produced during the five centuries that have elapsed since English literature can be said to have had a being.

I cannot, of course, here dilate upon the value of a famil iarity with the earlier English writers, but I may, perhaps, be indulged in a momentary reference to the greatest of them, the perusal of whose works alone would much more than compensate the little labor required to understand the dialect in which they are written. Neither the prose nor the verse of the English literature of the fourteenth century comes up to the elaborate elegance and the classic finish of Boccaccio and of Petrarch. But, in original power, and in all the highest qualities of poetry, no Continental writer of that period, with the single exception of Dante, can, for a moment, be compared with Chaucer, who, only less than Shakespeare, deserves the epithet, myriad-minded, so happily applied by Coleridge to the great dramatist. He is eminently the creator of our literary dialect, the introducer, if not the inventor, of some of our finest poetical forms, and so essential were his labors in the founding of our national literature, that, without Chaucer, the seventeenth century could have produced no Milton, the nineteenth no Keats.* It is from defect of

I must here, once for all, make the sad concession, that many of Chaucer's works are disfigured, stained, polluted, by a grossness of thought and of language which strangely and painfully contrasts with the delicacy, refinement, and moral elevation of his other productions. The only apology, or rather palliation of this offence, is that which serves to excuse similar transgressions in Shakespeare; namely, that the thoughts, the images, the words, are such as belong to the character presented, or for the time assumed, by the poet; and we must remember that the moral and religious degradation of the fourteenth was far deeper and more pervading than that of the sixteenth and seventeenth cen turies.

I am not ignorant that Chaucer's poems are in great part translations, para. phrases, or imitations. But this was the habit of the time. Every man built on the foundation of his predecessors, and Chaucer, while he touched nothing which he did not improve, is always best when he is most original in the concep

knowledge alone, that his diction and i.is versification have been condemned as rude and unpolished. There are, indeed, some difficulties in his prosody, which have not yet been fully solved; but these will, doubtless, chiefly yield to a more critical revision of the text, and even with the corrupt reading of the old printed editions, the general flow of his verse is scarcely inferior to the melody of Spenser. There can be little doubt that his metrical system was in perfect accordance with the orthoepy of his age, and it was near two centuries. before any improvements were made upon his diction or his numbers.

I remarked that there are circumstances in the position and the external relations of the English language, which recommend its earnest study and cultivation. I refer, of course, to the commanding political influence, the widespread territory, and the commercial importance of the two

tion as well as the treatment of his theme. There is no doubt a strong resem. blance between the general diction of this poet and of Gower. The etymological proportions of their vocabularies are not widely different, nor are the grammat ical discordances between them very great. But in the choice of words as determined by subject, in metrical construction, in poetic coloring, in compass, variety, beauty, and appositeness of illustration, in dramatic power, in nice perception of character, and in justness of thought, the superiority of Chaucer is almost mmeasurable. A reader who should note the passages in his works, which, in point of thought or expression, are particularly suited to serve as effective quotations, would find on reviewing his list, that no English writer except Shakespeare, has uttered so many striking and pithy sentences as Chaucer.

Few of his greater qualities were inherited by his immediate successors. The influence of his style is perceptible enough in the poetic diction of all after ages; but it is strange that the following century should have given birth to almost nothing better than what, in spite of the ingenious arguments of Skelton's defenders, I must still characterize as the wretched ribaldry of that author. In speaking of the relations of Chaucer to the author of Paradise Lost, I, of course, refer to language only, and especially to the diction of the minor poems of Milton, which are as important in any just view of his poetical character as his great epic itself. Keats, both in verbal form and in the higher qualities of poetry, is constantly reminding us of the more imaginative works of Chaucer.

great mother-countries whose vernacular it is. Although England is no longer at the head of the European political system, yet she is still the leading influence in the sphere of commerce, of industry, of progressive civilization, and of enlightened Christian philanthropy.

The British capital is at the geographical centre of the terrestrious portion of the globe, and while other great cities represent individual nationalities, or restricted and temporary aims, the lasting, cardinal interests of universal humanity have their brightest point of radiation in the city of London.

The language of England is spoken by greater numbers than any other Christian speech, and it is remarkable that, while some contemporaneous dialects and races are decaying and gradually disappearing from their natal soil, the English speech and the descendants of those who first employed it are making hourly conquests of new territory, and have already established their posts within hailing distance throughout the circuit of the habitable globe. The English language is the special organ of all the great, world-wide charities which so honorably distinguish the present from all preceding ages. With little of the speculative universal philanthropy which has been so loudly preached and so little practised elsewhere, the English people have been foremost every scheme of active benevolence, and they have been worthily seconded by their American brethren. The English Bible has been scattered by hundreds of millions over the face of the earth, and English-speaking missionaries have planted their maternal dialect at scores of important points, to which, had not their courageous and self-devoting energy paved the way, not even the enterprise of trade could have opened a path. Hence, English is emphatically the language

in

of commerce, of civilization, of social and religious freedom, of progressive intelligence, and of active catholic philanthropy; and, therefore, beyond any tongue ever used by man, it is of right the cosmopolite speech.

That it will ever become, as some dream, literally universal in its empire, I am, indeed, far from believing; nor do I suppose that the period will ever arrive, when our many-sided humanity will content itself with a single tongue. In the incessant change which all language necessarily undergoes, English itself will have ceased to exist, in a form identifiable with its present character, long before even the half of the human family can be so far harmonized and assimilated as to employ one common medium of intercourse. Languages adhere so tenaciously to their native soil, that, in general, they can be eradicated only by the extirpation of the races that speak them. To take a striking instance: the Celtic has less vitality, less power of resistance, than any other speech accessible to philological research. In its whole known history it has made no conquests, and it has been ever `in a waning condition, and yet, comparatively feeble as is its self-sustaining power, two thousand years of Roman and Teutonic triumphs have not stifled its accents in England or in Gaul. It has died only with its dying race, and centuries may yet elapse before English shall be the sole speech of Britain itself.

In like manner, not to notice other sporadic ancient dialects, the primitive language of Spain, after a struggle of two and twenty centuries with Phoenicians, and Celts, and Carthaginians, and Romans, and Goths, and Arabs, is still the daily speech of half a million of people. If, then, such be the persistence of language, how can we look forward to

a period when English shall have vanquished a d superseded the Chinese and the Tartar dialects, the many tongues of polyglot India, the yet surviving Semitic speeches, in their wide diffusion, and the numerous and powerful Indo-European languages, which are even now disputing with it the mastery? In short, the prospect of the final triumph of any one tongue is as distant, as improbable, I may add, as undesirable, as the subjection of universal man to one monarchy, or the conformity of his multitudinous races to one standard of color, one physical type. The Author of our being has implanted. in us our discrepant tendencies, for wise purposes, and they are, indeed, a part of the law of life itself. Diversity of growth is a condition of organic existence, and so long as man possesses powers of spontaneous development and action, so long as he is more and better than a machine, so long he will continue to manifest outward and inward differences, unlikeness of form, antagonisms of opinion, and varieties of speech. But yet, though English will not supersede, still less extirpate, the thousand languages now spoken, it is not unreasonable to expect for it a wider diffusion, a more commanding influence, a more universally acknowledged beneficent action, than has yet been reached, or can hereafter be acquired, by any ancient or now existent tongue, and we may hope that the great names which adorn it will enjoy a wider and more durable renown than any others of the sons of men.

These brief remarks do but hint the importance of the studies I am advocating, and it will be the leading object of my future discourses more fully to expound their claims, and to point out the best method of pursuing them.

A series of lessons upon the technicalities of English phi