only copied the Grecian fables; and most of Chaucer's stories were taken from his Italian contemporaries, or their predecessors. Boccace his DECAMERON was first published ; and from thence our Englishman has borrowed many of his Canterbury Tales. Yet that of PALAMON AND ARCITE was written in all probability by some Italian wit, in a former age, as I shall prove hereafter: the Tale of GRISILDE was the invention of Petrarch ;6 by him sent to Boccace, from whom it came to

4 The DECAMERON is thought to have been published complete in 1358. Chaucer, according to Mr. Tyrwhitt, began his CANTERBURY TALES after 1382; and they were not much advanced before 1389, when he was in his sixty-first year.

$ Here our author is mistaken. The Tale of PALAMON AND ARCITE was also taken from Boccace, though not from the DECAMERON; as will be shewn hereafter.

This is not accurately stated. "Chaucer (says Mr. Tyrwhitt) tells us in his Prologue, that he learned it from Petrarch at Padua; and this (by the way) is all the authority that I can find for the notion that Chaucer had seen Petrarch in Italy. It is not easy to say why Chaucer should choose to own an obligation for this tale to Petrarch rather than to Boccace, from whose DECAMERON, D. x. N. 10, it was translated by Petrarch in 1573 (the year before his death), as appears by a remarkable letter which he sent with his translation to Boccace. [Opp. Petrarch. p. 540-7. Ed. Bas. 1581.] It should seem too, from the same letter, that the story was not invented by Boccace, for Petrarch says, that it had always pleased him, when he heard it many years before, whereas he had not seen the DECAMERON till very lately." Introductory Discourse to the Cant. Tales. Tyrwh. Chaucer, iv. 155.

Chaucer. TROILUS AND CRESSIDA was also written by a Lombard author," but much amplified by our

Lollius, who is said to have been an historiographer of Urbino, in Italy; and our author has asserted in another place, that his performance on this subject was written in Latin verse; (see vol. i. p. 259,) but I suspect without authority.

It has already been observed (ubi supra, n. 1.) that Chaucer's TROILUS AND CRESSIDA was borrowed from a very rare poem in the octave stanza, written by Boccace, entitled IL FILOSTRATO, che tracta de lo innamoramento de Troylo e Gryseida, &c. and printed at Milan in 4to. in 1498 (of which there is only one copy known to be extant in England)." This is evident (Mr. Tyrwhitt observes, Cant. Tales, iii. 311,) not only from the fable and characters, which are the same in both poems, but also from a number of passages in the English, which are literally translated from the Italian. At the same time there are several long passages, and even episodes, in the TROILUS, of which there are no traces in the FILOSTRATO. Of these therefore it may be doubted, whether Chaucer has added them out of his own invention, or taken them from some completer copy of Boccace's poem than what we have in print, or from some copy interpolated by another hand. He speaks of himself as a translator out of Latin, B. ii. 14; and in two passages he quotes his author by the name of Lollius, B. i. 394-421, and B. v. 1652. The latter passage is in the FILOSTRATO; but the former (in which the 102d Sonnet of Petrarch is introduced) is not. What he says of having translated out of Latin, need not make any difficulty, as the Italian language was commonly called Latino volgare [See the quotation from the THESEIda, Discourse, &c. n. 9]; and Lydgate [Prol. to Boccace]

English translator, as well as beautified; the genius of our countrymen in general being rather to improve an invention, than to invent themselves, as is evident not only in our poetry, but in many of our manufactures.-I find 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

expressly tells us, that Chaucer translated "a boke, which called is TROPHE

In Lombard tonge, as men may rede and see."

"How Boccace should have acquired the name of Lollius, and the FILOSTRATO the title of TROPHE, are points which I confess myself unable to explain."

"Boccace, in his DECAMERON, (the same judicious critick remarks,) has made the same honourable mention of the FILOSTRATO as of the THESEIDA; though without acknowledging either for his own. In the introduction to the Sixth Day, he says, that "Dioneo insieme con Lauretta di Troilo et di Criseida cominciarono cantare,' just as afterwards, in the conclusion of the Seventh Day, we are told, that the same "Dioneo et La Fiametta gran pezza cantarono insieme d'Arcita et di Palemone.”

In the Royal Library at Paris there is a manuscript copy of Boccace's poem, with this title, Philostrato, del’ amorose fatiche di Troilo, per Gio. Boccaccio. See Montfaucon's Bibl. Mss. t. ii. p. 793, and Quadrio, t. vi. P. 473.

of honest Montagne, 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 Chaucer 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,

8

8 Chaucer in general, Mr. Tyrwhitt has remarked, appears to have built his Tales, both serious and comick, upon stories which he found ready made;" nor do the two Tales here mentioned by our author afford an exception to the truth of this observation, for they were not, as Dryden supposed, of Chaucer's invention. THE WIFE

OF BATHES TALE seems to have been taken from the story of Florent in Gower, CONF. AMANT. b. i., or from an older narrative in the GESTA ROMANORUM, or some such collection, from which the story of Florent was itself borrowed. However that may have been, it must be allowed that Chaucer has improved the fable by lopping off some improbable, as well as unnecessary, circumstances; and the transferring of the scene from Sicily to the court of King Arthur, must have had a very pleasing effect, before the fabulous majesty of that court was quite obliterated." CANT. TALES, vol. iv. p. 151.

"THE TALE OF THE NONNES PRIEST is cited by Dryden, together with that of THE WIFE OF BATH, as of Chaucer's own invention. But that great poet was not very conversant with the authors of which Chaucer's

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

library seems to have been composed. THE WIFE OF BATHES TALE has been shewn above to be taken from Gower, and the Fable of the COCK AND THE FOX, which makes the ground of THE NONNES PREESTES TALE, is clearly borrowed from a collection of Æsopean and other Fables, by Marie, a French poetess, whose collection of Lais has been mentioned before." Marie wrote in the reign of St. Louis, about the middle of the thirteenth century. This fable, which consists of but thirty-eight lines, and which Mr. Tyrwhitt has copied from MS. Harl. 978. f. 76, furnishes (he observes) “a convincing proof, how able Chaucer was to work up an excellent tale out of very small materials." Ibid. p. 177.

9 After stating very probable grounds for believing that the work of THE CANTERBURY TALES was not begun. in 1382, and was not much advanced before 1389, Mr. Tyrwhitt adds, "They who believe the pilgrimage to have been real, and to have happened in 1383, may support their opinion by the following inscription, which is still to be read upon the Inn now called the Talbot, in Southwark: This is the Inn where Sir Jeffrey Chaucer and the twenty-nine Pilgrims lodged, in their journey to Canterbury, anno 1383.' Though the present inscription is evidently of a very recent date, we might suppose it to have been propagated to us by a succession of faithful transcripts from the very time; but unluckily there is: too good reason to be assured that the first inscription of this sort was not earlier than the last century. Mr.