COPWIN’S LIFE OF CHAUCER. 
“soa Wace and Benoit may most properly 
@ considered as ours, and the English mo- 
natchs were among the most conspicuous 
and munificent in the list of patrons of the 
literature of that age. But Wacé and Benoit 
wrote the language of the Northern French. 
English indeed, er Saxon (for our ideas on 
this subject will be rendered more accurate 
by our considering these as two names for 
same thing), had always continued the 
language of the bulk of the inhabitants 
of this island; and a few efforts from time 
to time show themselves to perpetuate our 
native tongue in the form of poctry. Laya- 
_ mon, an English monk, translated the Brut 
_ ardor and ambition of their contemporarics :" 
_ Same thing. 
_ mon is in simple and unmixed, though - 
of Wace in no long time after it was written ; 
and Robert of Gloucester, and Robert Man- 
ning, composed certain rhyming chronicles 
of the history of England, about the end of 
the thirteenth century. But-none of these 
attempts were much calculated to excite the 
the English continued to be the language of 
acbarity and rudeness; while the V’tench 
had in its favour the fashion which counte- 
nanced it, the refinement of those who 
wrote it, and the variety and multitude of 
their productions and inventions.” 
This passage contains many errors: 
to consider Saxon and English as two 
names for the same thing, would be as 
‘absurd as to consider the Norman French 
d English, or Latin and Italian, as the 
The translation of Laya- 
very barbarous Saxon. ‘These are the 
_ words of Mr. Ellis, whose assertions as 
“usual are substantiated by proof; and 
this same work of Wace was translated 
:o@ English by Robert Manning, or as 
iscommonly called Robert de Brunne. 
© Chancer saw immediately in which 
Way the path of fame was most open to his 
_ access ; that it was by the cultivation of his 
“Mative tongue: and his seeing this at the 
ZA age of eighteen, is no common proof 
oft e magnitude of hispowers. It has been 
well observed that the English language rose 
with the rise of the Comraons; an event 
which first discovered itself in the reign of 
phn, and which was attained and fixed un- 
“der Edward J. Chaucer perhaps perceived, 
ad was the first to perceive, that from this 
ithe Eaglish tongue must necessarily ad- 
ce in purity, in popularity, and in dignity, 
ad finally triumph over every competitor 
ithin the circuit of its native soil. ‘The 
Yor was the prosperous career our lan- 
was about to run, by any means the 
only, or the strongest argument for recurring 
to the use of it. For the poet to attempt to 
Asn. Rey. Vou. II. 
465 
express his thoughts in French, was for him 
voluntarily to subject himse!f to many of the 
disadvantages which attend the attempt to 
write poetry ina dead language. What is so 
written can scarcely be entirely worthy of 
the name of poetry. It can but weakly cons 
vey the facility of our thoughts, or the fresh- 
ness of our impfessions. Chaucer was a 
genuine Englishman, a native of our island, 
hitherto confined within our shores, and 
born in the class of our burgesses and mer- 
chants. French was to him probably like a 
foreign language: all his boyish feelings had 
been expressed in English. English words 
were mingled and associated with all the 
scenes he had beheld, and all the images he 
had conceived. For a man to communicate 
the thoughts he has formed in one language 
in the words of another, is a position not 
less unfortinate, than to be condemned to 
contemplate a beautiful woman, not by turn- 
ing our eyes immediately upon her person, 
but by regarding her figure as shadowed in a 
mirror. 
«« To master any language is a task too 
great for the narrow space of human life. It 
is perfectly trae, however paradoxical it may 
sound, that the man never yet existed who 
was completely possessed of the treasures of 
his native tongue. Many delicacies and 
shades of meaning, many happy combina 
tions and arrangements of words, are fa- 
miliar to one man, of which his neighbour 
is ignorant; while, on the other hand, his 
neighbour possesses stores of a similar sort, 
to which he is a stranger. Those also which 
have once been observed by any man, cb- 
viously divide themselves into two classes ; 
one which he has always at hand, and 
may be conceived in acertain sense as makin 
part of himself; and the other, phrases an 
expressions which he once knew and com- 
prehended, but which now he rarely remem- 
bers or has totally forgotten. If then ne man 
ever yet possessed the treasures of his native 
tongue, what presumption or fatuity ought 
it to be accounted, for him voluntarily to 
undergo the disadvantage of expressing him- 
self in another? Add to which ; even when 
we have mastered the supposed foreign lan- 
guage, we can still give it no more than the 
copy of the words of our early years, words 
which relatively to us may almost be con- 
sidered as the ideas themselves.” 
The question is next considered whe- 
ther Chaucer or Gower were the earlier 
English writer, and it is decided that 
Chaucer “ is well entitled to be consi- 
dered as original in his attempt to model 
his native tongue to the language of 
poetry.”” That Chaucer was our first 
great poet, and is one of our few great 
poets, will not be disputed; but the 
praise. which is here claimed for him, 
is without foundation: he took the lan- 
guage as he found it, and improved it 
