d of that of
Dryden; but the fact is, _I did not know that Dryden's version existed_;
for having undertaken to complete those of the Canterbury Tales which
were wanting in Ogle's collection, and the tale in question _not being
in that collection_, I proceeded to supply it, having never till very
lately, strange as it may seem, _seen the volume of Dryden's Fables in
which it may be found_!!"

It is diverting to hear the worthy who, in 1795, had never seen Dryden's
Fables, offering to the public the first completed collection of the
Canterbury Tales in a modern version, "under the reasonable confidence
that the improved taste in poetry, and the extended cultivation of that,
in common with all the other elegant arts, which so strongly
characterizes the present day, will make the lovers of verse look up to
the old bard, the father of English poetry, with a veneration
proportioned to the improvements they have made in it." It grieves him
to think that the language in which Chaucer wrote "has decayed from
under him." That reason alone, he says, can justify the attempt of
exhibiting him in a modern dress; and he tells us that so faithfully has
he adhered to the great original, that they who have not given their
time to the study of the old language, "must either find a true likeness
of Chaucer exhibited in this version, or they will find it nowhere
else." With great solemnity he says, "Thence I have imposed it on myself
as a duty somewhat sacred to deviate from my original as little as
possible in the sentiment, and have often in the language adopted his
own expressions, the simplicity and effect of which have always forcibly
struck me, _wherever the terms he uses (and that happens not
unfrequently) are intelligible to modern ears_." Yes--Gulielme Lipscomb,
thou wert indeed a jewel.

Happy would he have been to accompany his version of Chaucer with notes.
"But though the version itself has been an agreeable and easy rural
occupation, yet in a remote village, near 250 miles from London, the
very books, _trifling as they may seem_, to which it would be necessary
to refer _to illustrate the manners of the 14th century_, were not to be
procured; and parochial and other engagements would not admit of absence
sufficient to consult them where they are to be found; it is not
therefore for want of deference to the opinions of those who have
recommended a body of notes that they do not accompany these Tales."
Yes--Gulielme, thou wert