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And were he less, yet years of service past
From grateful souls exact reward at last;
Pity is Heaven's and your's; nor can she find
A throne so soft as in a woman's mind.
He said; she blush'd; and as o'eraw'd by might,
Seem'd to give Theseus what she gave the knight.
Then turning to the Theban thus he said;
Small arguments are needful to persuade
Your temper to comply with my command;
And speaking thus, he gave Emilia's hand.
Smiled Venus, to behold her own true knight
Obtain the conquest, though he lost the fight;
And bless'd with nuptial bliss the sweet laborious
night.

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"Such was old Chaucer, such the placid mien
Of him who first with harmony inform'd
The language of our fathers. Here he dwelt
For many a cheerful day. These ancient walls
Have often heard him, while his legends blithe
He sang; of love, or knighthood, or the wiles
Of homely life: through each estate and age
The fashions and the follies of the world
With cunning hand pourtraying. Though perchance
From Blenheim's towers, O stranger, thou art come
Glowing with Churchill's trophies; yet in vain
Dost thou applaud them, if thy breast be cold

To him, this other hero; who, in times

Dark and untaught, began with charming verse

To tame the rudeness of his native land."

Dr. Akenside wrote these lines to be placed under a statue of Chaucer, at Woodstock, and they are in the true simple taste of ancient inscriptions. Dr. J. WARTON.

THERE lived, as authors tell, in days of yore,
A widow somewhat old, and very poor:
Deep in a cell her cottage lonely stood,
Well thatch'd, and under covert of a wood.
This dowager, on whom my tale I found,
Since last she laid her husband in the ground,
A simple sober life, in patience, led,
And had but just enough to buy her bread;
But huswifing the little Heaven had lent,
She duly paid a groat for quarter rent;
And pinch'd her belly, with her daughters two,
To bring the year about with much ado.

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The cattle in her homestead were three sows. An ewe call'd Mally, and three brinded cows. Her parlour-window stuck with herbs around, 15

Ver. 15, and three following verses, a deviation from the original.

"Ful sooty was hire boure, and eke hire halle." This image Dryden has omitted, which is taken from Virgil.

assiduâ postes fuligine nigri."-Ecl. vii. 5. 50. But which contains a lively picture of the homely furniture of the widow's cottage.

Goldsmith has added many natural strokes:

"Imagination fondly stoops to trace—”

And an author who deserves to be better known, Cun

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Of savoury smell; and rushes strew'd the ground.
A maple-dresser in her hall she had,
On which full many a slender meal she made;
For no delicious morsel pass'd her throat;
According to her cloth she cut her coat:
No poignant sauce she knew, nor costly treat,
Her hunger gave a relish to her meat:
A sparing diet did her health assure;
Or sick, a pepper posset was her cure.
Before the day was done, her work she sped,
And never went by candle-light to bed:
With exercise she sweat ill humours out,
Her dancing was not hinder'd by the gout.
Her poverty was glad; her heart content,
Nor knew she what the spleen or vapours meant.
Of wine she never tasted through the year,
But white and black was all her homely cheer:
Brown bread, and milk, (but first she skimm'd
her bowls)

And rashers of singed bacon on the coals.

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ningham, has adopted one of these images in a little pleas ing song, called "Content:"

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"Yellow sheaves from rich Ceres her cottage had crown'd, Green rushes were strew'd on the floor,

Her casement sweet woodbines crept modestly round, And deck'd the sod seats at her door."

JOHN WARTON

On holy days an egg, or two at most;
But her ambition never reach'd to roast.

A yard she had with pales enclosed about,
Some high, some low, and a dry ditch without.
Within this homestead lived, without a peer,
For crowing loud, the noble Chanticleer;
So hight her cock, whose singing did surpass
The merry notes of organs at the mass.
More certain was the crowing of the cock
To number hours, than is an abbey-clock;
And sooner than the matin-bell was rung,

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He clapp'd his wings upon his roost, and sung:
For when degrees fifteen ascended right,
By sure instinct he knew 'twas one at night.
High was his comb, and coral-red withal,
In dents embattled like a castle wall;
His bill was raven-black, and shone like jet;
Blue were his legs, and orient were his feet:
White were his nails, like silver to behold,
His body glittering like the burnish'd gold.
This gentle cock, for solace of his life,
Six misses had, besides his lawful wife;
Scandal, that spares no king, though ne'er SO
good,

Says, they were all of his own flesh and blood,
His sisters both by sire and mother's side;
And sure their likeness show'd them near allied.
But make the worst, the monarch did no more,
Than all the Ptolemys had done before:
When incest is for interest of a nation,
'Tis made no sin by holy dispensation.

