it.  If the first end of a writer be to be understood, then, as his language grows obsolete, his thoughts must grow obscure:  multa renascentur quae nunc cecidere, cadentque, quae nunc sunt in honore vocabula, si volet usus, quem penes arbitrium est et jus et norma loquendi. When an ancient word for its sound and significancy deserves to be revived, I have that reasonable veneration for antiquity to restore it.  All beyond this is superstition.  Words are not like landmarks, so sacred as never to be removed; customs are changed, and even statutes are silently repealed, when the reason ceases for which they were enacted.  As for the other part of the argument, that his thoughts will lose their original beauty by the innovation of words; in the first place, not only their beauty, but their being is lost, where they are no longer understood, which is the present case.  I grant that something must be lost in all transfusion, that is, in all translations; but the sense will remain, which would otherwise be lost, or at least be maimed, when it is scarce intelligible, and that but to a few.  How few are there who can read Chaucer, so as to understand him perfectly!  And if imperfectly, then with less profit and no pleasure.  ’Tis not for the use of some old Saxon friends that I have taken these pains with him:  let them neglect my version, because they have no need of it.  I made it for their sakes who understand sense and poetry as well as they, when that poetry and sense is put into words which they understand.  I will go further, and dare to add, that what beauties I lose in some places, I give to others which had them not originally; but in this I may be partial to myself; let the reader judge, and I submit to his decision.  Yet I think I have just occasion to complain of them, who, because they understand Chaucer, would deprive the greater part of their countrymen of the same advantage, and hoard him up, as misers do their grandam, gold, only to look on it themselves, and hinder others from making use of it.  In sum, I seriously protest that no man ever had, or can have, a greater veneration for Chaucer than myself.  I have translated some part of his works, only that I might perpetuate his memory, or at least refresh it, amongst my countrymen.  If I have altered him anywhere for the better, I must at the same time acknowledge that I could have done nothing without him:  Facile est inventis addere is no great commendation, and I am not so vain to think I have deserved a greater.  I will conclude what I have to say of him singly, with this one remark:  a lady of my acquaintance, who keeps a kind of correspondence with some authors of the fair sex in France, has been informed by them that Mademoiselle de Scudery, who is as old as Sibyl, and inspired like her by the same god of poetry, is at this time translating Chaucer into modern French; from which I gather that he has been formerly translated into the old Provencal, (for how she should come to understand old English I know not).  But the matter of fact being true, it makes me think that there is something in it like fatality; that, after certain periods of time, the fame and memory of great wits should be renewed, as Chaucer is both in France and England.  If this be wholly chance, ’tis extraordinary, and I dare not call it more for fear of being taxed with superstition.