The thoughts and words remain
to be considered in the comparison of the two poets; and I have saved
myself one half of that labour, by owning that Ovid lived when the
Roman tongue was in its meridian, Chaucer in the dawning of our
language; therefore that part of the comparison stands not on an equal
foot, any more than the diction of Ennius and Ovid, or of Chaucer and
our present English. The words are given up as a post not to be defended
in our poet, because he wanted the modern art of fortifying. The
thoughts remain to be considered, and they are to be measured only by
their propriety, that is, as they flow more or less naturally from the
persons described, on such and such occasions. The vulgar judges, which
are nine parts in ten of all nations, who call conceits and jingles
wit, who see Ovid full of them, and Chaucer altogether without them,
will think me little less than mad, for preferring the Englishman to
the Roman; yet, with their leave, I must presume to say, that the
things they admire are only glittering trifles, and so far from being
witty, that in a serious poem they are nauseous, because they are
unnatural.
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