] for he would make us believe the fault is in our ears,
and that there were really ten syllables in a verse where we find but
nine, but this opinion is not worth confuting, it is so gross and
obvious an error that common sense (which is a rule in everything but
matters of faith and revelation) must convince the reader that equality
of numbers in every verse, which we call Heroic, was either not known,
or not always practised in Chaucer's age. It were an easy matter to
produce some thousands of his verses, which are lame for want of half
a foot, and sometimes a whole one, and which no pronunciation can make
otherwise. We can only say that he lived in the infancy of our poetry,
and that nothing is brought to perfection at the first. We must be
children before we grow men. There was an Ennius, and in process of
time a Lucilius and a Lucretius, before Virgil and Horace; even after
Chaucer there was a Spenser, a Harrington, a Fairfax, before Waller
and Denham were in being; and our numbers were in their nonage till
these last appeared. I need say little of his parentage, life, and
fortunes: they are to be found at large in all the editions of his
works.
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