“While listening to the murmuring leaves he stood,
More than a mile immersed within the wood,
At once the wind was laid; the whispering sound
Was dumb; a rising earthquake rocked the ground;
With deeper brown the grove was overspread,
A sudden horror seized his giddy head,
And his ears tingled, and his colour fled,
Nature was in alarm; some danger nigh
Seemed threatened, though unseen to mortal eye.”

It may be doubted, however, whether the simplicity of Boccacio’s narrative has not sometimes suffered by the additional decorations of Dryden.  The retort of Guiscard to Tancred’s charge of ingratitude is more sublime in the Italian original,[12] than as diluted by the English poet into five hexameters.  A worse fault occurs in the whole colouring of Sigismonda’s passion, to which Dryden has given a coarse and indelicate character, which he did not derive from Boccacio.  In like manner, the plea used by Palamon in his prayer to Venus, is more nakedly expressed by Dryden than by Chaucer.  The former, indeed, would probably have sheltered himself under the mantle of Lucretius; but he should have recollected, that Palamon speaks the language of chivalry, and ought not, to use an expression of Lord Herbert, to have spoken like a paillard, but a cavalier.  Indeed, we have before noticed it as the most obvious and most degrading imperfection of Dryden’s poetical imagination, that he could not refine that passion, which, of all others, is susceptible either of the purest refinement, or of admitting the basest alloy.  With Chaucer, Dryden’s task was more easy than with Boccacio.  Barrenness was not the fault of the Father of English poetry; and amid the profusion of images which he presented, his imitator had only the task of rejecting or selecting.  In the sublime description of the temple of Mars, painted around with all the misfortunes ascribed to the influence of his planet, it would be difficult to point out a single idea, which is not found in the older poem.  But Dryden has judiciously omitted or softened some degrading and some disgusting circumstances; as the “cook scalded in spite of his long ladle,” the “swine devouring the cradled infant,” the “pickpurse,” and other circumstances too grotesque or ludicrous to harmonise with the dreadful group around them.  Some points, also, of sublimity, have escaped the modern poet.  Such is the appropriate and picturesque accompaniment of the statue of Mars:—­

  “A wolf stood before him at his feet,
  With eyen red, and of a man he eat."[13]

In the dialogue, or argumentative parts of the poem, Dryden has frequently improved on his original, while he falls something short of him in simple description, or in pathetic effect.  Thus, the quarrel between Arcite and Palamon is wrought up with greater energy by Dryden than Chaucer, particularly by the addition of the following lines, describing the enmity of the captives against each other:—­