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    the worthy Viscount does not exactly stand alone under the reproach . " < The English language of Chaucer / he informs us , is far from possessing the polish of old French , which already attains some degree of perfection in this minor species of literature . Nevertheless the idiom of the Anglo-Saxon poet , a heterogeneous medley of various dialects , has become the stock of modern English . * "

    At page 98 he tells us that " Chaucer was called to restore the harp of tlie bards / ' Does he , at the same time , mean to argue that the Father of English Poetry , was only one of the early writers of the minor species of literature , because he has none of the glass-and-pin and hair-powdered style of the old " French polish r

    " A courtier , a partisan of the house of Lancaster , a Wickliffite , faithie « 8 to his convictions , a traitor to his party , now banished , then travelling in foreign countries , at one time in favour , in disgrace at another , Chaucer had met Petrarch at Padua ; instead of ascending to Saxon sources , he borrowed the spirit of his songs from the Troubadours of Provenge and the admirer of Laura , and from Boccaccio the character of his tales . "

    It is rather hard , and equally superficial to reproach a man of genius with being a courtier , because his poverty rendered it useful to " keep a patron , " and to accept a few marks now and then , or a pitcher of wine . He must have been a very indifferent courtier , withal , to get exiled and half starved . His distress , moreover , in Hainault , and particularly in Zealand , was

    partly owing to " his liberality to some of his countrymen , who had fled thither on the same account . ' * —( Vide ' Singer ' s Life of Chaucer . ' ) His friends at home , as an additional reproach , we suppose , proved treacherous . He came home notwithstanding " , and was soon found and thrown into prison . " He was only liberated / ' says the same authority , " upon condition of making

    some disclosures implicating his late partizans , to whom he certainly owed no fidelity . " Be this as it may , and let the weakness aud want of dungeon-fortitude appear never so bad , we cannot say what proviso Chaucer might not have made ; inasmuch as he was again the same favourite of the Duke of Lancaster as before ,

    4 $ that U 3 could not have said anything to injure him , and Combertqo , on whose account the state row had occurred , received hi * pardon from the Crown soon after . As to the partial obligation of Chaucer , for the spirit , or any one touch of style , in his § OPg « t to the polished , melodious-measured , artificial , over-rated Petrarch , the assertion is not worth an answer . That both to

    SihaUupejgre a ^ d Chaucer have owed something the Troubadours of Provence , though far more to Boccaccio , is true . Shakspeare * ttd Chaucer have taken some of the characters ami plots of Boccaccio ' s tales , and worked them up with original excellencies , and illustrated them with surpassing genius . But with all that

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    590 Sketches of English Literature .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1836, page 590, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2662/page/2/