For Spenser and Fairfax both flourished in the
reign of Queen Elizabeth; great masters in our language, and who saw
much farther into the beauties of our numbers than those who immediately
followed them. Milton was the poetical son of Spenser, and Mr. Waller
of Fairfax, for we have our lineal descents and clans as well as other
families. Spenser more than once insinuates that the soul of Chaucer
was transfused into his body, and that he was begotten by him two
hundred years after his decease. Milton has acknowledged to me that
Spenser was his original, and many besides myself have heard our famous
Waller [Footnote: "He first made writing easily an art"--was Dryden's
verdict on Waller.--_English Garner_, iii. 492.] own that he derived
the harmony of his numbers from the _Godfrey of Bulloigne_, which was
turned into English by Mr. Fairfax.
But to return. Having done with Ovid for this time, it came into my
mind that our old English poet, Chaucer, in many things resembled him,
and that with no disadvantage on the side of the modern author, as I
shall endeavour to prove when I compare them; and as I am, and always
have been, studious to promote the honour of my native country, so I
soon resolved to put their merits to the trial, by turning some of the
Canterbury Tales into our language, as it is now refined; for by this
means, both the poets being set in the same light, and dressed in the
same English habit, story to be compared with story, a certain judgment
may be made betwixt them by the reader, without obtruding my opinion
on him.
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