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Some lines have been maintain'd by this alone, 65 Which by their common ugliness are known.

But passing this as from our tale apart, Dame Partlet was the sovereign of his heart: Ardent in love, outrageous in his play, He feather'd her a hundred times a day: And she, that was not only passing fair, But was withal discreet, and debonair, Resolved the passive doctrine to fulfil, Though loth; and let him work his wicked will: At board and bed was affable and kind, According as their marriage-vow did bind, And as the Church's precept had enjoin'd. Ev'n since she was a se'nnight old, they say, Was chaste and humble to her dying day, Nor chick nor hen was known to disobey.

By this her husband's heart she did obtain ; What cannot beauty, join'd with virtue, gain! She was his only joy, and he her pride;

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She, when he walk'd, went pecking by his side;
If, spurning up the ground, he sprung a corn,
The tribute in his bill to her was borne.
But oh! what joy it was to hear him sing
In summer, when the day began to spring,
Stretching his neck, and warbling in his throat,
Solus cum sola, then was all his note.
For in the days of yore, the birds of parts
Were bred to speak, and sing, and learn the
liberal arts.

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It happ'd that perching on the parlour-beam Amidst his wives, he had a deadly dream, Just at the dawn; and sigh'd, and groan'd so fast, As every breath he drew would be his last. Dame Partlet, ever nearest to his side, Heard all his piteous moan, and how he cried For help from gods and men; and sore aghast She peck'd and pull'd, and waken'd him at last. 100 Dear heart, said she, for love of Heaven declare Your pain, and make me partner of your care.

You groan, Sir, ever since the morning-light,
As something had disturb'd your noble spright
And, Madam, well I might, said Chanticleer, is
Never was Shrove-tide cock in such a fear.
Ev'n still I run all over in a sweat,

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My princely senses not recover'd yet.
For such a dream I had of dire portent,
That much I fear my body will be shent :
It bodes I shall have wars and woful strife,
Or in a loathsome dungeon end my life.
Know, dame, I dreamt within my troubled breast,
That in our yard I saw a murderous beast,
That on my body would have made arrest.
With waking eyes I ne'er beheld his fellow;
His colour was betwixt a red and yellow :
Tipp'd was his tail, and both his pricking ears
Were black; and much unlike his other hairs:
The rest, in shape a beagle's whelp throughout,
With broader forehead, and a sharper snout :
Deep in his front were sunk his glowing eyes,
That yet methinks I see him with surprise.
Reach out your hand, I drop with clammy sweat,
And lay it to my heart, and feel it beat.
Now fie for shame, quoth she, by Heaven above,
Thou hast for ever lost thy lady's love;
No woman can endure a recreant knight,
He must be bold by day, and free by night:
Our sex desires a husband or a friend,
Who can our honour and his own defend;
Wise, hardy, secret, liberal of his purse:
A fool is nauseous, but a coward worse:
No bragging coxcomb, yet no baffled knight.
How dar'st thou talk of love, and dar'st not
fight?

How dar'st thou tell thy dame thou art affear'd?
Hast thou no manly heart, and hast a beard!

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If aught from fearful dreams may be divined, They signify a cock of dunghill kind. All dreams, as in old Galen I have read, Are from repletion and complexion bred; From rising fumes of indigested food, And noxious humours that infect the blood: And sure, my lord, if I can read aright, These foolish fancies you have had to-night, Are certain symptoms (in the canting style) Of boiling choler, and abounding bile; This yellow gall that in your stomach floats, Engenders all these visionary thoughts. When choler overflows, then dreams are bred Of flames, and all the family of red; Red dragons, and red beasts, in sleep we view, For humours are distinguish'd by their hue. From hence we dream of wars and warlike things, And wasps and hornets with their double wings Choler adust congeals our blood with fear, Then black bulls toss us, and black devils tear. In sanguine airy dreams aloft we bound, With rheums oppress'd, we sink in rivers drown'd. More I could say, but thus conclude my theme, The dominating humour makes the dream. Cato was in his time accounted wise, And he condemns them all for empty lies. Take my advice, and when we fly to ground With laxatives preserve your body sound, And purge the peccant humours that abound.

