GODWIN’S LITE OF CHAUCER. 
— 
Chaucer is not more obscure than the 
fanguage of Spenser: Spenser has given 
an appéarance of antiquity to his words 
by frequent ellisions, and by a forced 
orthography ; but the words which ac- 
tually require a reference to the glossary 
. are so few, that neither man, woman, or 
child, of common understanding and 
common attainments, will ever feel ob- 
structed by them in the perusal. The 
different size of the glossaries to the two 
poets will alone decide the question. 
_ We will venture to affirm, that a woman 
will experience more verbal difficulties 
in the Paradise Lost, and ten-fold more 
“in the macaronic prose of Dr. Johnson, 
than in the Faery Queen. With regard 
to Shakespere, Chaucer is certainly far 
‘Tess obscure,—but who dees not think 
himself capable of understanding Shake- 
spere ? His oiscurity lies in intricacy of 
‘syntax, in remoteness of allusion, in 
rapid asscciation,. in profound thought 
or profounder feeling,—not in words; 
and that the mass of mankind, if they 
understand the words singly, will take 
it for granted that they understand their 
collective meaning, whether they have a 
meaning or no, is a fact upon which the 
_ reputation of many a modern writer is 
founded. 
To our astonishment we find that the 
next chapter is entirely devoted to the 
plagué of London in 1349! because it 
must have ‘‘ produced a great effect 
upon Chaucer!” Doubtless when in the 
) year 2200 of the vulgar era, (if the vul- 
) gar era shall so long last) some future 
> philosopher shall write the lifeof William 
_ Godwin, in quarto or in folio: that the 
"work may be proportioned in magnitude 
to his fame, he will insert the history of 
_ La Grippe, presuming that that influenza 
“must have “ produced a great effect” 
- upon Mr. Godwin. And we do there- 
fore exhort Mr. Godwin carefully to 
preserve and deposit the receipts or pre- 
scriptions from which he derived most 
benefit in that complaint, recollecting 
“what enthusiastic pleasure he should 
imself have felt, had he encountered such 
~a document for his memoirs of Geoffrey 
haucer. 
Chaucer had referred to Lollius 
‘as the original author, from whom he 
“had translated this tale ; and Lydgate 
: essly mentions, that the title of the 
original work was Trophe. But no such 
4 or as Lollius is elsewhere mention- 
‘ed, or known to have existed; and as 
467 
the same tale is the subject of Beccaccio’s 
Philostrato, Tyrwhit has supposed the 
English poem to have been taken from 
the Italian. In refutation of this opi- 
nion, Mr. Godwin offers some judicious 
remarks. 
«« Mr. Tyrwhit seems inclined to consi- 
der Lollius as the name of a man who had 
no other existence than in the forgery of 
Chaucer. But this is a strange hypothesis. 
What motive had Chaucer for such a for- 
gery? The poem of Troilus and Creseide 
was certainly not written by Lollius Nibi- 
cus, a Roman historian of the third .cen- 
tury, to whom it is thoughtlessly ascribed in 
Spezht’s and Urry’s editions ; since it is inter- 
spersed with ideas of chivalry, which did not 
exist till long after that period: and Mr. 
Tyrwhit perhaps had never heard of any 
other Lollius. It is surely, however, too 
hasty a conclusion, because his name has 
not reached us from any other quarter, to 
say that he never existed. How many au- 
thors, with their memories, even to thir 
very names, may we reasonably suppose to 
have been lost in the darkness of the middle 
ages! Not to travel out of the present sub- 
ject for an iilustration, if the i laaledan a 
considerable poem of so celebrated an author 
as Boccaccio, had sonearly perished, who will 
wouder that the original work, and the name 
of the author from whom Boccaccio translat- 
ed it, have now sunk into total oblivion ? 
‘© There is a further very strong evidence 
of the real existence of Lollins, which’oc- 
curs in the writings of Chaucer. One of 
our poet’s most considerable works is enti- 
tled the House of Fame; and in this poem, 
among a cluster of worthies, he introduces 
the writers who had recorded the story of 
Troy. They are as follow: Homer, Dares, 
Titus (or Dictys) Lollius, Guido dalla Co- 
lonna, and Geoffrey of Monmouth. 
‘© Boecaccio is known to have.been fre- 
example, to which we shall soon have occa- 
sion to refer, existed before his time. He 
assures us himself that he translated the Te- 
seide from a Latin original. Is it not more 
than probable that the Filostrato came from 
the same source? Is it not obvious to ima- 
gine that Chaucer and Boccaccio copied from 
one original? ‘Translation was: peculiarly 
the employment of the first revivers of learn- 
ing: nor did they hold it otherwise than in 
the highest degree honourable, to open totheir 
unlearned countrymen the sacred fountains 
of knowledge, which had so loug been con 
signed to o' scurity and neglect. : 
«© Ajter all, however, the ‘i'roilus is by no 
means the exact counterpart of the Filostrato, 
To omit minuter differences, the Filostrato 
is divided into ten books, and the Troilus 
into only five. Add to which, the Troilus, 
which consists of abouteight thousand lines, 
contains three thousand more than the Kilos- 
Hh 2 
