And thought,' Now will I tell him my distress, And at the last, her lover hath she found, How kisseth she his frosty mouth so cold! For love will give me strength and hardiness Thou shalt no more be parted now from me, In choosing my extracts, I have endeavoured to avoid those which have been already modernized by others. A volume was published in London, three or four years ago, by R. H. Horne, containing new versions of some of the best of Chaucer's poems. Many of these are excellent, those by Wordsworth especially. The original plan seems to have been to publish other volumes, till a complete translation should be accomplished. As no continuation has appeared, we must presume that the English have not yet awakened to the merits of their first great poet. Mr. Charles Cowden Clarke deserves well of the lovers of our language for his excellent little volumes, entitled "The Riches of Chaucer," which contain all the better parts of his poems. JOHN. He has another claim upon our esteem, also, as having been the earliest friend and admirer of Keats. PHILIP. In the next legend, of Dido, there are a few lines which I must read you for their delightful freshness and spirit. "Upon a lowly palfrey, paper-white, With saddle red, embroidered with delight, Of gold the bars, upward embossed high, That healeth sick folk of the night's long sorrow. Though men might turn him with a little wire, JOHN. How delicious is that comprehensive description of Dido's beauty! It fills the heart at once with a thousand images and forewarnings of delight, as the sight of beauty itself does. PHILIP. Yes, beauty seldom affects us so much in the present, as by a prophecy of some yet unfulfilled satisfaction which she has in store for us. She seems to beckon us ever into yet more Elysian realms of quiet and serenity, and is but the guide to something higher and beyond. JOHN. Startling as the fire" gives us such a picture Shak as inspires and dilates the imagination. speare's famous description of a horse, in his "Venus and Adonis," with all its minuteness, does not satisfy me as well as this. It seems rather like the fine frenzy of an inspired jockey. In such slight and ordinary touches the power of the poet is best shown. A great subject may lift up even a com mon and earthy mind, and give it an inspiring breadth of view. But this is only from isolated peaks and summits, in climbing to which the enthusiasm wearies and flags. But the strength of a great poet is in his own magnificent eye, which borrows not from without, but lends whatever it looks on a dignity and an untiring grace from within. Every word of his is like a new-created star or flower, or a new-found one, and sets all our nature astir, as the spring wakes and enlivens the sluggish earth. The heart grows green again and blossoms; the old tendrils of childish sympathy become as supple and delicate as ever, and, reaching out, grasp and cling to whatever they first chance to touch. PHILIP. You will never describe it. We can never say why we love, but only that we love. The heart is ready enough at feigning excuses for all that it does or imagines of wrong; but ask it to give a reason for any of its beautiful and divine motions, and it can only look upward and be dumb. When we are in the right, we can never reason, but only assert. A weak cause generally has the best in an argument. As you have been so much struck with some isolated expressions used by Chaucer, I will glean a few others for you. It is a pity to knock the jewels out of their setting, but they will shine notwithstanding. Here is a passage, from "The Knight's Tale," describing the temple of Mars. "A forest first was painted on the wall, In which there dwells nor man, nor beast at all, With sharp, dead limbs and hideous to behold, Through which there ran a rumble and a sough, There is no such desolation as this in all Lord Byron's nightmare "darkness." "There saw I first the dark imagining The pickpurse, and the palefaced dread alsò; |