The worshipful fader and first foundeur and enbelissher of ornate eloquence in our Englissh. I mene Maister Geffrey Chaucer.

[Chaucer] is so natural and cheerful, compared with later poets, that we might almost regard him as a personification of spring.

Un des plus grands romanciers que l'Angleterre ait jamais eus. ("One of the greatest novelists that England has ever had.")

Dan Chaucer, well of English undefyled, On Fames eternall beadroll worthie to be fyled.

Dan Chaucer, the first warbler, whose sweet breath Preluded those melodious bursts that fill The spacious times of great Elizabeth With sounds that echo still.

To begin then with Shakespeare; he was the man who of all Modern, and perhaps Ancient Poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul. All the Images of Nature were still present to him, and he drew them not laboriously, but luckily: when he describes any thing, you more than see it, you feel it too. Those who accuse him to have wanted learning, give him the greater commendation: he was naturally learn'd; he needed not the spectacles of Books to read Nature; he look'd inwards, and found her there. I cannot say he is every where alike; were he so, I should do him injury to compare him with the greatest of Mankind. He is many times flat, insipid; his Comick wit degenerating into clenches; his serious swelling into Bombast. But he is alwayes great, when some great occasion is presented to him: no man can say he ever had a fit subject for his wit, and did not then raise himself as high above the rest of the Poets,

Poets may boast [as safely-Vain]
Their work shall with the world remain;
Both bound together, live, or die,
The Verses and the Prophecy.

But who can hope his Lines should long
Last in a daily-changing Tongue?
While they are new, Envy prevails,
And as that dies, our Language fails.

When Architects have done their part,
The Matter may betray their Art;
Time, if we use ill-chosen Stone,
Soon brings a well-built Palace down.

Poets that lasting Marble seek,
Must carve in Latine or in Greek;
We write in Sand; our Language grows,
And like the Tide our work o'reflows.

Chaucer his Sense can only boast,
The glory of his Numbers lost,
Years have defac'd his matchless strain;
And yet he did not sing in vain;

The Beauties which adorn'd that Age,
The shining Subjects of his Rage,
Hoping they should Immortal prove,
Rewarded with success his Love.

This was the generous Poet's scope,
And all an English pen can hope
To make the Fair approve his Flame,
That can so far extend their Fame.

Verse thus design'd has no ill Fate,
If it arrive but at the Date
Of fading Beauty, if it prove
But as long-liv'd as present Love.

Shakespeare is not our poet, but the world's,
Therefore on him no speech! and brief for thee,
Browning! Since Chaucer was alive and hale,
No man hath walked along our roads with step
So active, so inquiring eye, or tongue
So varied in discourse.

That old man eloquent.

From shortly after his death until the present Gascoigne's reputation as the foremost poet of his generation and as a precursor of the great Elizabethans has remained constant.

The richest author that ever grazed the common of literature.

A great poet is greater than any king.

O noble Chaucer, whos pullisshyd eloquence
Oure Englysshe rude so fresshely hath set out,
That bounde ar we with all deu reverence,
With all our strength that we can brynge about,
To owe to yow our servyce, and more if we mowte!
But what sholde I say? Ye wote what I entende,
Whiche glad am to please and loth to offende

He is equally great whether his theme be religion, patriotism, or love. As a political poet he is one of the greatest of all time.