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Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books written by Charles W. Eliot

C >> Charles W. Eliot >> Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books




With this account of my present undertaking, I conclude the first part
of this discourse; in the second part, as at a second sitting, tho' I
alter not the draught, I must touch the same features over again, and
change the dead coloring[4] of the whole. In general, I will only say
that I have written nothing which savors of immorality or profaneness;
at least, I am not conscious to myself of any such intention. If there
happen to be found an irreverent expression, or a thought too wanton,
they are crept into my verses thro' my inadvertency; if the searchers
find any in the cargo, let them be stay'd or forfeited, like
counterbanded goods; at least, let their authors be answerable
for them, as being but imported merchandise, and not of my own
manufacture. On the other side, I have endeavor'd to choose such
fables, both ancient and modern, as contain in each of them some
instructive moral; which I could prove by induction, but the way
is tedious, and they leap foremost into sight, without the reader's
trouble of looking after them. I wish I could affirm, with a safe
conscience, that I had taken the same care in all my former writings;
for it must be own'd, that supposing verses are never so beautiful or
pleasing, yet if they contain anything which shocks religion, or good
manners, they are at best what Horace says of good numbers without
good sense, _Versus inopes rerum, nugaeque canorae_.[5] Thus far, I
hope, I am right in court, without renouncing to my other right of
self-defense, where I have been wrongfully accus'd, and my sense
wiredrawn into blasphemy or bawdry, as it has often been by a
religious lawyer,[6] in a late pleading against the stage; in which
he mixes truth with falsehood, and has not forgotten the old rule of
calumniating strongly, that something may remain.

I resume the thrid of my discourse with the first of my translations,
which was the _First Iliad_ of Homer. If it shall please God to give
me longer life, and moderate health, my intentions are to
translate the whole _Ilias_; provided still that I meet with those
encouragements from the public which may enable me to proceed in my
undertaking with some cheerfulness. And this I dare assure the world
beforehand, that I have found by trial Homer a more pleasing task than
Virgil, (tho' I say not the translation will be less laborious). For
the Grecian is more according to my genius than the Latin poet. In
the works of the two authors we may read their manners and natural
inclinations, which are wholly different. Virgil was of a quiet,
sedate temper; Homer was violent, impetuous, and full of fire. The
chief talent of Virgil was propriety of thoughts, and ornament of
words; Homer was rapid in his thoughts, and took all the liberties,
both of numbers and of expressions, which his language, and the age
in which he liv'd, allow'd him. Homer's invention was more copious,
Virgil's more confin'd; so that if Homer had not led the way, it was
not in Virgil to have begun heroic poetry; for nothing can be more
evident than that the Roman poem is but the second part of the
_Ilias_; a continuation of the same story, and the persons already
form'd; the manners of AEneas are those of Hector superadded to those
which Homer gave him. The adventures of Ulysses in the _Odysseis_ are
imitated in the first six books of Virgil's _Aeneis_; and tho' the
accidents are not the same, (which would have argued him of a servile,
copying, and total barrenness of invention,) yet the seas were the
same, in which both the heroes wander'd; and Dido cannot be denied to
be the poetical daughter of Calypso. The six latter books of Virgil's
poem are the four and twenty _Iliads_ contracted: a quarrel occasioned
by a lady, a single combat, battles fought, and a town besieg'd. I
say not this in derogation to Virgil, neither do I contradict anything
which I have formerly said in his just praise: for his episodes are
almost wholly of his own invention; and the form which he has given to
the telling makes the tale his own, even tho' the original story had
been the same. But this proves, however, that Homer taught Virgil to
design; and if invention be the first virtue of an epic poet, then the
Latin poem can only be allow'd the second place. Mr. Hobbes, in the
