and studious in the midst of an active life. He was an enemy to superstition and priestly abuse, but playful in his satire, with a keen sense of the ludicrous, and the richest vein of comic narrative and delineation of character, He retained through life a strong love of the country, and of its inspiring and invigorating influences. No poet has dwelt more fondly on the charms of a spring or summer morning; and the month of May seems to have been always a carnival in his heart and fancy. His retirement at Woodstock, where he had indulged the poetical reveries of his youth, and where he was crowned with the latest treasures of his genius, was exactly such an old age as could have been desired for the venerable founder of our national poetry.

period of their sojourn; and we have thus a hundred stories, lively, humorous, or tender, and full of characteristic painting in choice Italian. Chaucer seems to have copied this design, as well as part of the Florentine's freedom and licentiousness of detail; but he greatly improved upon the plan. There is something repulsive and unnatural in a party of ladies and gentlemen meeting to tell loose tales of successful love and licentious monks while the plague is desolating the country around them. The tales of Chaucer have a more pleasing origin. A company of pilgrims, consisting of twenty-nine 'sundry folk,' meet together in fellowship at the Tabard Inn, Southwark,* all being bent on a pilgrimage to the shrine of Thomas à Becket at Canterbury. These pilgrimages were scenes of much enjoyment, and even mirth; for, satisfied with thwarting the Evil One by the object of their mission, the devotees did not consider it necessary to preserve any religious

Chaucer's Tomb.

The principal of Chaucer's minor poems are the Flower and Leaf, a spirited and graceful allegorical poem, with some fine description; and Troilus and Cresseide, partly translated, but enriched with many marks of his original genius. Sir Philip Sidney admired this pathetic poem, and it was long popular. Warton and every subsequent critic have quoted with just admiration the passage in which Cresseide makes an avowal of her love:

And as the new-abashed nightingale, That stinteth first when she beginneth sing, When that she heareth any herdes tale, Or in the hedges any wight stirring, And after, sicker, doth her voice outring; Right so Cresseide, when that her dread stent, Opened her heart, and told him her intent. The House of Fame, afterwards so richly paraphrased by Pope, contains some bold imagery, and the romantic machinery of Gothic fable. It is, however, very unequal in execution, and extravagant in conception. Warton has pointed out many anachronisms in these poems. We can readily believe that the unities of time and place were little regarded by the old poet. They were as much defied by Shakspeare; but in both we have the higher qualities of true feeling, passion, and excitement, which blind us to mere scholastic blemishes and defects.

The Canterbury Tales form the best and most durable monument of Chaucer's genius. Boccaccio, in his Decameron, supposes ten persons to have retired from Florence during the plague of 1348, and there, in a sequestered villa, amused themselves by relating tales after dinner. Ten days formed the

Tabard Inn, Southwark.

The

strictness or restraint by the way. The poet himself is one of the party at the Tabard. They all sup together in the large room of the hostelrie; and after great cheer, the landlord proposes that they shall travel together to Canterbury; and, to shorten their way, that each shall tell a tale, both in going and returning, and whoever told the best, should have a supper at the expense of the rest. company assent, and mine host' (who was both bold of his speech, and wise and well taught') is appointed to be judge and reporter of the stories. The characters composing this social party are inimitably drawn and discriminated. We have a knight, a mirror of chivalry, who had fought against the Heathenesse in Palestine; his son, a gallant young squire with curled locks, laid in presse' and all manner of debonair accomplishments; a nun, or prioress, beautifully drawn in her arch simplicity and coy reserve; and a jolly monk, who boasted a dainty, well-caparisoned horse

And when he rode men might his bridle hear Gingling in a whistling wind as clear, And eke as loud as doth the chapel bell. *The house is supposed still to exist, or an inn built upon the site of it, from which the personages of the Canterbury Tales set out upon their pilgrimage. The sign has been converted by a confusion of speech from the Tabard-" a sleeveless

coat worn in times past by noblemen in the wars," but now hound; and the following inscription is to be found on the only by heralds (Speght's Glossary)-to the Talbot, a species of spot: "This is the inn where Geoffrey Chaucer and nine-andtwenty pilgrims lodged on their journey to Canterbury in 1383." The inscription is truly observed by Mr Tyrrwhit to be modern, and of little authority.'-Godwin's Life of Chaucer.

A wanton friar is also of the party-full of sly and solemn mirth, and well beloved for his accommodating disposition

Full sweetly heard he confession,

And pleasant was his absolution.

