taste, nor shocked the faith of our plain and hardy ancestors. On the other hand, there is a sort of keeping in these ancient tales, which did not depend upon the minstrel's inclination, and from which he could not have departed, if he had a mind to do so. This arises from his painting the manners of his own time as they passed before his eyes, and thus giving a truth and unity to the chivalrous events he relates, which the modern labourers in the vineyard of romance are utterly unable to imitate. With all the pains these last can use to deck their champions in the antique taste, they are perpetually confounding the past time with the present, and are guilty of anachronisms almost as gross as his who introduced a tea-table scene into the history of John of Gaunt. Neither is the language in which these legends are told altogether unworthy of our applause. There often occur passages, which, from the spirit of the poet rising with the situation, may justly claim a rank among the higher and more masculine orders of poetry. And although, as we have already noticed, the general conduct of the story is desultory and slightly put together, yet many of the individual adventures, of which each long romance is composed, are happily conceived and artfully executed. The gloom of superstition likewise added a wild and dismal effect to the wonders of the minstrel; and occasionally his description of supernatural events amounts nearly to sublimity.

To these ancient monuments of the past ages, Mr Ellis has rendered the same good service in English, which the Count de Tressan performed in France, by the "Corps d'Extraits de Romans de Chevalerie." In some respects, the works resemble each other considerably. They are both executed by men of rank and fashion, who formed their style not merely by perusing the best authors, but by frequenting the first company in their respective countries. Both display an acute sense of the ludicrous, and can readily enliven, by a witty turn or lively expression, the dull or absurd details which they are occasionally obliged to narrate. We question, however, whether this is not sometimes too much indulged by both authors, since such license, when frequently taken, is rather irreverent, and looks as if the jest were levelled at once against the reader, the editor, and the original minstrel. In other respects, Mr Ellis has a decided superiority over Mons. de Tressan. He is infinitely more faithful as an editor; and, as an author, exhibits much deeper research; which appears from his having chosen the metrical romances for his subject: whereas the count has confined his attention to those in prose, though far less ancient, and in every respect less interesting. But Mr Ellis's introduction sufficiently illustrates his superior skill as an antiquary, although he has brought forward fewer materials than Mr Ritson, and makes no parade of those which he has acquired: it

of stones and rubbish. Every thing which he quotes is adapted to fill a place in his system; and thus he avoids the great error of antiquaries, who are too much busied with insulated facts, to present to their readers a connected historical view of the subject under discussion.

Notwithstanding this ingenious and lively publication, we still desire even the more to see a genuine edition of these ancient poems. It is painful to reflect, that they, with many unedited chronicles, the materials of our national history, are lying unhonoured and unconsulted amid the rubbish of large libraries.

Мейуе

ARTICLE III.

GODWIN'S LIFE OF CHAUCER.

10.65

[From the Edinburgh Review for 1804. On the Life of GEOFFREY CHAUCER, the early English Poet; including Memoirs of his near Friend and Kinsman, JOHN OF GAUNT, Duke of Lancaster; with Sketches of the Manners, Opinions, Arts, and Literature of England in the 14th century. By WILLIAM GODWIN. 2 vols. 4to. London, 1803.]

THE perusal of this title excited no small surprise in our critical fraternity. The authenticated passages of Chaucer's life may be comprised in half a dozen pages; and behold two voluminous quartos! The more sanguine of our number anticipated the recovery of the "Boke of the Lioun," and the other long lost labours of Adam Scrivenere, the bard's amanuensis; the more cautious predicted a new edition of the Chest of Rowley, and the Shakspeare cabinet of Ireland. Our expectations were yet farther heightened, by the lofty tone in which Mr Godwin contrasts his own labours and discoveries with those of the former biographers of Chaucer. Tyrwhitt, the learned and indefatigable editor of the Canterbury Tales, had professed himself unable to produce more than a short abstract of the historical passages of the poet's life; and Ellis, the elegant historian of our early poetry, has (to use his own words) "followed Tyrwhitt, in reciting a few genuine anecdotes, instead of attempting to work them into a connected narrative, in which much must have been supplied by mere conjecture, or by a forced interpretation of the allusions scattered through the works of the poet." But Mr Godwin censures this resolution, as having been adopted to save the fatigue of minute research after the documents from which a full and formal life of

