Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845

There goeth a brook, and over that a brigge."

Mr Horne saith somewhat wilfully.

"At Trumpington, near Cambridge, if you look,
There goeth a bridge, and under that a brook."

Two Cantabs ask leave of their Warden

"To geve hem leve but a litel stound,
To gon to mill and sen hire corn yground."

i. e. "to give them leave for a short time." Mr Horne translates it, "for a merry round."

In the course of the tale, the miller's wife

"Came leping inward at a renne."

i. e. "Came leaping into the room at a run." Mr Horne translates it —

"The miller's wife came laughing inwardly!"

Chaucer says —

"This miller hath so wisly bibbed ale."

And Mr Horne, with incredible ignorance of the meaning of that word, says —

"The miller hath so wisely bobbed of ale."

So wisely that he was "for-drunken" – and "as a horse he snorteth in his sleep."

In Chaucer the description of the miller's daughter ends with this line —

"But right faire was hire here, I will not lie,"

i. e. her hair. Mr Horne translates it "was she here."

But there is no end to such blunders.

In Chaucer, as in all our old poets of every degree, there occur, over and over again, such forms of natural expression as the following, – and when they do occur, let us have them; but what a feeble modernizer must he be who keeps adding to the number till he gives his readers the ear-ache. Not one of the following is in the original: —

"At Algeziras, in Granada, he,"
"At many a noble fight of ships was he."
"For certainly a prelate fair was he."
"In songs and tales the prize o'er all bore he."
"And a poor parson of a town was he."
"Such had he often proved, and loath was he."
"In youth a good trade practised well had he."
"Lordship and servitude at once hath he."
"And die he must as echo did, said he."
"Madam this is impossible, said he."
"Save wretched Aurelius none was sad but he."
"And said thus when this last request heard he."

In like manner, in Chaucer as in all our old poets of every degree, there occur over and over again such natural forms of expression as "I wot," "I wis" – and where they do occur let us have them too and be thankful; but poverty-stricken in the article of rhymes must be he, who is perpetually driven to resort to such expedients as the following – all of which are Mr Horne's own: —

"Of fees and robes he many had, I ween."
"And yet this manciple made them fools, I wot."
"This Reve upon stallion sat, I wot."
"Than the poor parson in two months, I wot."
"For certainly when I was born, I trow."
"A small stalk in mine eyes he sees, I deem."
"There were two scholars young and poor, I trow."
"John lieth still and not far off, I trow."
"Eastern astrologers and clerks, I wis."
"This woful heart found some reprieve, I wis."
"Unto his brother's bed he came, I wis."
"And now Aurelius ever, as I ween."
"That she could not sustain herself, I ween."

Mr Horne, in his Introduction, unconscious of his own sins, speaks with due contempt of the modernizations of Chaucer by Ogle and Lipscomb and their coadjutors, and of the injury they may have done to the reputation of the old poet. But whatever injury they may have occasioned, "there can be doubt," he says, "of the mischief done by Mr Pope's obscene specimen, placed at the head of his list of 'Imitations of English Poets.' It is an imitation of those passages which we should only regard as the rank offal of a great feast in the olden time. The better taste and feeling of Pope should have imitated the noble poetry of Chaucer. He avoided this 'for sundry weighty reasons.' But if this so-called imitation by Pope was 'done in his youth' he should have burnt it in his age. Its publication at the present day among his elegant works, is a disgrace to modern times, and to his high reputation." Not so fast and strong, good Mister Horne. The six-and-twenty octosyllabic lines thus magisterially denounced by our stern moralist in the middle of the nineteenth century, have had a place in Pope's works for a hundred years, and it is too late now to seek to delete them. They were written by Pope in his fourteenth or fifteenth year, and gross as they are, are pardonable in a boy of precocious genius, giving way for a laughing hour to his sense of the grotesque. Joe Warton (not Tom) pompously calls them "a gross and dull caricature of the Father of English Poetry." And Mr Bowles says, "he might have added, it is disgusting as it is dull, and no more like Chaucer than a Billingsgate is like an Oberea." It is not dull, but exceedingly clever; and Father Geoffrey himself would have laughed at it – patted Pope on the head – and enjoined him for the future to be more discreet. Roscoe, like a wise man, regards it without horror – remarking of it, and the boyish imitation of Spenser, that "why these sportive and characteristic sketches should be brought to so severe an ordeal, and pointed out to the reprehension of the reader as gross and disagreeable, dull and disgusting, it is not easy to perceive." Old Joe maunders when he says, "he that was unacquainted with Spenser, and was to form his ideas of the turn and manner of his genius from this piece, would undoubtedly suppose that he abounded in filthy images, and excelled in describing the lower scenes of life." Let all such blockheads suppose what they choose. Pope – says Roscoe – "was well aware as any one of the superlative beauties and merits of Spenser, whose works he assiduously studied, both in his early and riper years; but it was not his intention in these few lines to give a serious imitation of him. All that he attempted was to show how exactly he could apply the language and manner of Spenser to low and burlesque subjects; and in this he has completely succeeded. To compare these lines, as Dr Warton has done, with those more extensive and highly-finished productions, the Castle of Indolence by Thomson, and the Minstrel by Beattie, is manifestly unjust" – and stupidly absurd. What Mr Horne means by saying that Pope "avoided imitating the noble poetry of Chaucer for sundry weighty reasons," is not apparent at first sight. It means, however, that Pope could not have done so – that the feat was beyond his power. The author of the Messiah and the Eloïse wrote tolerable poetry of his own; and he knew how to appreciate, and to emulate, too, some of the finest of Chaucer's. Why did Mr Horne not mention his Temple of Fame? A more childish sentence never was written than "its publication at the present day among his elegant works is a disgrace to modern times, and to his high reputation." Pope's reputation is above reproach, enshrined in honour for evermore, and modern times are not so Miss Mollyish as to sympathize with such sensitive censorship of an ingeniously versified peccadillo, at which our avi and proavi could not choose but smile.

