Your temper to comply with

my command ; And speaking thus, he gave Emilia's hand. 2426 Smil'd Venus, to behold her own true knight Obtain the conqueft, though he loft the fight;

And blefs'd with nuptial bliss the sweet laborious night.

Eros, and Anteros, on either fide,

2420

One fir'd the bridegroom, and one warm'd the

bride ;

And long-attending Hymen from above,
Showered on the bed the whole Idalian

All of a tenor was their after-life,

grove.

No day difcolour'd with domeftic strife ; 2425
No jealoufy, but mutual truth believ'd,
Secure repofe, and kindness undeceiv'd.
Thus Heaven, beyond the compass of his
thought,

Sent him the bleffing he fo dearly bought.
So may the Queen of love long duty blefs,

And all true lovers find the fame fuccefs.

Ver, 2430. So may the Queen]

Such was old Chaucer, fuch the placid mien
Of him who first with harmony inform'd
The language of our fathers. Here he dwelt
For many a cheerful day. These ancient walls
Have often heard him, while his legends blithe
He fang; of love, or knighthood, or the wiles
Of homely life through each estate and age
The fashions and the follies of the world

2431

With cunning hand pourtraying. Though perchance

From Blenheim's towers, O ftranger thou art come
Glowing with Churchill's trophies; yet in vain
Doft thou applaud them, if thy breast be cold
To him, this other heroe; who, in times
Dark and untaught, began with charming verfe
To tame the rudeness of his native land.

Dr. Akenfide wrote thefe lines to be placed under a statue of Chaucer, at Woodstock, and they are in the true fimple taste of ancient infcriptions.

Dr. J. WARTON.

THE

COCK AND THE FOX;

OR, THE

TALE OF THE NUN'S PRIEST.

5

THERE liv'd, as authors tell, in days of yore,
A widow fomewhat old, and very poor:
'Deep in a cell her cottage lonely stood,
Well thatch'd, and under covert of a wood.
This dowager, on whom my tale I found,
Since laft the laid her husband in the ground,
A fimple fober life, in patience, led,
And had but just enough to buy her bread:
But hafwifing the little Heaven had lent,
She duly paid a groat for quarter rent;
And pinch'd her belly, with her daughters two,
To bring the year about with much ado.

10

The cattle in her homeftead were three fows, An ewe call'd Mally, and three brinded cows. Her parlour-window ftuck with herbs around, 15 Of favoury smell; and rushes ftrew'd the ground.

Ver. 15, and three following verses, a deviation from the original.

A maple-dreffer in her hall she had,

On which full many a flender meal the made;
For no delicious morfel pafs'd her throat;
According to her cloth fhe cut her coat:
No poignant fauce fhe knew, nor coftly treat,
Her hunger gave a relish to her meat:

20

A fparing diet did her health affure ;
Or fick, a pepper poffet was her cure.
Before the day was done, her work the fped, 25
And never went by candle light to bed:
With exercife fhe fweat ill humours out,
Her dancing was not hinder'd by the gout.
Her poverty was glad'; her heart content,
Nor knew the what the spleen or vapours meant.
Of wine the never tafted through the
year, 31
But white and black was all her homely chear:

Ful footy was hire boure, and eke hire halle.

This image Dryden has omitted, which is taken from Virgil.

-affiduâ poftes fuligine nigri.

Ecl. vii. v. 50.

But which contains a lively picture of the homely furniture of the widow's cottage.

Goldfmith has added many natural strokes:

Imagination fondly ftoops to trace

And an author who deferves to be better known, Cunningham, has adopted one of thefe images in a little pleafing fong, called Content:

Yellow fheaves from rich Ceres her cottage had crown'd,

Green rushes were ftrew'd on the floor,

Her cafement fweet woodbines crept modeftly round,
And deck'd the fod feats at her door.

JOHN WARTON.