Various - "Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 2, 1891"

Louis A. Flemming - "Putnam's Word Book"

C.W. Leadbeater - "A Textbook of Theosophy"

John Hossack - "Speech of John Hossack, Convicted of a Violation of the Fugitive Slave Law"

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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




Yet if a man should have enquired of Boccace or of Chaucer, what need
they had of introducing such characters, where obscene words were
proper in their mouths, but very undecent to be heard; I know not what
answer they could have made: for that reason such tales shall be left
untold by me. You have here a specimen of Chaucer's language, which
is so obsolete that his sense is scarce to be understood; and you
have likewise more than one example of his unequal numbers, which were
mentioned before. Yet many of his verses consist of ten syllables, and
the words not much behind our present English: as for example, these
two lines, in the description of the carpenter's young wife:

Wincing she was, as is a jolly colt,
Long as a mast, and upright as a bolt.

I have almost done with Chaucer, when I have answer'd some objections
relating to my present work. I find some people are offended that I
have turn'd these tales into modern English; because they think them
unworthy of my pains, and look on Chaucer as a dry, old-fashion'd wit,
not worth reviving. I have often heard the late Earl of Leicester say
that Mr. Cowley himself was of that opinion; who having read him over
at my lord's request, declar'd he had no taste of him. I dare not
advance my opinion against the judgment of so great an author; but
I think it fair, however, to leave the decision to the public: Mr.
Cowley was too modest to set up for a dictator; and being shock'd
perhaps with his old style, never examin'd into the depth of his
good sense. Chaucer, I confess, is a rough diamond, and must first
be polish'd, ere he shines. I deny not, likewise, that, living in our
early days of poetry, he writes not always of a piece, but sometimes
mingles trivial things with those of greater moment. Sometimes also,
tho' not often, he runs riot, like Ovid, and knows not when he has
said enough. But there are more great wits, beside Chaucer, whose
fault is their excess of conceits, and those ill sorted. An author is
not to write all he can, but only all he ought. Having observ'd this
redundancy in Chaucer, (as it is an easy matter for a man of ordinary
parts to find a fault in one of greater,) I have not tied myself to a
literal translation; but have often omitted what I judg'd unnecessary,
or not of dignity enough to appear in the company of better thoughts.
I have presumed farther, in some places, and added somewhat of my
own where I thought my author was deficient, and had not given his
thoughts their true luster, for want of words in the beginning of our
language. And to this I was the more embolden'd, because (if I may be
permitted to say it of myself) I found I had a soul congenial to his,
and that I had been conversant in the same studies. Another poet, in
another age, may take the same liberty with my writings; if at least
they live long enough to deserve correction. It was also necessary
sometimes to restore the sense of Chaucer, which was lost or mangled
in the errors of the press. Let this example suffice at present;
in the story of _Palawan and Arcite_, where the temple of Diana is
describ'd, you find these verses, in all the editions of our author:

There saw I Dane turned unto a tree,
I mean not the goddess Diane,
But Venus daughter, which that hight Dane;

which after a little consideration I knew was to be reformed into this
sense, that Daphne, the daughter of Peneus, was turn'd into a tree. I
durst not make thus bold with Ovid, lest some future Milbourne should
arise, and say I varied from my author, because I understood him not.

But there are other judges, who think I ought not to have translated
Chaucer into English, out of a quite contrary notion: they suppose
there is a certain veneration due to his old language; and that it
is little less than profanation and sacrilege to alter it. They are
farther of opinion that somewhat of his good sense will suffer in this
transfusion, and much of the beauty of his thoughts will infallibly be
lost, which appear with more grace in their old habit. Of this
opinion was that excellent person whom I mention'd, the late Earl of
Leicester, who valued Chaucer as much as Mr. Cowley despis'd him. My
lord dissuaded me from this attempt, (for I was thinking of it some
years before his death,) and his authority prevail'd so far with me
as to defer my undertaking while he liv'd, in deference to him: yet my
reason was not convinc'd with what he urg'd against it. If the first
end of a writer be to be understood, then as his language grows
obsolete, his thoughts must grow obscure:

Multa renascentur quae nunc cecidere; cadentque,
Quae nunc sunt in honore vocabula, si volet usus,
Quem penes arbitrium est et jus et norma loquendi.[30]