preface to his own bald translation of the _Ilias_ (studying poetry as
he did mathematics, when it was too late)--Mr. Hobbes, I say, begins
the praise of Homer where he should have ended it. He tells us that
the first beauty of an epic poem consists in diction, that is, in
the choice of words, and harmony of numbers; now the words are the
coloring of the work, which in the order of nature is last to
be consider'd. The design, the disposition, the manners, and the
thoughts, are all before it: where any of those are wanting or
imperfect, so much wants or is imperfect in the imitation of human
life; which is in the very definition of a poem. Words, indeed, like
glaring colors, are the first beauties that arise and strike the
sight: but if the draught be false or lame, the figures ill disposed,
the manners obscure or inconsistent, or the thoughts unnatural,
then the finest colors are but daubing, and the piece is a beautiful
monster at the best. Neither Virgil nor Homer were deficient in any of
the former beauties; but in this last, which is expression, the Roman
poet is at least equal to the Grecian, as I have said elsewhere;
supplying the poverty of his language by his musical ear, and by his
diligence. But to return: our two great poets, being so different in
their tempers, one choleric and sanguine, the other phlegmatic and
melancholic; that which makes them excel in their several ways is
that each of them has follow'd his own natural inclination, as well
in forming the design as in the execution of it. The very heroes
shew their authors: Achilles is hot, impatient, revengeful, _Impiger,
iracundus, inexorabidis, acer_[7] &c.; AEneas patient, considerate,
careful of his people, and merciful to his enemies; ever submissive
to the will of Heaven--_Quo fata trahunt retrahuntque seqitamur_.[8]
I could please myself with enlarging on this subject, but am forc'd to
defer it to a fitter time. From all I have said I will only draw this
inference, that the action of Homer being more full of vigor than that
of Virgil, according to the temper of the writer, is of consequence
more pleasing to the reader. One warms you by degrees: the other sets
you on fire all at once, and never intermits his heat. 'Tis the same
difference which Longinus makes betwixt the effects of eloquence in
Demosthenes and Tully. One persuades; the other commands. You never
cool while you read Homer, even not in the second book (a graceful
flattery to his countrymen); but he hastens from the ships, and
concludes not that book till he has made you an amends by the violent
playing of a new machine. From thence he hurries on his action with
variety of events, and ends it in less compass than two months.
This vehemence of his, I confess, is more suitable to my temper; and
therefore I have translated his first book with greater pleasure
than any part of Virgil; but it was not a pleasure without pains. The
continual agitations of the spirits must needs be a weakening of any
constitution, especially in age; and many pauses are required for
refreshment betwixt the heats; the _Iliad_ of itself being a third
part longer than all Virgil's works together.

This is what I thought needful in this place to say of Homer. I
proceed to Ovid and Chaucer, considering the former only in relation
to the latter. With Ovid ended the golden age of the Roman tongue;
from Chaucer the purity of the English tongue began. The manners of
the poets were not unlike: both of them were well bred, well natur'd,
amorous, and libertine, at least in their writings, it may be also in
their lives. Their studies were the same, philosophy and philology.
Both of them were knowing in astronomy, of which Ovid's books of the
Roman feasts, and Chaucer's treatise of the Astrolabe, are sufficient
witnesses. But Chaucer was likewise an astrologer, as were Virgil,
Horace, Persius, and Manilius. Both writ with wonderful facility and
clearness: neither were great inventors; for Ovid only copied the
Grecian fables; and most of Chaucer's stones were taken from his
Italian contemporaries, or their predecessors.[9] Boccace his
_Decameron_ was first publish'd; and from thence our Englishman has
borrow'd many of his _Canterbury Tales_; yet that of _Palamon and
Arcite_ was written in all probability by some Italian wit in a former
age, as I shall prove hereafter. The tale of Grizild was the invention
of Petrarch; by him sent to Boccace; from whom it came to Chaucer.
