Readings in Poetry - A Selection From the Best English Poets, From Spenser to the Present Times; And Specimens of Several American Poets of Deserved Reputation #270049

While Wickliffe was denouncing the corruptions of the papacy with unusual boldness, and contrasting its tyranny with the mild dominion of Him, whose yoke is easy and burden light, Chaucer was raising the dignity of his native language, by practically showing its poetic capabilities. A convert to the faith of Wicklin'e, he studied the Bible carefully, and learned from it the sublime moral principles which his verses so studiously inculcate. Notwithstanding all the difficulties of obsolete language, the father of English poetry is still read with pleasure. 'his works, though sullied by the coarseness of his age, show that, to the genius of the poet, the learning of the scholar, and the wisdom of the philosopher, he had also added the piety of the Christian.