But Mr Horne, thinking, that in this case "the child is father of the man," rates Pope as roundly for what he seems to suppose were the misdemeanours of his manhood. "Of the highly-finished paraphrase, by Mr Pope, of the 'Wife of Bath's Prologue,' and 'The Merchant's Tale,' suffice it to say, that the licentious humour of the original being divested of its quaintness and obscurity (!) becomes yet more licentious in proportion to the fine touches of skill with which it is brought into the light. Spontaneous coarseness is made revolting by meretricious artifice. Instead of keeping in the distance that which was objectionable, by such shades in the modernizing as should have answered to the hazy appearance (!) of the original, it receives a clear outline, and is brought close to us. An ancient Briton, with his long rough hair and painted body, laughing and singing half-naked under a tree, may be coarse, yet innocent of all intention to offend; but if the imagination (absorbing the anachronism) can conceive him shorn of this falling hair, his paint washed off, and in this uncovered stated introduced into a drawing-room full of ladies in rouge and diamonds, hoops and hair-powder, no one can doubt the injury thus done to the ancient Briton. This is no unfair illustration of what was done in the time of Pope," &c.

It may be "no unfair illustration," and certainly is no unludicrous one. We must all of us allow, that were an ancient Briton, habited, or rather unhabited, as above, to bounce into a modern drawing-room full of ladies, whether in rouge and diamonds, hoops and hair-powder, or not, the effect of such entrée would be prodigious on the fair and fluttered Volscians. Our imagination, "absorbing the anachronism," ensconces us professionally behind a sofa, to witness and to record the scene. How different in nature Christopher North and R.H. Horne! While he would be commiserating "the injury thus done to the ancient Briton," we should be imploring our savage ancestor to spare the ladies. "Innocent of all intention to offend" might be Caractacus, but to the terrified bevy he would seem the king of the Cannibal Islands at least. What protection against the assault of a savage, almost in puris naturalibus, could be hoped for in their hoops! Yet who knows but that, on looking round and about, he might himself be frightened out of his senses? An ancient Briton, with his long rough hair and painted body, may laugh and sing by himself, half-naked under a tree, and in his own conceit be a match for any amount of women. But shorn of his falling hair, and without a streak of paint on his cheeks, verily his heart might be found to die within him, before furies with faces fiery with rouge, and heads horrent with pomatum – till instinctively he strove to roll himself up in the Persian carpet, and there prayed for deliverance to his tutelary gods.

