This he did by modernizing several of the Canterbury Tales, and thus leading English scholars to seek the beauties and instructions of the original.

The versions themselves are by no means well executed, it must be said.

He has lost the musical words and fresh diction of the original, as a single comparison between the two will clearly show.
Perhaps there is no finer description of morning than is contained in these lines of Chaucer: The besy lark, the messager of day, Saleweth in hir song the morwe gray; And firy Phebus riseth up so bright That all the orient laugheth of the sight.
How expressive the words: the _busy_ lark; the sun rising like a strong man; _all the orient_ laughing.

The following version by Dryden, loses at once the freshness of idea and the felicity of phrase: The morning lark, the messenger of day, Saluted in her song the morning gray; And soon the sun arose with beams so bright That all the horizon laughed to see the joyous sight.
The student will find this only one of many illustrations of the manner in which Dryden has belittled Chaucer in his versions.
ODES .-- Dryden has been regarded as the first who used the heroic couplet with entire mastery.

In his hands it is bold and sometimes rugged, but always powerful and handled with great ease: he fashioned it for Pope to polish.