Nature in her distinct forms lies open before this poet-painter; his creative eye pursued her through all her mutability, but in his details he was a close copier. In his rural scenery there is a freshness in its luxuriance; for his impressions were stamped by their locality. This locality is so remarkable, that Pope had a notion, which he said no one else had observed, that Chaucer always described real places to compliment the owners of particular gardens and fine buildings. Let us join him in his walks--
When that the misty vapour was agone, And clear and fair was the morníng, The dews, like silver, shiníng Upon the leaves.
The flowers sparkle in "their divers hues"--he sometimes counts their colours--"white, blue, yellow, and red"--on their stalks, spreading their leaves in breadth against the sun, gold-burned. His grass is "so small, so thick, so fresh of hue." The poet goes by a river whose water is "clear as beryl or crystal;" turning into "a little way" towards a park in compass round, and by a small gate.
Whoso that would freely might gone (go) Into this Park walled with green stone.
The owner of that park, probably, was startled when he came to "the little way," and to "the small gate." This was either the park of some great personage, or possibly Woodstock Park, where stood a stone lodge, so long known by the name of "Chaucer's House," that in the days of Elizabeth it was still described as such in the royal grant. If poets have rarely built houses, at least their names have consecrated many.
Garden upon a river in a green mead; The gravel gold, the water pure as glass,
and "the eglantine and sycamore arbour, so thickly woven, where the priers who stood without all day could not discover whether any one was within," was assuredly some particular garden. The stately grove has all the characters of its trees--the oak, the ash, and the fir--to "the fresh hawthorn,"
Which in white motley that so swote doth smell.
In all these lovely scenes there was a delicious sense of joyous existence; the inmates of the forest burst forth, from "the little conies, the beasts of gentle kind," to "the dreadful roe and the buck," and from their green leaves they who "with voice of angels" entranced the poet-musician--