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I should be loth to lay you on a bier;
And though there lives no 'pothecary near,
I dare for once prescribe for your disease,
And save long bills, and a damn'd doctor's fees. 170
Two sovereign herbs, which I by practice know,
And both at hand (for in our yard they grow)
On peril of my soul shall rid you wholly
Of yellow choler, and of melancholy:
You must both purge and vomit; but obey,
And for the love of Heaven make no delay.
Since hot and dry in your complexion join,
Beware the sun when in a vernal sign;
For when he mounts exalted in the Ram,
If then he finds your body in a flame,
Replete with choler, I dare lay a groat,
A tertian ague is at least your lot.
Perhaps a fever (which the gods forefend)
May bring your youth to some untimely end:
And therefore, Sir, as you desire to live,
A day or two before your laxative,
Take just three worms, nor under nor above,
Because the gods unequal numbers love.

These digestives prepare you for your purge;
Of fumatory, centaury, and spurge,
And of ground-ivy add a leaf or two,
All which within our yard or garden grow.
Eat these, and be, my lord, of better cheer:
Your father's son was never born to fear.

Madam, quoth he, gramercy for your care,
But Cato, whom you quoted, you may spare:
'Tis true, a wise and worthy man he seems,
And (as you say) gave no belief to dreams:
But other men of more authority,

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And, by the immortal powers, as wise as he, Maintain, with sounder sense, that dreams forebode;

For Homer plainly says they come from God.
Nor Cato said it: but some modern fool
Imposed in Cato's name on boys at school.

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Believe me, Madam, morning dreams foreshow The events of things, and future weal or woe: Some truths are not by reason to be tried, But we have sure experience for our guide. An ancient author, equal with the best, Relates this tale of dreams among the rest. Two friends or brothers, with devout intent, On some far pilgrimage together went. It happen'd so that, when the sun was down, They just arrived by twilight at a town: That day had been the baiting of a bull, "Twas at a feast, and every inn so full, That no void room in chamber, or on ground, And but one sorry bed was to be found; And that so little it would hold but one, Though till this hour they never lay alone.

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So were they forced to part; one stay'd behind, His fellow sought what lodging he could find: At last he found a stall where oxen stood, And that he rather chose than lie abroad. "Twas in a farther yard without a door; But, for his ease, well litter'd was the floor. His fellow, who the narrow bed had kept, Was weary, and without a rocker slept : Supine he snored; but, in the dead of night, He dreamt his friend appear'd before his sight, 30

Ver. 188. Because the gods unequal] One of his many indesigned and involuntary imitations of Virgil.

numero Deus impare gaudet.'-Virg. Ecl. viii. JOHN WARTON.

Who, with a ghastly look and doleful cry,
Said, Help me, brother, or this night I die:
Arise, and help, before all help be vain,
Or in an ox's stall I shall be slain.

Roused from his rest he waken'd in a start, 235 Shivering with horror, and with aching heart; At length to cure himself by reason tries; 'Tis but a dream, and what are dreams but lies? So thinking changed his side, and closed his eyes. His dream returns; his friend appears again: 240 The murderers come, now help, or I am slain : 'Twas but a vision still, and visions are but vain. He dreamt the third; but now his friend appear'd Pale, naked, pierced with wounds, with blood besmear'd:

Thrice warn'd, awake, said he; relief is late,
The deed is done; but thou revenge my fate:
Tardy of aid, unseal thy heavy eyes,

Awake, and with the dawning day arise:
Take to the western gate thy ready way,

For by that passage they my corpse convey:
My corpse is in a tumbril laid, among
The filth and ordure, and enclosed with dung.
That cart arrest, and raise a common cry;
For sacred hunger of my gold I die :

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Then show'd his grisly wounds and last he drew

A piteous sigh; and took a long adieu.

The frighted friend arose by break of day, And found the stall where late his fellow lay. Then of his impious host inquiring more, Was answer'd that his guest was gone before: Muttering he went, said he, by morning-light, And much complain'd of his ill rest by night. This raised suspicion in the pilgrim's mind; Because all hosts are of an evil kind,

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And oft to share the spoil with robbers join'd. 265 His dream confirm'd his thought; with troubled look

Straight to the western gate his way he took;
There, as his dream foretold, a cart he found,
That carried compost forth to dung the ground.
This when the pilgrim saw, he stretch'd his
throat,

And cried out murder with a yelling note.
My murder'd fellow in this cart lies dead,
Vengeance and justice on the villain's head;
You, magistrates, who sacred laws dispense,
On you I call to punish this offence.

