or its chaste yet luxuriant diction, for its sustained and
various melody, for its lovely pictures both earthly and ethereal, for
its pure, refined, and elevating sentiment.

"By Dryden's Fables," says Johnson, "which had then been not long
published, and were much in the hands of poetical readers, Pope was
tempted to try his own skill in giving Chaucer a more fashionable
appearance, and put January and May, and the Prologue of the Wife of
Bath into modern English." January and May, which the poet says was
translated when he was sixteen or seventeen, was not published till he
was nearly twenty-one, having first appeared on May 2, 1709, in the
sixth volume of Tonson's Miscellany. He imitated Dryden in abridging
Chaucer, but his only addition of any moment to the Merchant's Tale is
in the description of the fairies, which was borrowed from Dryden
himself. His attempt was substantially limited to epitomising the
original in refined language, and musical numbers. In this he succeeded,
and more could not be expected of a youth. If he had aspired higher he
could not at twenty have competed with his mighty predecessor. Dryden's
tales are the productions of a great poetic genius. The January of Pope
is the production of a clever versifier. The relative position which
their respective translations of Chaucer occupy in their works accords
with the difference in their execution. The adaptations of Dryden are
commonly numbered among his choicest effusions. The versions of Pope
hold a subordinate place among his writings, and are hardly taken into
account in the estimate of his powers. The result vindicates the opinion
of Lord Leicester, that in the conversion of Chaucer into modern
English the loss exceeds the gain. Pope was not insensible to the
dramatic qualities of his author. "I read him still," he said to Spence,
"with as much pleasure as almost any of our poets. He is a master of
manners, of description, and the first tale-teller in the true enlivened
natural way." But in polishing him, something of the nature and
liveliness was inevitably obliterated. He was, in many of his stories,
an admirable novelist in verse, and he adopted a familiar style which
permitted him to relate in rhyme, with the freedom of prose, the common
talk of common men. His traits are in the highest degree colloquial,
individual, and life-like, and his strong strokes are weakened, and his
dramatic vivacity tamed down, when he is turned into smooth, harmo