“examination. ’ 
468 
trato. Chaucer isbipposed, by Tyrwhit 
and Warton, to have taken his Knight's Tale 
from the Teseide of Boctaccio. What has 
he done in this case? Most materially 
abridged his original. The Teseide is a 
poenr of about ten thousand lines, and Chau- 
éer has told the same story in Jittle more than 
two thousand. Lt is not improbable, indeed, 
asa poem of Palainon and Arcite, the heroes of 
the Teseide, was one of Chaucer's early pro- 
ductions, that he first translated the ‘Teseide, 
and afterward compressed it as we find it in 
the Canterbury Vales. Abridgment 1s infi- 
nitely a more natural operation in such cases 
than paraphrase. When a man of taste, di- 
ested of the partialities of a parent, surveys 
critically a poem of length, one of the things 
most likely to strike him is, that the poem 
contains superfluities which, with advantage 
to the general effect, might be lopped away. 
These considerations, even independently of 
the direct evidence of Chancer and Lydgate, 
would induce an accurate impartial observer 
to adopt the hy pothesis here maintained, that 
Chaucer in his Troilus went to Koceaccio’s 
original, and not to Boccaccio, for the ma- 
terials upon which he worked.” 
These arguments are sensible, and 
fairly advanced. But Mr. Godwin next 
proceeds to guess at the age ot Lollius ; 
tor Lollius having existed, must have 
existed at.some particular period, and 
therefore may with some degree of pro- 
bability be assigned to the twelfth cen- 
‘tury, and considered as the contemporary 
of Wace and Vhomus of Becket, because 
“there is a propensity in human affairs 
to ripen minds of nearly the same class 
and character in different places at the 
same time!’’ It is not indeed directly 
asserted, that Loilius wrote his ‘Trophe 
at the very time when Joseph cf Exeter 
produced his De Bello Trojano, but it ts 
said to be probable,—a thing that may 
be believed,—in the same dithdent tone 
in which we are told that Chaucer was 
probably brought up as a Roman Ca- 
tholic ! 
The two ensuing chapters are employ- 
ed in examining the poem of Troilus 
and Creseide, and the subsequent pro- 
ductions to Which it has given birth. A 
specimen of Sir Francis Kynaston’s La- 
tin rhymed translation, might have well 
been inserted here : itis excellently done, 
and the effect, singular as it is, very 
pleasing. .:.’ ; : 
The moral Gower, and philesophical 
Strode, form the subjects of the next 
Xf Strode little can be 
known, ‘and acting added to what is 
known, till his works shall have been 
examined, which we here find, according 
BIOGRAPHY. 
to Tanner, were (at least in part) prints 
ed at Venice, with the comments of 
Alexander Sermoneta, in 1517. Gower’s 
manuscripts are among the many trea- 
sures which, to the shame of England, 
will be suffered to moulder away. 
Mr. Godwin now discus:es the ques- 
tion whether Chaucer belonged to the 
Society of the Inner Temple, and coni- 
cludes dy saying that much stress cannot 
be laid upon the supposition. But tho’ 
the discussion is thus concluded, we must 
not suppose that the biographer con- 
cludes the subject also. No! he has 
told us that there is little or no reason to 
believe that Chaucer did study the law ; 
but suppose he had studied the law, 
what ‘* effect would have been produced 
upon his mind by this study?? Then — 
comes the history of law in the four- 
teenth century, as far as Mr. Godwin ~ 
understands it; and having spent ten ~ 
pages upon this, he takes up the suppo- — 
sttion on which he had before assured ys 
no stress was to be laid, in order to try 
the effect of this study upon peor Chau- 
cer, whose mind Mr. Godwin chuses to 
submit to as many experiments -as we 
have seen inflicted upon a subject, by 
Messrs. Pepge and West, at Oxtord. 
«* Chancer is supposed to have been bred. 
to the bar. If he practised in the profession, 
for however short a time, he must haye con- 
tracted some habits of thinking and acting 
secultarly appropriated to the man of laws. If 
Re never entered upon actnal practice, yet 
liaving had the profession in prospect, and 
frequenting the courts of law for the purpose 
of observing and commenting upon those 
modes of proceeding in whieh he was short- — 
ly to engage, he must have experienced some — 
of the same effects. 
«© It may be amusing to the fancy cf a 
reader of Chaucer's works,- to represent to 
himself the young poet, accoutred in the 
robes of a lawyer, examining a witness, fix- 
ing dpon him the keenness of his eye, ad- 
dressing himself with anxiety and expecta- 7 
tion to a jury, or exercising the subtlety of © 
his wit and judgment in the developement of — 
one of those quirks, by which a client was to ~ 
be rescned from the rigour of strict and un- — 
favouring justice. Perhaps, Chaucer, in they 
course of iis legal life, saved a thief from the — 
gallows, and gave him a new chance of be-)) 
coming a decent and useful member of so+) 
ciety ; perhaps, by his penetration he dis-— 
cerned and demonstrated that imnocence, — 
which to a less able pleader would never | 
have been evident, and which a less able | 
pleader would. never have succeeded in re-— 
storing triamphant to its place in the com-— 
niunity and its fair fame. Perhaps Chaucer” 
pleaded before ‘l'resilian or Brember, 
nes 
Sut 
en ae ey 
