The French have a high value for them; and I confess, they are often what they call delicate, when they are introduced with judgment; but Chaucer writ with more simplicity, and followed nature more closely, than to use them.

I have thus far, to the best of my knowledge, been an upright judge betwixt the parties in competition, not meddling with the design nor the disposition of it; because the design was not their own, and in the disposing of it they were equal.

It remains that I say somewhat of Chaucer in particular.
In the first place, as he is the father of English poetry, so I hold him in the same degree of veneration as the Grecians held Homer or the Romans Virgil.

He is a perpetual fountain of good sense, learn'd in all sciences, and therefore speaks properly on all subjects as he knew what to say, so he knows also when to leave off, a continence which is practic'd by few writers, and scarcely by any of the ancients, excepting Virgil and Horace.

One of our late great poets[13] is sunk in his reputation, because he could never forgive any conceit which came in his way, but swept like a dragnet, great and small.