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Good Heaven, whose darling attribute we find
Is boundless grace, and mercy to mankind,
Abhors the cruel; and the deeds of night
By wondrous ways reveals in open light:
Murder may pass unpunish'd for a time,
But tardy justice will o'ertake the crime.
And oft a speedier pain the guilty feels,
The hue and cry of Heaven pursues him at the
heels,

Fresh from the fact; as in the present case,
The criminals are seized upon the place:
Carter and host confronted face to face.
Stiff in denial, as the law appoints,
On engines they distend their tortured joints:

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So was confession forced, the offence was known, And public justice on the offenders done.

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Here may you see that visions are to dread; And in the page that follows this, I read Of two young merchants, whom the hope of gain Induced in partnership to cross the main : Waiting till willing winds their sails supplied, 300 Within a trading-town they long abide, Full fairly situate on a haven's side.

One evening it befel, that looking out, The wind they long had wish'd was come about: Well pleased they went to rest; and if the gale 305 Till morn continued, both resolved to sail. But as together in a bed they lay, The younger had a dream at break of day. A man he thought stood frowning at his side: Who warn'd him for his safety to provide, Nor put to sea, but safe on shore abide. I come, thy genius, to command thy stay; Trust not the winds, for fatal is the day, And death unhoped attends the watery way.

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The vision said: and vanish'd from his sight:
The dreamer waken'd in a mortal fright:
Then pull'd his drowsy neighbour, and declared
What in his slumber he had seen and heard.
His friend smiled scornful, and with proud con-
tempt

Rejects as idle what his fellow dreamt.
Stay, who will stay: for me no fears restrain,
Who follow Mercury the god of gain;
Let each man do as to his fancy seems,

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I wait, not I, till you have better dreams.
Dreams are but interludes which fancy makes;
When monarch reason sleeps, this mimic wakes:
Compounds a medley of disjointed things,
A mob of cobblers, and a court of kings:
Light fumes are merry, grosser fumes are sad:
Both are the reasonable soul run mad:
And many monstrous forms in sleep we see,
That neither were, nor are, nor e'er can be.
Sometimes forgotten things long cast behind
Rush forward in the brain, and come to mind.
The nurse's legends are for truths received,
And the man dreams but what the boy believed.
Sometimes we but rehearse a former play,
The night restores our actions done by day;
As hounds in sleep will open for their prey.

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Et quicunque dies multos ex ordine ludis
Assiduis dederint operas: plerumque videmus,
Quum jam destiterint ea sensibus usurpare,
Reliquas tamen esse vias in mente patentes,
Quà possint eadem rerum simulachra venire.
Permultos itaque illa dies eadem obversantur
Ante oculos, etiam vigilantes ut videantur
Cernere saltantes, et mollia membra moventes;
Et citharæ liquidum carmen, chordasque loquentes,
Auribus accipere, et consessum cernere eundem
Scenaique simul varios splendere decores.
Usque adeo magni refert studium atque voluntas;
Et quibus in rebus consuerint esse operati
Non homines solum, sed vero animalia cuncta

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That call'd aboard, and took his last adieu.
The vessel went before a merry gale,
And for quick passage put on every sail :
But when least fear'd, and ev'n in open day,
The mischief overtook her in the way:
Whether she sprung a leak, I cannot find,
Or whether she was overset with wind,
Or that some rock below her bottom rent;
But down at once with all her crew she went:
Her fellow-ships from far her loss descried;
But only she was sunk, and all were safe beside.
By this example you are taught again,
That dreams and visions are not always vain:
But if, dear Partlet, you are still in doubt,
Another tale shall make the former out.
Kenelm, the son of Kenulph, Mercia's king,
Whose holy life the legends loudly sing,
Warn'd in a dream, his murder did foretel
From point to point as after it befel:
All circumstances to his nurse he told,
(A wonder from a child of seven years old :)
The dream with horror heard, the good old
wife

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From treason counsell'd him to guard his life;
But close to keep the secret in his mind,
For a boy's vision small belief would find.
The pious child, by promise bound, obey'd,
Nor was the fatal murder long delay'd:
By Quenda slain, he fell before his time,
Made a young martyr by his sister's crime.
The tale is told by venerable Bede,
Which, at your better leisure, you may read.
Macrobius too relates the vision sent
To the great Scipio, with the famed event:
Objections makes, but after makes replies,
And adds, that dreams are often prophecies.
Of Daniel you may read in holy writ,
Who, when the king his vision did forget,
Could word for word the wondrous dream re-

peat.