"The fact is, however, that Tyrwhitt made no exertions as to the history of the poet, but contented himself with examining what other biographers had related, and adding a few memorandums, taken from Rymer's Manuscript Collections, now in the British Museum. He has not, in a single instance, resorted to the national repositories in which our records are preserved. In this sort of labour I had been indefatigable, and I have many obligations to acknowledge to the politeness and liberality of the persons to whose custody these monuments are confided. I encountered, indeed, no obstacle, whenever I had occasion to direct my enquiries among the different offices of Government. After all my diligence, however, I am by no means confident that I may not have left some particulars to be gleaned by the compilers who shall come after me."-Preface, p. xii.

After this heavy imputation upon a former editor, to whose industry and labours Chaucer is chiefly indebted for the revival of his fame; after the grave self-congratulation of the biographer; his thanks to those who aided, or did not impede his researches; and his modest apprehensions that, notwithstanding all his diligence, some gleanings may remain for future compilers; the reader will learn with admiration that Mr William Godwin's two quarto volumes contain hardly the vestige of an authenticated fact concerning Chaucer, which is not to be found in the eight pages of Messrs Thomas Tyrwhitt and George Ellis. The researches into the records have only produced one or two writs, addressed to Chaucer, while clerk of the works; the several grants and passports granted to him by Edward III. and Richard II., which had been referred to by former biographers; together with the poet's evidence in a court of chivalry, a contract about a house, and a solitary receipt for half a year's salary. These, with a few documents referring to John of Gaunt, make the Appendix to the book, and are the only original materials brought to light by the labours of the author. Our readers must be curious to know how, out of such slender materials, Mr Godwin has contrived to rear such an immense fabric. For this purpose he has had recourse to two fruitful expedients. In the first place, when the name of a town, of a person, or of a science, happens to occur in his narrative, he stops short, to give the history of the city ab urbe condita; the life of the man, from his cradle upwards, with a brief account of his ancestors; or a full essay upon the laws and principles of the science, with a sketch of the lives of its most eminent professors. We will not do Mr Godwin the injustice to suppose, that this mode of biography is copied from some respectable old gentleman prosing by his fireside, who halts in the story about Tom, till he has given the yawning audience the exploits and genealogy of honest Dick. We believe he profited by instructions derived from no less a person than Miguel Cervantes.

"If you have occasion,” says that author, " to mention a giant in your piece, be sure to bring in Goliah, and on this very Goliah (who will not cost you one farthing) you may spin out a swinging annotation. You may say, The Giant Goliah, or Goliat, was a Philistine, whom David the shepherd slew with the thundering stroke of a pebble, in the valley of Terebinthus. Vide Kings, such a chapter and such a verse, where you may find it written. If not satisfied with this, you would appear a great humanist, and would show your knowledge in geography, take some occasion to draw the river Tagus into your discourse, out of which you may fish a most notable remark: The river Tagus, say you, was so called

of stones and rubbish. Every thing which he quotes is adapted to fill a place in his system; and thus he avoids the great error of antiquaries, who are too much busied with insulated facts, to present to their readers a connected historical view of the subject under discussion.

Notwithstanding this ingenious and lively publication, we still desire even the more to see a genuine edition of these ancient poems. It is painful to reflect, that they, with many unedited chronicles, the materials of our national history, are lying unhonoured and unconsulted amid the rubbish of large libraries.

[From the Edinburgh Review for 1804. On the Life of GEOFFREY CHAUCER, the early English Poet; including Memoirs of his near Friend and Kinsman, JOHN OF GAUNT, Duke of Lancaster; with Sketches of the Manners, Opinions, Arts, and Literature of England in the 14th century. By WILLIAM GODWIN. 2 vols. 4to. London, 1803.]

