books. These afford an engaging study, not merely to the professed antiquary, but to all readers who take an interest in the most essential points of general history: but were we called upon to select, from a great variety, one single author, who, independently of the literary charms with which his works abound, affords also an exact and finished portraiture of contemporary manners and opinions, our choice would necessarily fall upon Chaucer. It has been justly observed that the "Commedia" of Dante supplies a valuable commentary on the history of his times. To the lovers of political history, the Italian poet is indeed full of interest, as exhibiting to view, and as placing before them in action, the most conspicuous characters of his age; but those who are studious rather of what concerns the moral and intellectual condition of mankind, will derive a yet more ample fund of instruction from the works of Chaucer. Dante paints individuals; Chaucer,

if we combine his minor poems with his great

work, an entire nation.

The only substantial objection to the study of the entire works of Chaucer, consists in the gross and offensive indelicacy with which some few of his most humorous and descriptive poems are occasionally stained. The obsoleteness of his language (the difficulties of which are far greater in the Canterbury Tales than in the minor poems, or the prose-writings) is no more than what a moderate share of attention, with the invaluable aid of Tyrwhitt's notes and glossary, will suffice to overcome. On the score of obscenity, all that can be urged is, that, with the exception of some passages of the Miller's, the Reve's, and the Merchant's Tales, this insurmountable objection occurs but rarely. The minor poems, and the serious tales of the Canterbury Pilgrims, are altogether free from it; and the Nonne's Priest's Tale, perhaps on the whole Chaucer's masterpiece, as a humorous poem, does

not contain more than one or two exceptionable expressions. Next to this principal defect of Chaucer's poetry (a defect rather of the age, than of the author), will be reckoned the prolixity which he occasionally shares in common with almost all our earlier writers. In anticipation of objections of this kind, a few specimens of the poet have been appended to this volume, which although familiar to every scholar, may perhaps prove acceptable to the general admirer of English literature. In the Essays, the object, as regards Chaucer, has been partly to point out the position which he occupies in the history of our literature, by comparing him with preceding or contemporary authors; partly to exemplify his literary merits; but chiefly to bring the reader in contact with such of his passages, whether prose or poetical, as illustrate either his own life and character, or the manners, opinions, and literary taste of his age. With such a purpose in view, the practice of ex

hibiting an author piecemeal, and in short extracts, which in criticism and literary history is sometimes a necessary, though often a very inadequate, mode of proceeding, may perhaps be excusable.

In the two concluding chapters, an attempt has been made to review the principal points of our early literature, from the age of Chaucer to the close of Shakspeare's life; shortly after which period, the ascendancy of puritanical tastes and habits, and the distraction of the civil wars, breaking up and extinguishing the previous modes of thinking and of writing, caused the literature of after ages to assume an entirely new face and aspect. To readers new to such subjects, these essays may perhaps suggest some interesting points of inquiry, which, from the very brevity of the present undertaking, have been but cursorily touched upon in these chapters. It cannot, indeed, be too strongly impressed upon the young student,

that the whole volume is to be considered merely as introductory, and as supplying the outline of a subject, many points of which have been ably, though in some cases perhaps diffusely, illustrated in more important works. Should the writer have been inclined to differ (generally speaking, on very minor and trivial points) from the established authorities by which he has been most materially assisted, it is hoped that such occasional and trifling differences will rather be received as a proof of the attention which he has paid to the works, than of any disrespect he may thereby be supposed to entertain for the authors.