_Troilus and Cressida_ was also written by a Lombard author; but much
amplified by our English translator, as well as beautified; the genius
of our countrymen, in general, being rather to improve an invention,
than to invent themselves; as is evident not only in our poetry, but
in many of our manufactures. I find I have anticipated already, and
taken up from Boccace before I come to him; but there is so much
less behind; and I am of the temper of most kings, _who love to be
in debt_, are all for present money, no matter how they pay it
afterwards: besides, the nature of a preface is rambling; never wholly
out of the way, nor in it. This I have learn'd from the practice of
honest Montaigne, and return at my pleasure to Ovid and Chaucer, of
whom I have little more to say. Both of them built on the inventions
of other men; yet since Chaucer had something of his own, as _The Wife
of Bath's Tale, The Cock and the Fox_,[10] which I have translated,
and some others, I may justly give our countryman the precedence in
that part; since I can remember nothing of Ovid which was wholly his.
Both of them understood the manners, under which name I comprehend
the passions, and, in a larger sense, the descriptions of persons,
and their very habits; for an example, I see Baucis and Philemon as
perfectly before me, as if some ancient painter had drawn them;
and all the pilgrims in the _Canterbury Tales_, their humors, their
features, and the very dress, as distinctly as if I had supp'd with
them at the Tabard in Southwark; yet even there too the figures of
Chaucer are much more lively, and set in a better light: which tho'
I have not time to prove, yet I appeal to the reader, and am sure he
will clear me from partiality. The thoughts and words remain to be
consider'd in the comparison of the two poets; and I have sav'd myself
one half of that labor, by owning that Ovid liv'd 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 consider'd, and they are to be measured only by
their propriety; that is, as they flow more or less naturally from
the persons describ'd, 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. Would any man who is ready to die for love
describe his passion like Narcissus? Would he think of _inopem me
copia fecit_,[11] and a dozen more of such expressions, pour'd on the
neck of one another, and signifying all the same thing? If this were
wit, was this a time to be witty, when the poor wretch was in the
agony of death? This is just John Littlewit in _Bartholomew Fair_,[12]
who had a conceit (as he tells you) left him in his misery; a
miserable conceit. On these occasions the poet should endeavor to
raise pity; but instead of this, Ovid is tickling you to laugh. Virgil
never made use of such machines, when he was moving you to commiserate
the death of Dido: he would not destroy what he was building. Chaucer
makes Arcite violent in his love, and unjust in the pursuit of it; yet
when he came to die, he made him think more reasonably: he repents not
of his love, for that had alter'd his character; but acknowledges
the injustice of his proceedings, and resigns Emilia to Palamon. What
would Ovid have done on this occasion? He would certainly have made
Arcite witty on his deathbed. He had complain'd 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 us'd properly or improperly; but
in strong passions always to be shunn'd, 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.

In the first place, as he is the father of English poetry, so I hold
him in the same degree of veneration as the Grecians held Homer or the
Romans Virgil. He is a perpetual fountain of good sense, learn'd in
all sciences, and therefore speaks properly on all subjects as he knew
what to say, so he knows also when to leave off, a continence which
is practic'd by few writers, and scarcely by any of the ancients,
excepting Virgil and Horace. One of our late great poets[13] is sunk
in his reputation, because he could never forgive any conceit which
came in his way, but swept like a dragnet, great and small. There
was plenty enough, but the dishes were ill sorted, whole pyramids of
sweetmeats for boys and women, but little of solid meat for men.
All this proceeded not from any want of knowledge, but of judgment,
neither did he want that in discerning the beauties and faults of
other poets, but only indulg'd himself in the luxury of writing, and
perhaps knew it was a fault, but hop'd the reader would not find it.
For this reason, tho' he must always be thought a great poet he is
no longer esteem'd a good writer, and for ten impressions, which his
works have had in so many successive years, yet at present a hundred
books are scarcely purchas'd once a twelvemonth for, as my last Lord
Rochester said, tho' somewhat profanely, "Not being of God, he could
not stand."

Chaucer follow'd Nature everywhere, but was never so bold to go beyond
her, and there is a great difference of being _poeta_ and _aimis
poeta_,[14] if we may believe Catullus, as much as betwixt a modest
behavior and affectation. The verse of Chaucer, I confess, is not
harmonious to us, but 'tis like the eloquence of one whom Tacitus
commends it was _auribus istius temporis accommodata_[15] they who
liv'd with him, and some time after him, thought it musical and it
continued so even in our judgment, if compar'd with the numbers of
Lydgate and Gower, his contemporaries there is the rude sweetness of
a Scotch tune in it, which is natural and pleasing, tho' not perfect.
