Imatges de pàgina
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ing, writers can in no way perhaps be so profitably employed, as in translation; or in borrowing and naturalizing the ideas of more learned and polished nations, by which the general progress of improvement is rendered more easy and more rapid. But the writings and genius of Chaucer, with the obligations which our language and literature owe to him, have been so fully illustrated by Mr. Tyrwhit, in his edition of the "Canterbury Tales," and more recently by Mr. Godwin, as to render it superfluous for me to dwell longer upon article in this place.

his

In the reigns of Henry IV. and V. which intervene between those of Richard II. and Henry VI. I have not found any literary production of sufficient importance to induce me to preserve the continuity in the succession of British Monarchs. The author treated of in the following article, had begun, indeed, to flourish in both of those reigns; but as the date of the production, whence my selections are taken, is later, he is more properly arranged, where he is now found.

Henry VI.

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