The nimble juice soon seiz'd his giddy head,
Frantic at night, and in the morning dead.

405

How some with swords their sleeping lords have slain,

And some have hammer'd nails into their brain,
And some have drench'd them with a deadly

potion;

All this he read, and read with great devotion. 410 Long time I heard, and swell'd, and blush'd, and

frown'd;

416

But when no end of these vile tales I found,
When still he read, and laugh'd, and read again,
And half the night was thus consum'd in vain ;
Provok'd to vengeance, three large leaves I tore,
And with one buffet fell'd him on the floor.
With that my husband in a fury rose,
And down he settled me with hearty blows,
I groan'd, and lay extended on my side;
Oh! thou hast slain me for my wealth (I cry'd);
Yet I forgive thee-take my last embrace-
He wept, kind soul! and stoop'd to kiss my face;
I took him such a box as turn'd him blue,
Then sigh'd and cry'd, Adieu, my dear, adieu!
But after many a hearty struggle past,

I condescended to be pleas'd at last,
Soon as he said, My mistress and my wife,
Do what you list, the term of all your life;

I took to heart the merits of the cause,

421

425

And stood content to rule by wholesome laws; 430 Receiv'd the reins of absolute command,

With all the government of house and land,

And empire o'er his tongue, and o'er his hand..

434

As for the volume that revil'd the dames, 'Twas torn to fragments, and condemn'd to flames.

Now Heav'n, on all my husbands gone, bestow Pleasures above, for tortures felt below: That rest they wish'd for, grant them in the grave, And bless those souls my conduct help'd to save!

THE lines of Pope, in the piece before us, are spirited and easy, and have, properly enough, a free colloquial air. One passage I cannot forbear quoting, as it acquaints us with the writers who were popular in the time of Chaucer. The jocose old woman says, that her husband frequently read to her out of a volume that contained

"Valerius whole; and of Saint Jerome part;
Chrysippus and Tertullian, Ovid's Art,

Solomon's Proverbs, Eloïsa's loves:

With many more than sure the Church approves."

Ver. 359.

Pope has omitted a stroke of humour; for, in the original, she naturally mistakes the rank and age of St. Jerome; the lines must be transcribed,

"Yclepid Valerie and Theophrast,

At which boke he lough alway full fast;

And eke there was a clerk sometime in Rome,
A cardinal, that hightin St. Jerome,
That made a boke agenst Jovinian,
In which boke there was eke Tertullian,
Chrysippus, Trotula, and Helowis,
That was an abbess not ferr fro Paris,
And eke the Parables of Solomon,
Ovid' is art, and bokis many a one."

In the library which Charles V. founded in France, about the year 1376, among many books of devotion, astrology, chemistry, and romance, there was not one copy of Tully to be found, and no Latin poet but Ovid, Lucan, and Boethius; some French translations of Livy, Valerius Maximus, and St. Austin's City

of God. He placed these in one of the towers, called The Tower of the Library. This was the foundation of the present magnificent royal library at Paris.

The tale, to which this is the prologue, has been versified by Dryden, and is supposed to have been of Chaucer's own invention; as is the exquisite Vision of the Flower and the Leaf, which has received a thousand new graces from the spirited and harmonious Dryden. It is to his Fables (next to his Music Ode), written when he was above seventy years old, that Dryden will chiefly owe his immortality; and among these, particularly to the well-conducted tale of Palamon and Arcite, the pathetic picture of Sigismunda, the wild and terrible graces of Theodore and Honoria, and the sportive pleasantry of Cymon and Iphigenia. It is mortifying and surprising to see the cold and contemptuous manner in which Dr. Johnson speaks of these capital pieces, which he says "require little criticism, and seem hardly worth the rejuvenescence (as he affectedly calls it) which Dryden has bestowed upon them." It is remarkable that, in his criticisms, he has not even mentioned the Flower and the Leaf.

These pieces of Chaucer were not the only ones that were versified by Pope. Mr. Harte assured me, that he was convinced by some circumstances which Fenton his friend communicated to him, that Pope wrote the characters that make the introduction to the Canterbury Tales, published under the name of Betterton.

THE

FIRST BOOK

OF

STATIUS'S THEBAIS.

TRANSLATED IN THE YEAR MDCCIII.