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tion as best suited their purpose, since any single adventure might be inserted without impropriety, or left out without being missed. The same cause accounts for the loose and often tedious style in which the minstrels indulged. It was of consequence that their stanza should be so simple, as to be easily recollected, and their diction so copious, as not to suffer by any occasional deficiency of memory. For these reasons, Robert de Brunne tells us, that the common minstrels were unable to repeat tales written in a concise style and complicated stanza, and that such became nought in their imperfect recitation. To these faults, we have often to add those of extreme awkwardness of contrivance and improbability of incident; but which neither offended the 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 is evidently because he wished to be an architect, not a mere collector 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.

ARTICLE III.

GODWIN'S LIFE OF CHAUCER.

On the Life of

[From the Edinburgh Review for 1804. 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 him

self 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 Chaucer might have been compiled.

"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 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

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