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Nor less of patriarch Joseph understand,
Who by a dream enslaved the Egyptian land,
The years of plenty and of dearth foretold,
When, for their bread, their liberty they sold.
Nor must the exalted butler be forgot,
Nor he whose dream presaged his hanging lot.
And did not Croesus the same death foresee,
Raised in his vision on a lofty tree?
The wife of Hector, in his utmost pride,
Dreamt of his death the night before he died;
Well was he warn'd from battle to refrain,
But men to death decreed are warn'd in vain :
He dared the dream, and by his fatal foe was

slain.

Much more I know, which I forbear to speak, For see the ruddy day begins to break; Let this suffice, that plainly I foresee My dream was bad, and bodes adversity: But neither pill or latives I like, They only serve to make the well-man sick: Of these his gain the sharp physician makes, And often gives a purge, but seldom takes: They not correct, but poison all the blood, And ne'er did any but the doctors good.

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Their tribe, trade, trinkets, I defy them all;
With every work of 'pothecary's hall.
These melancholy matters I forbear:
But let me tell thee, Partlet mine, and swear,
That when I view the beauties of thy face,
I fear not death, nor dangers, nor disgrace:
So may my soul have bliss, as when I spy
The scarlet red about thy partridge eye,
While thou art constant to thy own true knight,
While thou art mine, and I am thy delight,
All sorrows at thy presence take their flight.
For true it is, as in principio,

Mulier est hominis confusio.

Madam, the meaning of this Latin is,
That woman is to man his sovereign bliss.
For when by night I feel your tender side,
Though for the narrow perch I cannot ride,
Yet I have such a solace in my mind,
That all my boding cares are cast behind;
And ev'n already I forget my dream:

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He said, and downward flew from off the beam.
For day-light now began apace to spring,
The thrush to whistle, and the lark to sing.
Then crowing clapp'd his wings, the appointed call,
To chuck his wives together in the hall.

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By this the widow had unbarr'd the door, And Chanticleer went strutting out before, With royal courage, and with heart so light, As show'd he scorn'd the visions of the night. Now roaming in the yard, he spurn'd the ground, And gave to Partlet the first grain he found. Then often feather'd her with wanton play, And trod her twenty times ere prime of day: And took by turns and gave so much delight, Her sisters pined with envy at the sight. He chuck'd again, when other corns he found, And scarcely deign'd to set a foot to ground. But swagger'd like a lord about his hall, And his seven wives came running at his call. "Twas now the month in which the world began,

(If March beheld the first created man :) And since the vernal equinox, the sun,

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In Aries twelve degrees, or more, had run;
When casting up his eyes against the light,
Both month, and day, and hour he measured
right;

And told more truly than the Ephemeris:
For art may err, but nature cannot miss.

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Thus numbering times and seasons in his breast,

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His second crowing the third hour confess'd.
Thon turning, said to Partlet, See, my dear,
How lavish nature has adorn'd the year;
How the pale primrose and blue violet spring,
And birds essay their throats disused to sing:
All these are ours; and I with pleasure see
Man strutting on two legs, and aping me:
An unfledged creature, of a lumpish frame,
Endow'd with fewer particles of flame;
Our dame sits cowering o'er a kitchen fire,
I draw fresh air, and nature's works admire :
And ev'n this day in more delight abound,
Than, since I was an egg, I ever found.
The time shall come when Chanticleer shall
wish

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And in the virtue of foresight decrees.

If this be so, then prescience binds the will,
And mortals are not free to good or ill;
For what he first foresaw, he must ordain,
Or its eternal prescience may be vain :
As bad for us as prescience had not been:
For first, or last, he's author of the sin.
And who says that, let the blaspheming man
Say worse ev'n of the devil, if he can.
For how can that eternal power be just
To punish man, who sins because he must?
Or how can he reward a virtuous deed,
Which is not done by us; but first decreed?
I cannot bolt this matter to the bran,
As Bradwardin and holy Austin can;

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Of Providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate, Fix'd fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute, And found no end, in wandering mazes lost." Milton, Par. Lost, B. 2. 558.

JOHN WARTON.