Page:The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, Volume 4.djvu/11

Rh hands of poetical readers, he was tempted to try his own skill in giving Chaucer a more fashionable appearance, and put "January and May," and the "Prologue of the Wife of Bath," into modern English. He translated likewise the Epistle of "Sappho to Phaon" from Ovid, to complete the version which was before imperfect; and wrote some other small pieces, which he afterwards printed.

He sometimes imitated the English poets, and professed to have written at fourteen his poem upon "Silence," after Rochester's "Nothing." He had now formed his versifitation, and the smoothness of his numbers surpassed his original: but this is a small part of his praise; he discovers such acquaintance both with human and publick affairs, as is not easily conceived to have been attainable by a boy of fourteen in Windsor Forest.

Next year he was desirous of opening to himself new sources of knowledge, by making himself acquainted with modern languages; and removed for a time to London, that he might study French and Italian, which, as he desired nothing more than to read them, were by diligent application soon dispatched, Of Italian learning he does not appear to Rh