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Updated: June 16, 2025
Even after all their borrowing from so many funds, they are still far from opulent. How few stories has Boccace which are tolerable, and how much fewer are there which you would desire to read twice! But this general difficulty is greatly increased, when we come to the drama.
He and Chaucer, among other things, had this in common, that they refin'd their mother tongues; but with this difference, that Dante had begun to file their language, at least in verse, before the time of Boccace, who likewise receiv'd no little help from his master Petrarch.
The tale of Grizild was the invention of Petrarch; by him sent to Boccace, from whom it came to Chaucer.
But the greatest resemblance of our two modern authors being in their familiar style, and pleasing way of relating comical adventures, I may pass it over, because I have translated nothing from Boccace of that nature.
When I had clos'd Chaucer, I returned to Ovid, and translated some more of his fables; and by this time had so far forgotten The Wife of Bath's Tale, that, when I took up Boccace, unawares I fell on the same argument of preferring virtue to nobility of blood, and titles, in the story of Sigismonda; which I had certainly avoided for the resemblance of the two discourses, if my memory had not fail'd me.
Boccace comes last to be consider'd, who living in the same age with Chaucer, had the same genius, and follow'd the same studies: both writ novels, and each of them cultivated his mother tongue.
But the reformation of their prose was wholly owing to Boccace himself, who is yet the standard of purity in the Italian tongue, though many of his phrases are become obsolete, as in process of time it must needs happen.
The French language has visibly changed under the inspection of the Academy; the style of Amelot's translation of Father Paul is observed by Le Courayer to be un peu passé; and no Italian will maintain that the diction of any modern writer is not perceptibly different from that of Boccace, Machiavel, or Caro.
I find I have anticipated already, and taken up from Boccace before I come to him; but there is so much less behind; and I am of the temper of most kings, who love to be in debt, are all for present money, no matter how they pay it afterwards; besides, the nature of a preface is rambling, never wholly out of the way, nor in it.
In the serious part of poetry, the advantage is wholly on Chaucer's side; for tho' the Englishman has borrow'd many tales from the Italian, yet it appears that those of Boccace were not generally of his own making, but taken from authors of former ages, and by him only model'd; so that what there was of invention in either of them may be judg'd equal.
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