Part II
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FOOTNOTES.
[1] It is also mentioned as 'the book of Fame' at the end of the Persones Tale, I 1086. I accept this passage as genuine.
[2] In Dante's Inferno, this invocation begins Canto II.; for Canto I. forms a general introduction to the whole.
[3] Where Chaucer says 'leet the reynes goon' (l. 951), and Dante has 'abbandonò li freni' (Inf. xvii. 107), we find in Ovid 'equi ... colla iugo eripiunt, abruptaque lora relinquunt' (Met. ii. 315). Chaucer's words seem closer to Dante than to the Latin original.
[4] On which Prof. Lounsbury remarks (Studies in Chaucer, ii. 243)--'More extreme indeed than that of any one else is the position of Professor Skeat. He asserts in all seriousness that the "House of Fame" is the translation to which reference is made by Lydgate, when he said that Chaucer wrote "Dante in English." Beyond this utterance it is hardly possible to go.' This is mere banter, and entirely misrepresents my view. Lydgate does not say that 'Dant in English' was a translation; this is a pure assumption, for a strategical purpose in argument. Lydgate was ignorant of Italian, and has used a stupid phrase, the correctness of which I by no means admit. But he certainly meant _something_; and the prominence which he gives to "Dant in English," when he comes to speak of Chaucer's Minor Poems, naturally suggests The House of Fame, which he otherwise omits! My challenge to 'some competent critic' to tell me what _other_ poem is here referred to, remains unanswered.
[5] When Chaucer consulted Dante, his thoughts were naturally directed to Vergil. We find, accordingly, that he begins by quoting (in ll. 143-8) the opening lines of the Æneid; and a large portion of