I have anticipated already, and taken up from Boccace
before I come to him; but there is so much less behind;
and I am of the temper of most kings, who love to be
in debt, are all for present money, no matter how they
pay it afterwards: besides, the nature of a preface
is rambling; never wholly out of the way, nor in it.
This I have learned from the practice of honest Montaign,
and return at my pleasure to Ovid and Chaucer, of whom
I have little more to say. Both of them built
on the inventions of other men; yet since Chancer
had something of his own, as the Wife of Bath’s
Tale the Cock and the Fox, which I have translated,
and some others, I may justly give our countryman
the precedence in that part; since I can remember
nothing of Ovid which was wholly his. Both of
them understood the manners, under which name I comprehend
the passions, and, in a larger sense the descriptions
of persons, and their very habits: for an example,
I see Baucis and Philemon as perfectly before me, as
if some ancient painter had drawn them; and all the
pilgrims in the Canterbury tales, their humours, their
features, and the very dress, as distinctly as if
I had supped with them at the Tabard in Southwark:
yet even there too the figures in Chaucer are much
more lively, and set in a better light; which though
I have not time to prove, yet I appeal to the reader,
and am sure he will clear me from partiality.
The thoughts and words remain to be considered in
the comparison of the two poets; and I have saved
myself one half of that labour, by owning that Ovid
lived when the Roman tongue was in its meridian; Chaucer,
in the dawning of our language: therefore that
part of the comparison stands not on an equal foot,
any more than the diction of Ennius and Ovid; or of
Chaucer and our present English. The words are
given up as a post not to be defended in our poet,
because he wanted the modern art of fortifying.
The thoughts remain to be considered; and they are
to be measured only by their propriety; that is, as
they flow more or less naturally from the persons
described, on such and such occasions. The vulgar
judges, which are nine parts in ten of all nations,
who call conceits and jingles wit, who see Ovid full
of them, and Chaucer altogether without them, will
think me little less than mad for preferring the Englishman
to the Roman; yet, with their leave, I must presume
to say, that the things they admire are only glittering
trifles, and so far from being witty, that in a serious
poem they are nauseous, because they are unnatural.
Would any man, who is ready to die for love, describe
his passion like Narcissus? Would he think of
inopem me copia fecit, and a dozen more of
such expressions, poured on the neck of one another,
and signifying all the same thing? If this were
wit, was this a time to be witty, when the poor wretch
was in the agony of death? This is just John
Littlewit in Bartholomew Fair, who had a conceit (as
he tells you) left him in his misery; a miserable