'Tis true, I cannot go so far as he who published the last edition of
him [16] 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, 'tis 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 practic'd, 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 liv'd 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 appear'd. I need say little of his parentage,
life, and fortunes;[17] they are to be found at large in all the
editions of his works. He was employ'd abroad and favor'd by Edward
the Third, Richard the Second, and Henry the Fourth, and was poet, as
I suppose, to all three of them. In Richard's time, I doubt, he was
a little dipp'd in the rebellion of the commons, and being
brother-in-law to John of Ghant, it was no wonder if he follow'd the
fortunes of that family, and was well with Henry the Fourth when he
had depos'd his predecessor. Neither is it to be admir'd,[18] that
Henry, who was a wise as well as a valiant prince, who claim'd by
succession, and was sensible that his title was not sound, but was
rightfully in Mortimer, who had married the heir of York; it was not
to be admir'd, I say, if that great politician should be pleas'd to
have the greatest wit of those times in his interests, and to be the
trumpet of his praises. Augustus had given him the example, by the
advice of Maecenas, who recommended Virgil and Horace to him; whose
praises help'd to make him popular while he was alive, and after his
death have made him precious to posterity. As for the religion of
our poet, he seems to have some little bias towards the opinions of
Wycliffe, after John of Ghant his patron; somewhat of which appears in
the tale of Piers Plowman.[19] Yet I cannot blame him for inveighing
so sharply against the vices of the clergy in his age; their pride,
their ambition, their pomp, their avarice, their worldly interest,
deserv'd the lashes which he gave them, both in that and in most of
his _Canterbury Tales_: neither has his contemporary Boccace spar'd
them. Yet both those poets liv'd in much esteem with good and holy
men in orders; for the scandal which is given by particular priests
reflects not on the sacred function. Chaucer's Monk, his Canon, and
his Friar, took not from the character of his Good Parson. A satirical
poet is the check of the laymen on bad priests. We are only to take
care that we involve not the innocent with the guilty in the same
condemnation. The good cannot be too much honor'd, nor the bad too
coarsely us'd: for the corruption of the best becomes the worst. When
a clergyman is whipp'd, his gown is first taken off, by which the
dignity of his order is secur'd: if he be wrongfully accus'd, he has
his action of slander; and 'tis at the poet's peril if he transgress
the law. But they will tell us that all kind of satire, tho' never so
well deserv'd by particular priests, yet brings the whole order into
contempt. Is then the peerage of England anything dishonored, when a
peer suffers for his treason? If he be libel'd or any way defam'd, he
has his _scandalum magnatum_[20] to punish the offender. They who use
this kind of argument seem to be conscious to themselves of somewhat
which has deserv'd the poet's lash, and are less concern'd for their
public capacity than for their private; at least there is pride at the
bottom of their reasoning. If the faults of men in orders are only to
be judg'd among themselves, they are all in some sort parties: for,
since they say the honor of their order is concern'd in every member
of it, how can we be sure that they will be impartial judges? How far
I may be allow'd to speak my opinion in this case, I know not; but I
am sure a dispute of this nature caus'd mischief in abundance betwixt
a king of England and an archbishop of Canterbury,[21] one standing
up for the laws of his land, and the other for the honor (as he call'd
it) of God's Church; which ended in the murther of the prelate, and in
the whipping of his Majesty from post to pillar for his penance.
