These attempts were nearly all avowedly humorous,[130] and seemed based on a belief that the very language of Chaucer was in some respects suitable comic material for a would-be humorous writer. Such an attitude was obviously the outcome of a not unnatural ignorance of the historical development of the language. Chaucer’s language had long been regarded as almost a dead language, and this attitude had persisted even to the eighteenth century, so that it was felt that a mastery of the language of the “Canterbury Tales” required prolonged study. Even Thomas Warton, speaking of Chaucer, was of the opinion that “his uncouth and unfamiliar language disgusts and deters many readers.”[131] Hence it is not surprising that there was a complete failure to catch, not only anything of the real spirit of Chaucer, but also anything that could be described as even a distant approach to his language. The imitators seemed to think that fourteenth century English could be imitated by the use of common words written in an uncommon way, or of strange terms with equally strange meanings. The result was an artificial language that could never have been spoken by anybody, often including words to which it is impossible to give any definite sense. It would seem that only two genuine Chaucerian terms had really been properly grasped, and this pair, ne and eke, is in consequence worked to death. Ignorance of the earlier language naturally led to spurious grammatical forms, of which the most favoured was a singular verb form ending in -_en_. Gay, for instance, has, in a poem of seventeen lines, such phrases as “It maken doleful song,” “There _spreaden_ a rumour,”[132] whilst Fenton writes, If in mine quest thou _falsen_ me.[133] The general style and manner of these imitations, with their “humorous” tinge, their halting verse, bad grammar, and impossible inflections are well illustrated in William Thompson’s “Garden Inscription—Written in Chaucer’s Bowre,” though more serious efforts were not any more successful. The death of Pope, strangely enough, called forth more than one attempt, among them being Thomas Warton’s imitation of the characterization of the birds from the “Parliament of Fowles.”[134] Better known at the time was the monody “Musæus,” written by William Mason, “To the memory of Mr. Pope.” Chaucer, Spenser, and Milton are represented as coming to mourn the inevitable loss of him who was about to die, and Mason endeavoured to reproduce their respective styles, “Tityrus” (Chaucer) holding forth in this strain: Mickle of wele betide thy houres last For mich gode wirke to me don and past. For syn the days whereas my lyre ben strongen, And deftly many a mery laie I songen, Old Time which alle things don maliciously, Gnawen with rusty tooth continually, Grattrid my lines, that they all cancrid ben Till at the last thou smoothen hem hast again.