When an ancient word for its sound and significance deserves to be
reviv'd, I have that reasonable veneration for antiquity, to restore
it. All beyond this is superstition. Words are not like landmarks, so
sacred as never to be remov'd; customs are chang'd, and even statutes
are silently repeal'd, when the reason ceases for which they were
enacted. As for the other part of the argument, that his thoughts
will lose of their original beauty, by the innovation of words; in
the first place, not only their beauty, but their being is lost, where
they are no longer understood, which is the present case. I grant
that something must be lost in all transfusion, that is, in all
translations; but the sense will remain, which would otherwise be
lost, or at least be maim'd, when it is scarce intelligible; and
that but to a few. How few are there who can read Chaucer so as to
understand him perfectly! And if imperfectly, then with less profit
and no pleasure. 'Tis not for the use of some old Saxon friends that I
have taken these pains with him: let them neglect my version, because
they have no need of it. I made it for their sakes who understand
sense and poetry as well as they, when that poetry and sense is put
into words which they understand. I will go farther, and dare to add,
that what beauties I lose in some places, I give to others which had
them not originally; but in this I may be partial to myself; let the
reader judge, and I submit to his decision. Yet I think I have just
occasion to complain of them, who, because they understand Chaucer,
would deprive the greater part of their countrymen of the same
advantage, and hoard him up, as misers do their grandam gold, only to
look on it themselves and hinder others from making use of it. In
sum, I seriously protest that no man ever had, or can have, a greater
veneration for Chaucer, than myself. I have translated some part
of his works, only that I might perpetuate his memory, or at least
refresh it, amongst my countrymen. If I have alter'd him anywhere for
the better, I must at the same time acknowledge that I could have done
nothing without him: _facile est inventis addere_,[31] is no great
commendation; and I am not so vain to think I have deserv'd a greater.
I will conclude what I have to say of him singly, with this one
remark: a lady of my acquaintance, who keeps a kind of correspondence
with some authors of the fair sex in France, has been inform'd by
them, that Mademoiselle de Scudery, who is as old as Sibyl, and
inspir'd like her by the same God of Poetry, is at this time
translating Chaucer into modern French. From which I gather that
he has been formerly translated into the old Provencal (for how she
should come to understand old English I know not). But the matter of
fact being true, it makes me think that there is something in it like
fatality; that, after certain periods of time, the fame and memory
of great wits should be renewed, as Chaucer is both in France and
England. If this be wholly chance, 't is extraordinary, and I dare not
call it more, for fear of being tax'd with superstition.

Boccace comes last to be consider'd, who living in the same age with
Chaucer, had the same genius, and follow'd the same studies: both
writ novels, and each of them cultivated his mother tongue. But the
greatest resemblance of our two modern authors being in their familiar
style, and pleasing way of relating comical adventures, I may pass it
over, because I have translated nothing from Boccace of that nature.
In the serious part of poetry, the advantage is wholly on Chaucer's
side; for tho' the Englishman has borrow'd many tales from the
Italian, yet it appears that those of Boccace were not generally of
his own making, but taken from authors of former ages, and by him only
model'd; so that what there was of invention in either of them may be
judg'd equal. But Chaucer has refin'd on Boccace, and has mended the
stones which he has borrowed, in his way of telling; tho' prose
allows more liberty of thought, and the expression is more easy when
unconfin'd by numbers. Our countryman carries weight, and yet wins the
race at disadvantage. I desire not the reader should take my word, and
therefore I will set two of their discourses on the same subject,
in the same light, for every man to judge betwixt them. I translated
Chaucer first, and, amongst the rest, pitch'd on _The Wife of Bath's
Tale_; not daring, as I have said, to adventure on her prologue,
because 't is too licentious: there Chaucer introduces an old woman
of mean parentage, whom a youthful knight of noble blood was forc'd to
marry, and consequently loath'd her; the crone being in bed with him
on the wedding night, and finding his aversion, endeavors to win his
affection by reason, and speaks a good word for herself (as who could
blame her?) in hope to mollify the sullen bridegroom. She takes her
topics from the benefits of poverty, the advantages of old age and
ugliness, the vanity of youth, and the silly pride of ancestry and
titles without inherent virtue, which is the true nobility. When I had
clos'd Chaucer, I returned to Ovid, and translated some more of his
fables; and by this time had so far forgotten _The Wife of Bath's
Tale_, that, when I took up Boccace, unawares I fell on the same
argument of preferring virtue to nobility of blood, and titles, in the
story of Sigismonda; which I had certainly avoided for the resemblance
of the two discourses, if my memory had not fail'd me. Let the reader
weigh them both; and if he thinks me partial to Chaucer, 't is in him
to right Boccace.

