Page:Fors Clavigera, Letters to the Workmen and Labourers of Great Britain.djvu/30

 i2 Pars Clavigera. the men who have taught the purest theological truth hitherto known to the Jews, Greeks, Latins, Italians, and English ; namely, Moses, David, Hesiod, Virgil, Dante, Chaucer, and, for seventh, summing the whole with vision of judgment, St. John the Divine. The Hesiod I purpose, if my life is spared, to translate myself (into prose), and to give in complete form. Of Virgil I shall only take the two first Georgics, and the sixth book of the iEneid, but with the Douglas translation ; * adding the two first books of Livy, for completion of the image of Roman life. Of Chaucer, I take the authentic poems, except the Canterbury Tales ; together with, be they authentic or not, the Dream, and the fragment of the translation of the Romance of the Rose, adding some French chivalrous literature of the same date. I shall so order this work, that in such measure as it may be possible to me, it shall be in a constantly pro- gressive relation to the granted years of my life. The plan of it I give now, and will explain in full detail, that my scholars may carry it out, if I cannot. ♦ " A Bishop by the altar stood, A noble Lord of Douglas blood. With mitre sheen, and rocquet white, Yet showed his meek and thoughtful eye But little pride of prelacy ; More pleased that, in a barbarous age, He gave rude Scotland Virgil's page, Than that beneath his rule he held The bishopric of fair Dunkeld."