth whom he has endowed with the ' Riches of Chaucer' will then find them an admission fee to the Gallery of Spenser .

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    80 The Riches of Chaucer .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1835, page 80, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2641/page/80/