I prefer in our countryman, far above all his other stories, the noble
poem of _Palamon and Arcite_, which is of the epic kind, and perhaps
not much inferior to the _Ilias_ or the _AEneis_: the story is more
pleasing than either of them, the manners as perfect, the diction as
poetical, the learning as deep and various, and the disposition full
as artful; only it includes a greater length of time, as taking up
seven years at least, but Aristotle has left undecided the duration of
the action; which yet is easily reduc'd into the compass of a year,
by a narration of what preceded the return of Palamon to Athens. I had
thought for the honor of our nation, and more particularly for his,
whose laurel, tho' unworthy, I have worn after him, that this story
was of English growth, and Chaucer's own; but I was undeceiv'd by
Boccace; for, casually looking on the end of his seventh _Giornata_,
I found Dionco (under which name he shadows himself) and Fiametta
(who represents his mistress, the natural daughter of Robert, King of
Naples), of whom these words are spoken: _Dionco e Fiametta gran pezza
cantarono insieme d'Arcita, e di Palamone_:[32] by which it appears
that this story was written before the time of Boccace; but, the name
of its author being wholly lost, Chaucer is now become an original;
and I question not but the poem has receiv'd many beauties by passing
thro' his noble hands. Besides this tale, there is another of his own
invention, after the manner of the Provencals, call'd _The Flower and
the Leaf_,[33] with which I was so particularly pleas'd, both for the
invention and the moral, that I cannot hinder myself from recommending
it to the reader.

As a corollary to this preface, in which I have done justice to
others, I owe somewhat to myself: not that I think it worth my time
to enter the lists with one M----,[34] or one B----,[35] but barely
to take notice, that such men there are who have written scurrilously
against me, without any provocation. M----, who is in orders, pretends
amongst the rest this quarrel to me, that I have fallen foul on
priesthood: if I have, I am only to ask pardon of good priests, and
am afraid his part of the reparation will come to little. Let him to
satisfied that he shall not be able to force himself upon me for an
adversary. I contemn him too much to enter into competition with him.
His own translations of Virgil have answer'd his criticisms on mine.
If (as they say he has declar'd in print) he prefers the version of
Ogleby to mine, the world has made him the same compliment: for 't is
agreed on all hands, that he writes even below Ogleby: that, you will
say, is not easily to be done; but what cannot M---- bring about? I am
satisfied, however, that while he and I live together, I shall not be
thought the worst poet of the age. It looks as if I had desir'd him
underhand to write so ill against me; but upon my honest word I have
not brib'd him to do me this service, and am wholly guiltless of his
pamphlet. 'T is true, I should be glad if I could persuade him to
continue his good offices, and write such another critique on anything
of mine for I find by experience he has a great stroke with the
reader, when he condemns any of my poems, to make the world have a
better opinion of them. He has taken some pains with my poetry, but
nobody will be persuaded to take the same with his. If I had taken
to the Church, (as he affirms, but which was never in my thoughts,)
I should have had more sense, if not more grace, than to have turn'd
myself out of my benefice by writing libels on my parishioners. But
his account of my manners and my principles are of a piece with his
cavils and his poetry; and so I have done with him for ever.

As for the City Bard, or Knight Physician, I hear his quarrel to me is
that I was the author of _Absalom and Achitophel_, which, he thinks,
is a little hard on his fanatic patrons in London.

But I will deal the more civilly with his two poems, because nothing
ill is to be spoken of the dead; and therefore peace be to the _manes_
of his _Arthurs_. I will only say that it was not for this noble
knight that I drew the plan of an epic poem on King Arthur, in my
preface to the translation of Juvenal. The guardian angels of kingdoms
were machines too ponderous for him to manage; and therefore he
rejected them, as Dares did the whirlbats of Eryx, when they were
thrown before him by Entellus. Yet from that preface he plainly took
his hint: for he began immediately upon the story, tho' he had the
baseness not to acknowledge his benefactor but, instead of it, to
traduce me in a libel.