THE perusal of this title excited no small surprise in our critical fraternity. The authenticated passages of Chaucer's life may be comprised in half a dozen pages; and behold two voluminous quartos! The more sanguine of our number anticipated the recovery of the "Boke of the Lioun," and the other long lost labours of Adam Scrivenere, the bard's amanuensis; the more cautious predicted new edition of the Chest of Rowley, and the Shakspeare cabinet of Ireland. Our expectations were yet farther heightened, by the lofty tone in which Mr Godwin contrasts his own labours and discoveries with those of the former biographers of Chaucer. Tyrwhitt, the learned and indefatigable editor of the Canterbury Tales, had professed himself unable to produce more than a short abstract of the historical passages of the poet's life; and Ellis, the elegant historian of our early poetry, has (to use his own words) "followed Tyrwhitt, in reciting a few genuine anecdotes, instead of attempting to work them into a connected narrative, in which much must have been supplied by mere conjecture, or by a forced interpretation of the allusions scattered through the works of the poet." But Mr Godwin censures this resolution, as having been adopted to save the fatigue of minute research after the documents from which a full and formal life of

"The fact is, however, that Tyrwhitt made no exertions as to the history of the poet, but contented himself with examining what other biographers had related, and adding a few memorandums, taken from Rymer's Manuscript Collections, now in the British Museum. He has not, in a single instance, resorted to the national repositories in which our records are preserved. In this sort of labour I had been indefatigable, and I have many obligations to acknowledge to the politeness and liberality of the persons to whose custody these monuments are confided. I encountered, indeed, no obstacle, whenever I had occasion to direct my enquiries among the different offices of Government. After all my diligence, however, I am by no means confident that I may not have left some particulars to be gleaned by the compilers who shall come after me."-Preface, p. xii.

After this heavy imputation upon a former editor, to whose industry and labours Chaucer is chiefly indebted for the revival of his fame; after the grave self-congratulation of the biographer; his thanks to those who aided, or did not impede his researches; and his modest apprehensions that, notwithstanding all his diligence, some gleanings may remain for future compilers; the reader will learn with admiration that Mr William Godwin's two quarto volumes contain hardly the vestige of an authenticated fact concerning Chaucer, which is not to be found in the eight pages of Messrs Thomas Tyrwhitt and George Ellis. The researches into the records have only produced one or two writs, addressed to Chaucer, while clerk of the works; the several grants and passports granted to him by Edward III. and Richard II., which had been referred to by former biographers; together with the poet's evidence in a court of chivalry, a contract about a house, and a solitary receipt for half a year's salary. These, with a few documents referring to John of Gaunt, make the Appendix to the book, and are the only original materials brought to light by the labours of the author. Our readers must be curious to know how, out of such slender materials, Mr Godwin has contrived to rear such an immense fabric. For this purpose he has had recourse to two fruitful expedients. In the first place, when the name of a town, of a person, or of a science, happens to occur in his narrative, he stops short, to give the history of the city ab urbe condita; the life of the man, from his cradle upwards, with a brief account of his ancestors; or a full essay upon the laws and principles of the science, with a sketch of the lives of its most eminent professors. We will not do Mr Godwin the injustice to suppose, that this mode of biography is copied from some respectable old gentleman prosing by his fireside, who halts in the story about Tom, till he has given the yawning audience the exploits and genealogy of honest Dick. We believe he profited by instructions derived from no less a person than Miguel Cervantes.

"If you have occasion," says that author, "to mention a giant in your piece, be sure to bring in Goliah, and on this very Goliah (who will not cost you one farthing) you may spin out a swinging annotation. You may say, The Giant Goliah, or Goliat, was a Philistine, whom David the shepherd slew with the thundering stroke of a pebble, in the valley of Terebinthus. Vide Kings, such a chapter and such a verse, where you may find it written. If not satisfied with this, you would appear a great humanist, and would show your knowledge in geography, take some occasion to draw the river Tagus into your discourse, out of which you may fish a most notable remark: The river Tagus, say you, was so called