The learn'd and ingenious Dr. Drake[22] has say'd me the labour of
inquiring into the esteem and reverence which the priests have had
of old, and I would rather extend than diminish any part of it: yet
I must needs say, that when a priest provokes me without any occasion
given him, I have no reason, unless it be the charity of a Christian,
to forgive him: _prior laesit_[23] is justification sufficient in the
civil law. If I answer him in his own language, self-defense, I am
sure, must be allow'd me; and if I carry it farther, even to a sharp
recrimination, somewhat may be indulg'd to human frailty. Yet my
resentment has not wrought so far, but that I have followed Chaucer
in his character of a holy man, and have enlarg'd on that subject with
some pleasure, reserving to myself the right, if I shall think fit
hereafter, to describe another sort of priests, such as are more
easily to be found than the Good Parson; such as have given the last
blow to Christianity in this age, by a practice so contrary to their
doctrine. But this will keep cold till another time. In the mean while
I take up Chaucer where I left him. He must have been a man of a most
wonderful comprehensive nature, because, as it has been truly observed
of him, he has taken into the compass of his _Canterbury Tales_ the
various manners and humors (as we now call them) of the whole English
nation, in his age. Not a single character has escap'd him. All his
pilgrims are severally distinguish'd from each other; and not only
in their inclinations, but in their very physiognomies and persons.
Bapista Porta[24] could not have described their natures better, than
by the marks which the poet gives them. The matter and manner of
their tales, and of their telling, are so suited to their different
educations, humors, and callings, that each of them would be improper
in any other mouth. Even the grave and serious characters are
distinguished by their several sorts of gravity: their discourses are
such as belong to their age, their calling, and their breeding; such
as are becoming of them, and of them only. Some of his persons are
vicious, and some virtuous; some are unlearn'd, or (as Chaucer
calls them) lewd, and some are learn'd. Even the ribaldry of the
low characters is different: the Reeve, the Miller, and the Cook are
several men, and distinguished from each other, as much as the mincing
Lady Prioress and the broad-speaking gap-tooth'd Wife of Bath. But
enough of this: there is such a variety of game springing up before
me, that I am distracted in my choice, and know not which to follow.
'Tis sufficient to say, according to the proverb, that here is God's
plenty. We have our forefathers and great-grandames all before us,
as they were in Chaucer's days; their general characters are still
remaining in mankind, and even in England, tho' they are call'd by
other names than those of Monks and Friars, and Canons, and Lady
Abbesses, and Nuns: for mankind is ever the same, and nothing lost out
of nature, tho' everything is alter'd. May I have leave to do myself
the justice--since my enemies will do me none, and are so far from
granting me to be a good poet, that they will not allow me so much as
to be a Christian, or a moral man--may I have leave, I say, to inform
my reader that I have confin'd my choice to such tales of Chaucer as
savor nothing of immodesty. If I had desir'd more to please than
to instruct, the Reeve, the Miller, the Shipman, the Merchant, the
Sumner, and, above all, the Wife of Bath, in the prologue to her tale,
would have procured me as many friends and readers, as there are beaux
and ladies of pleasure in the town. But I will no more offend against
good manners: I am sensible, as I ought to be, of the scandal I have
given by my loose writings; and make what reparation I am able,
by this public acknowledgment. If anything of this nature, or of
profaneness, be crept into these poems, I am so far from defending it,
that I disown it. _Totum hoc indictum volo._[25] Chaucer makes another
manner of apology for his broad speaking, and Boccace makes the like;
but I will follow neither of them. Our countryman, in the end of his
characters, before the _Canterbury Tales_, thus excuses the ribaldry,
which is very gross in many of his novels:

But first, I pray you of your courtesy,
That ye ne arrete[26] it nought my villany,
Though that I plainly speak in this mattere
To tellen you her[27] words, and eke her chere:
Ne though I speak her words properly,
For this ye knowen as well as I,
Who shall tellen a tale after a man,
He mote rehearse as nye as ever he can:
Everich word of it been in his charge,
_All speke he never so rudely ne large._
Or else he mote tellen his tale untrue,
Or feine things, or find words new:
He may not spare, altho he were his brother,
He mote as well say o word as another.
Christ spake himself full broad in holy writ,
And well I wote no villany is it.
Eke Plato saith, who so can him rede,
The words mote[28] been cousin to the dede.[29]