I shall say the less of Mr. Collier, because in many things he
has tax'd me justly; and I have pleaded guilty to all thoughts
and expressions of mine which can be truly argued of obscenity,
profaneness, of immorality; and retract them. If he be my enemy,
let him triumph; if he be my friend, as I have given him no personal
occasion to be otherwise, he will be glad of my repentance. It becomes
me not to draw my pen in the defense of a bad cause, when I have so
often drawn it for a good one. Yet it were not difficult to prove
that in many places he has perverted my meaning by his glosses, and
interpreted my words into blasphemy and bawdry, of which they were
not guilty. Besides that, he is too much given to horseplay in his
raillery, and comes to battle like a dictator from the plow. I will
not say: "The zeal of God's house has eaten him up;" but I am sure it
has devoured some part of his good manners and civility. It might also
be doubted whether it were altogether zeal which prompted him to this
rough manner of proceeding: perhaps it became not one of his function
to rake into the rubbish of ancient and modern plays; a divine might
have employ'd his pains to better purpose than in the nastiness of
Plautus and Aristophanes; whose examples, as they excuse not me, so
it might be possibly supposed that he read them not without some
pleasure. They who have written commentaries on those poets, or on
Horace, Juvenal, and Martial, have explain'd some vices which, without
their interpretation, had been unknown to modern times. Neither has he
judg'd impartially betwixt the former age and us.

There is more bawdry in one play of Fletcher's, call'd _The Custom of
the Country_, than in all ours together. Yet this has been often acted
on the stage in my remembrance. Are the times so much more reform'd
now than they were five and twenty years ago? If they are, I
congratulate the amendment of our morals. But I am not to prejudice
the cause of my fellow poets, tho' I abandon my own defense: they have
some of them answer'd for themselves, and neither they nor I can think
Mr. Collier so formidable an enemy that we should shun him. He has
lost ground at the latter end of the day, by pursuing his point too
far, like the Prince of Conde at the battle of Seneffe: from immoral
plays to no plays, _ab abusu ad usum, non valet consequentia_[36]. But
being a party, I am not to erect myself into a judge. As for the rest
of those who have written against me, they are such scoundrels that
they deserve not the least notice to be taken of them, B---- and M----
are only distinguish'd from the crowd by being remember'd to their
infamy:

--Demetri, teque Tigelli[37]
Discipulorum inter jubeo plorare cathedras.


[Footnote A: John Dryden (1631-1700), the great dramatic and satirical
poet of the later seventeenth century, whose translation of Virgil's
"AEneid" appears in another volume of the Harvard Classics, deserves
hardly less distinction as a prose writer than as a poet. The present
essay, prefixed to a volume of narrative poems, is largely concerned
with Chaucer, and in its genial and penetrating criticism, expressed
with characteristic clearness and vigor, can be seen the ground for
naming Dryden the first of English literary critics, and the founder
of modern prose style.]

[Footnote 1: Scott suggests that the allusion is to the Duke of
Buckingham, who was often satirized for the slow progress of his great
mansion at Chefden.]

[Footnote 2: Boccaccio did not invent this stanza, which had been used
in both French and Italian before his day, but he did constitute it
the Italian form for heroic verse.]

[Footnote 3: Rymer misled Dryden. There is no trace of Provencal
influence on Chaucer.]

[Footnote 4: The foundation layer of color in a painting.]

[Footnote 5: "Verses without content, melodious trifles."--_Ars Poet_.
322.]

[Footnote 6: Jeremy Collier, in his _Short View of the Immortality and
Profaneness of the Stage_, 1698.]

[Footnote 7: "Energetic, irascible, unyielding, vehement."--Horace,
_Ars Poet._121.]

[Footnote 8: "Whithersoever the fates drag us to and fro, let us
follow."--Virgil, _AEneid_, v. 709.]

[Footnote 9: The statements that follow as to Chaucer's sources are
mostly not in accord with the results of modern scholarship.]

[Footnote 10: The plot of neither of these poems was original with
Chaucer.]

[Footnote 11: "Plenty has made me poor."--_Meta._ iii, 466.]

[Footnote 12: By Ben Jonson.]

[Footnote 13: Cowley]

[Footnote 14: 'Too much a poet'--Martial iii 44 (not Catullus)]

[Footnote 15: Suited to the ears of that time]

[Footnote 16: Speght, whom modern scholarship has shown to be right in
this matter.]

[Footnote 17: What follows on Chaucer's life is full of errors.]

[Footnote 18: Wondered at]

[Footnote 19: A spurious "Plowman's Tale" was included in the older
editions of Chaucer.]

[Footnote 20: A law term for slander of a man of high rank, involving
more severe punishment than ordinary slander.]

[Footnote 21: Henry II. and Thomas a Becket.]

[Footnote 22: Dr. James Drake wrote a reply to Jeremy Collier's _Short
View_.]

[Footnote 23: "He did the first injury"]

[Footnote 24: A Neapolitan physician who wrote on physiognomy.]

[Footnote 25: "I wish all this unsaid."]

[Footnote 26: Reckon.]

