He had
complained he was farther off from possession by being so near, and
a thousand such boyisms, which Chaucer rejected as below the dignity
of the subject. They, who think otherwise, would by the same reason
prefer Lucan and Ovid to Homer and Virgil, and Martial to all four of
them. As for the turn of words, in which Ovid particularly excels all
poets, they are sometimes a fault, and sometimes a beauty, as they are
used properly or improperly; but in strong passions always to be
shunned, because passions are serious, and will admit no playing. The
French have a high value for them; and I confess, they are often what
they call delicate, when they are introduced with judgment; but Chaucer
writ with more simplicity, and followed nature more closely, than to
use them. I have thus far, to the best of my knowledge, been an upright
judge betwixt the parties in competition, not meddling with the design
nor the disposition of it, because the design was not their own, and
in the disposing of it they were equal. It remains that I say somewhat
of Chaucer in particular.
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