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Poetry made its first appearance in Britain, as perhaps in most other countries, in the form of chronicles, intended to perpetuate the deeds both of civil and military heroes, but mostly the latOf this species is the chronicle of Robert of Glocester; and of this species also was the song, or ode, of Roland, which William the Conqueror, and his followers, sung at their landing in this kingdom from Normandy. The mention of which event will naturally remind us of the check it gave to the native strains of the old British poetry, by an introduction of foreign manners, custorns, images, and language. These ancient strains were, however, sufficiently harsh, dry, and uncouth. And it was to the Italians we owed any thing that could be called poetry; from whom Chaucer, imitated by POPE in this vision, copied largely, as they are said to have done from the Bards of Provence; and to which Italians he is perpetually owning his obligations, particularly to Boccace and Petrarch. But Petrarch had great advantages, which Chaucer wanted, not only in the friendship and advice of Boccace, but still more in having found such a predecessor as Dante. In the year 1359, Boccacę

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sent to Petrarch a copy of Dante, whom he called his father, written with his own hand. And it is remarkable, that he accompanied his present with an apology for sending this poem to Petrarch, who, it seems, was jealous of Dante, and in the answer speaks coldly of his merits. This circumstance, unobserved by the generality of writers, and even by Fontanini, Crescembini, and Muratori, is brought forward, and related at large, in the third volume, page 507, of the very entertaining Memoirs of the Life of Petrarch. In the year 1363, Boccace, driven from Florence by the plague, visited Petrarch at Venice, and carried with him Leontius Pilatus, of Thessalonica, a man of genius, but of haughty, rough, and brutal manners: from this singular man, who perished in a voyage from Constantinople to Venice, 1365, Petrarch received a Latin translation of the Iliad and Odyssey. Muratori, in his 1. book, Della Perfetta Poesia, p. 18, relates, that a very few years after the death of Dante, 1321, a most curious work on the Italian poetry was written by a M. A. di Tempo, of which he had seen a manuscript in the great library at Milan, of the year 1332, and of which this is

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the title: Incipit Summa Artis Ritmici vulgaris dictaminis. The chapters are thus divided. Ritmorum vulgarium septem sunt genera. 1. Est Sonetus. 2. Ballata. 3. Cantio extensa. 4. Rotundellus. 5. Mandrialis. 6. Serventesius. 7. Motus confectus. But whatever Chaucer might copy from the Italians, yet the artful and entertaining plan of his Canterbury Tales was purely original, and his own. This admirable

piece, even exclusive of its poetry, is highly valuable, as it preserves to us the liveliest and exactest picture of the manners, customs, characters, and habits, of our forefathers, whom he has brought before our eyes acting as on a stage, suitably to their different orders and employments. With these portraits the driest antiquary must be delighted by this plan he has more judiciously connected these stories which the guests relate, than Boccace has done his novels; whom he has imitated, if not excelled, in the variety of the subjects of his tales. It is a common mistake, that Chaucer's excellence lay in his manner of treating light and ridiculous subjects; for whoever will attentively consider the noble poem of Palamon and Arcite, will be con

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vinced, that he equally excels in the pathetic and the sublime. It has been but lately proved, that the Palamon and Arcite of Chaucer, is taken from the Theseida of Boccace; a poem which has been, till within a few years past, strangely neglected and unknown; and of which Mr. Tyrwhitt has given a curious and exact summary, in his Dissertation on the Canterbury Tales, vol. iv. p. 135. I cannot forbear expressing my surprise, that the circumstance of Chaucer's borrowing this tale should have remained so long unobserved, when it is so plainly and positively mentioned in a book so 'very common as the Memoirs of Niceron; who says, t. 33. p. 44, after giving an abstract of the story of Palamon. and Arcite, G. Chaucer, l'Homere de son pays, a mis l'ouvrage de Boccace en vers Anglois. This book was published by Niceron 1736. He also mentions a French translation of the Theseida, published at Paris M,D,CC. 1597, in 12mo. The late Mr. Stanley, who was as accurately skilled in modern as in ancient Greek, for a long time was of opinion, that this poem, in modern political Greek verses, was the original; in which opinion he was confirmed by the Abbé Barthelemy,

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at Paris, whose learned correspondence with Mr. Stanley on this subject I have read. At last Mr. Stanley gave up this opinion, and was convinced. that Boccace invented the tale. Crescembini and Muratori have mentioned the Theseida more than once. That very laborious and learned antiquary Apostolo Zeno, speaks thus of it, in his Notes to the Bibliotheca of Fontanini, p. 450, t. i. Questa opera pastorale (that is, the ameto) che prende il nome dal pastore ameto, ha data l'origine all egloga Italiana, non senza lode del Boccacio, cui pure la nostra lingua du il ritrovamento della ottava rima (which was first used in the Theseida) e del poema eroico. Gravina does not mention this poem. Crescembini gives this opinion of it, p. 118, t. 1. Nel medesimo secolo del Petrarca, il Boccacio diede principio all' Epica, colla sua Teseide, e col Filostrato; ma nello stile non eccedé la mediocrità, anzi sovente cadde nell' umile. The fashion that has lately obtained, in all the nations of Europe, of republishing and illustrating their old poets, does honour to the good taste and liberal curiosity of the present age. It is always pleasing, and indeed useful, to look back to the rude beginnings

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