[Footnote 27: Their.]

[Footnote 28: Must.]

[Footnote 29: The corrupt state of the text of this passage is enough
to explain why Dryden found Chaucer rough.]

[Footnote 30: "Many words which have now fallen out of use shall be
born again; and others which are now in honor shall fall, if custom
wills it, in the force of which lie the judgement and law and rules of
speech."--Horace _Ars Poet._ 70-72.]

[Footnote 31: "It is easy to add to what is already invented."]

[Footnote 32: Dionco and Fiametta sang together a long time of Arcite
and Palamon.]

[Footnote 33: Not by Chaucer.]

[Footnote 34: Rev. Luke Milbourne, who had attacked Dryden's Virgil.]

[Footnote 35: Sir Richard Blackmore, who had censured Dryden for the
indecency of his writings.]

[Footnote 36: "The argument from abuse to use is not valid."]

[Footnote 37: "You, Demetrius and Tigellius, I bid lament among
the chairs of your scholars." Blackmore had once been a
schoolmaster.--Noyes.]




PREFACE TO JOSEPH ANDREWS

BY HENRY FIELDING (1742)[A]

THE COMIC EPIC IN PROSE


As it is possible the mere English reader may have a different idea of
romance with the author of these little volumes; and may consequently
expect a kind of entertainment, not to be found, nor which was even
intended, in the following pages; it may not be improper to premise a
few words concerning this kind of writing, which I do not remember to
have seen hitherto attempted in our language.

The EPIC, as well as the DRAMA, is divided into tragedy and comedy.
HOMER, who was the father of this species of poetry, gave us the
pattern of both these, tho' that of the latter kind is entirely lost;
which Aristotle tells us, bore the same relation to comedy which his
Iliad bears to tragedy. And perhaps, that we have no more instances of
it among the writers of antiquity, is owing to the loss of this
great pattern, which, had it survived, would have found its imitators
equally with the other poems of this great original.

And farther, as this poetry may be tragic or comic, I will not scruple
to say it may be likewise either in verse or prose: for tho' it wants
one particular, which the critic enumerates in the constituent parts
of an epic poem, namely, metre; yet, when any kind of writing contains
all its other parts, such as fable, action, characters, sentiments,
and diction, and is deficient in metre only, it seems, I think,
reasonable to refer it to the epic; at least, as no critic hath
thought proper to range it under any other head, nor to assign it a
particular name to itself.

Thus the Telemachus of the archbishop of Cambray appears to me of the
epic kind, as well as the Odyssey of Homer, indeed, it is much fairer
and more reasonable to give it a name common with that species from
which it differs only in a single instance, than to confound it with
those which it resembles in no other. Such are those voluminous works,
commonly called Romances, namely Clelia, Cleopatra, Astraea, Cassandra,
the Grand Cyrus, and innumerable others which contain, as I apprehend,
very little instruction or entertainment.

Now, a comic romance is a comic epic-poem in prose; differing from
comedy, as the serious epic from tragedy: its action being more
extended and comprehensive; containing a much larger circle of
incidents, and introducing a greater variety of characters. It differs
from the serious romance in its fable and action, in this: that as in
the one these are grave and solemn, so in the other they are light and
ridiculous; it differs in its characters, by introducing persons of
inferiour rank, and consequently of inferiour manners, whereas the
grave romance sets the highest before us; lastly in its sentiments and
diction; by preserving the ludicrous instead of the sublime. In the
diction I think, burlesque itself may be sometimes admitted; of which
many instances will occur in this work, as in the description of the
battles, and some other places not necessary to be pointed out to the
classical reader; for whose entertainment those parodies or burlesque
imitations are chiefly calculated.

But tho' we have sometimes admitted this in our diction, we have
carefully excluded it from our sentiments and characters; for there
it is never properly introduced, unless in writings of the burlesque
kind, which this is not intended to be. Indeed, no two species of
writing can differ more widely than the comic and the burlesque:
for as the latter is ever the exhibition of what is monstrous and
unnatural, and where our delight, if we examine it, arises from the
surprising absurdity, as in appropriating the manners of the highest
to the lowest, or _e converso_; so in the former, we should ever
confine ourselves strictly to nature, from the just imitation of
which, will flow all the pleasure we can this way convey to a sensible
reader. And perhaps, there is one reason, why a comic writer should
of all others be the least excused for deviating from nature, since
it may not be always so easy for a serious poet to meet with the great
and the admirable; but life everywhere furnishes an accurate observer
with the ridiculous.