Our imagination having thus "absorbed the anachronism," let us now leave Caractacus in the carpet – while our reason has recourse to the philosophy of criticism. Mr Horne asserts, that in "Mr Pope's" highly-finished paraphrase of the "Wife of Bath's Prologue," and the "Merchant's Tale," "the licentious humour of the original is divested of its quaintness and obscurity, and becomes yet more licentious in proportion to the fine touches of skill with which it is brought into the light." Quaintness and obscurity!! Why, everything in those tales is as plain as a pike-staff, and clearer than mud. "The hazy appearance of the original" indeed! What! of the couple in the Pear-Tree? Mr Horne spitefully and perversely misrepresents the character of Pope's translations. They are remarkably free from the vice he charges them withal – and have been admitted to be so by the most captious critics. Many of the very strong things in Chaucer, which you may call coarse and gross if you will, are omitted by Pope, and many softened down; nor is there a single line in which the spirit is not the spirit of satire. The folly of senile dotage is throughout exposed as unsparingly, though with a difference in the imitation, as in the original. Even Joseph Warton and Bowles, affectedly fastidious over-much as both too often are, and culpably prompt to find fault, acknowledge that Pope's versions are blameless. "In the art of telling a story," says Bowles, "Pope is peculiarly happy; we almost forget the grossness of the subject of this tale, (the Merchant's,) while we are struck by the uncommon ease and readiness of the verse, the suitableness of the expression, and the spirit and happiness of the whole." While Dr Warton, sensibly remarking, "that the character of a fond old dotard, betrayed into disgrace by an unsuitable match, is supported in a lively manner," refrains from making himself ridiculous by mealy-mouthed moralities which on such a subject every person of sense and honesty must despise. Mr Horne keeps foolishly carping at Pope, or "Mr Pope," as he sometimes calls him, throughout his interminable – no, not interminable – his hundred-paged Introduction. He abominates Pope's Homer, and groans to think how it has corrupted the English ear by its long domination in our schools. He takes up, with leathern lungs, the howl of the Lakers, and his imitative bray is louder than the original, "in linked sweetness long drawn out." Such sonorous strictures are innocent; but his false charge of licentiousness against Pope is most reprehensible – and it is insincere. For he has the sense to see Chaucer's broadest satire in its true light, and its fearless expositions. Yet from his justification of pictures and all their colouring in the ancient poet, that might well startle people by no means timid, he turns with frowning forehead and reproving hand to corresponding delineations in the modern, that stand less in need of it, and spits his spite on Pope, which we wipe off that it may not corrode. "This translation was done at sixteen or seventeen," says Pope in a note to his January and May – and there is not, among the achievements of early genius, to be found another such specimen of finished art and of perfect mastery.

Mr. Horne has ventured to give in his volume the Reve's Tale. "It has been thought," he says, "that an idea of the extraordinary versatility of Chaucer's genius could not be adequately conveyed, unless one of his matter-of-fact comic tales were attempted. The Reve's has accordingly been selected, as presenting a graphic painting of character, equal to those contained in the 'Prologue to the Canterbury Tales,' displayed in action by means of a story, which may be designated as a broad farce, ending in a pantomime of absurd reality. To those who are acquainted with the original, an apology may not be considered inadmissible for certain necessary variations and omissions." For our part, we do not object to this tale, though at the commencement of such a work its insertion was ill-judged, and will endanger greatly the volume. But we do object to the hypocritical cant about the licentiousness of Pope's fine touches, from the person who wrote the above words in italics. Omissions there must have been – but they sadly shear the tale of its vigour, and indeed leave it not very intelligible to readers who know not the original. The variations are most unhappy – miserable indeed; and by putting the miller's daughter to lie in a closet at the end of a passage, this moral modernizer has killed Chaucer. In the matchless original all the night's action goes on in one room – and that not a large one – miller, miller's wife, miller's daughter, and the two strenuous Cantabs, are within the same four narrow walls – their beds nearly touch – the jeopardized cradle has just space to rock in – yet this self-elected expositor of Chaucer is either so blind as not to see how essential such allocation of the parties is to the wicked comedy, or such a blunderer as to believe that he can improve on the greatest master that ever dared, and with perfect success, to picture, without our condemnation – so wide is the privilege of genius in sportive fancy – what, but for the self-rectifying spirit of fiction, would have been an outrage on nature, and in the number not only of forbidden but unhallowed things. The passages interpolated by Mr Horne's own pen are as bad as possible – clownish and anti-Chaucerian to the last degree.

For example, he thus takes upon himself, in the teeth of Chaucer, to narrate Alein's night adventure —

"And up he rose, and crept along the floor,
Into the passage humming with their snore;
As narrow was it as a drum or tub,
And like a beetle doth he grope and grub,
Feeling his way, with darkness in his hands.
Till at the passage end he stooping stands."

Chaucer tells us, without circumlocution, why the Miller's Wife for while had left her husband's side; but Mr Horne is intolerant of the indelicate, and thus elegantly paraphrases the one original word —

"The wife her routing ceased soon after that:
And woke and left her bed; for she was pained
With nightmare dreams of skies that madly rained.
Eastern astrologers and clerks, I wis,
In time of Apis tell of storms like this."

Such is modern refinement!