T

ADVERTISEMENT.

HE hint of the following piece was taken from Chaucer's House of Fame. The defign is in a manner entirely alter'd, the descriptions and most of the particular thoughts my own: Yet I could not fuffer it to be printed without this acknowledgment. The reader who would compare this with Chaucer, may begin with his third book of Fame, there being nothing in the two first books that answers to their title: Wherever any hint is taken from him, the paffage itself is fet down in the marginal notes.

THE

TEMPLE

O F

FAM

I

'N that foft feafon when defcending fhow'rs

E.

Call forth the greens, and wake the rifing flow'rs ; When opening buds falute the welcome day, And earth relenting feels the genial ray;

VER. 1. In that foft feafon, &c.] This Poem is introduced in the manner of the Provencial Poets, whose works were for the most part Vifions, or pieces of imagination, and conftantly defcriptive. From these, Petrarch and Chaucer frequently borrow the idea of their poems. See the Trionfi of the former, and the Dream, Flower and the Leaf, &c. of the latter. The Author of this therefore chofe the fame fort of Exordium.

As balmy sleep had charm'd my cares to reft,
And love itfelf was banish'd from my breast,
(What time the morn myfterious vifions brings,
While purer flumbers spread their golden wings)
A train of phantoms in wild order rofe,

And, join'd, this intellectual scene compose.

I ftood, methought, betwixt earth, seas, and skies ; The whole creation open to my eyes:

In air felf-ballanc'd hung the globe below,

Where mountains rife, and circling oceans flow;
Here naked rocks, and empty wastes were seen,
There tow'ry cities, and the forefts
green:
Here failing ships delight the wand'ring eyes:
There trees, and intermingl'd temples rise;
Now a clear fun the fhining scene displays,
The tranfient landscape now in clouds decays.
O'er the wide profpect as I gaz'd around,
Sudden I heard a wild promifcuous found,
Like broken thunders that at distance roar,
Or billows murm'ring on the hollow shore :

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VER. 11, &c.] These verses are hinted from the following of Chaucer, Book 2.

The bebeld I fields and plains,
Now hills, and now mountains,
Now valeis, and now foreftes,
And now unneth great beftes,
Now rivers, now citees,
Now towns, now great trees,
Now hippes fayling in the fee.

Then

Then gazing up, a glorious pile beheld,
Whofe tow'ring fummit ambient clouds conceal'd.
High on a rock of Ice the ftructure lay,
Steep its afcent, and flipp'ry was the way;
The wond'rous rock like Parian marble fhone,
And seem'd, to distant fight, of solid stone.
Inscriptions here of various Names I view'd,
The greater part by hostile time fubdu'd;

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30

Yet

VER. 27. High on a rock of ice, &c.] Chaucer's third book of Fame.

It flood upon fo high a rock,

Higher ftandeth none in Spayne-
What manner ftone this rock was,
For it was like a lymed glass,
But that it fhone full more clere;
But of what congeled matere
It was, I nifte redily;
But at the laft efpied I,

And found that it was every dele,
A rock of ife, and not of fiele.
VER. 31. Infcriptions here, &c.]
The faw I all the bill y-grave
With famous folkes names fele,
That had been in much wele
And her fames wide y-blow;
But well unneth might I know,
Any letters for to rede
Ther names by, for out of drede

B 3

They