We have a Pardoner from Rome, with some sacred relics (as part of the Virgin Mary's veil, and part of the sail of St Peter's ship), and who is also brimful of pardons come from Rome all hot. In satirical contrast to these merry and interested churchmen, we have a poor parson of a town, rich in holy thought and work,' and a clerk of Oxford, who was skilled in logic

Sounding in moral virtue was his speech,
And gladly would he learn and gladly teach.

ral objects and scenery, in Chaucer's clear and simple style. The tales of the miller and reve are coarse, but richly humorous. Dryden and Pope have honoured the Father of British verse by paraphrasing some of these popular productions, and stripping them equally of their antiquated style and the more gross of their expressions, but with the sacrifice of most that is characteristic in the elder bard. In a volume edited by Mr R. H. Horne, under the title of Chaucer Modernised, there are specimens of the poems altered with a much more tender regard to the original, and in some instances with considerable success; but the book by which ordinary readers of the present day, who are willing to take a little trouble, may best become acquainted with this great light of the fourteenth century, is one entitled the Riches of Chaucer, by C. C. Clarke (two volumes,

Withouten baked meat never was his house, Of fish and flesh, and that so plenteous; It snowed in his house of meat and drink. This character is a fine picture of the wealthy rural Englishman, and it shows how much of enjoyment and hospitality was even then associated with this station of life. The Wife of Bath is another lively national portrait: she is shrewd and witty, has abundant means, and is always first with her offering at church. Among the humbler characters are, a stout carl' of a miller, a reve or bailiff, and a sompnour or church apparitor, who summoned offenders before the archdeacon's court, but whose fire-red face and licentious habits contrast curiously with the nature of his duties. A shipman, cook, haberdasher, &c., make up the goodly companythe whole forming such a genuine Hogarthian picture, that we may exclaim, in the eloquent language of Campbell, What an intimate scene of English life in the fourteenth century do we enjoy in these tales, beyond what history displays by glimpses through the stormy atmosphere of her scenes, or the antiquary can discover by the cold light of his researches Chaucer's contemporaries and their successors were justly proud of this national work. Many copies existed in manuscript, and when the art of printing came to England, one of the first duties of Caxton's press was to issue an impression of those tales which first gave literary permanence and consistency to the language and poetry of England.

All the pilgrims in the Canterbury Tales do not relate stories. Chaucer had not, like Boccaccio, finished his design; for he evidently intended to have given a second series on the return of the company from Canterbury, as well as an account of the transactions in the city when they reached the sacred shrine. The concluding supper at the Tabard, when the successful competitor was to be declared, would have afforded a rich display for the poet's peculiar humour. The parties who do not relate tales (as the poem has reached us) are the yeoman, the ploughman, and the five city mechanics. The squire's tale is the most chivalrous and romantic, and that of the clerk, containing the popular legend of Patient Grisilde, is deeply affecting for its pathos and simplicity. The Cock and the Fox,' related by the nun's priest, and January and May,' the merchant's tale, have some minute painting of natu

the spelling modernised. An edition of the Canterbury Tales was published, with a learned commentary, by Thomas Tyrwhitt, Esq. (5 vols. 1778). The verse of Chaucer is, almost without exception, in ten-syllabled couplets, the verse in which by far the largest portion of our poetry since that time has been written, and which, as Mr Southey has remarked, may be judged from that circumstance to be best adapted to the character of our speech. The accentuation, by a license since abandoned, is different in many instances from that of common speech: the poet, wherever it suits his conveniency, or his pleasure, makes accented syllables short, and short syllables emphatic. This has been not only a difficulty with ordinary readers, but a subject of perplexity amongst commentators; but the principle has latterly been concluded upon as of the simple kind here stated. Another peculiarity is the making silent e's at the end of words tell in the metre, as in French lyrical poetry to this day: for example

Full well she sangé the service divine. Here 'sangé' is two syllables, while service furnishes an example of a transposed accent. In pursuance of the same principle, a monosyllabic noun, as beam, becomes the dissyllable beamés in the plural. When these peculiarities are carefully attended to, much of the difficulty of reading Chaucer, even in the original spelling, vanishes.

In the extracts which follow, we present, first, a specimen in the original spelling; then various specimens in the reduced spelling adopted by Mr Clarke, but without his marks of accents and extra syllables, except in a few instances; and, finally, one specimen (the Good Parson), in which, by a few slight changes, the verse is accommodated to the present fashion.

[Select characters from the Canterbury Pilgrimage.]
A Knight ther was, and that a worthy man,
That fro the time that he first began
To riden out, he loved chevalrie,
Trouthe and honour, fredom and curtesie.
Ful worthy was he in his lordes werre;
And, therto, hadde he ridden, none more ferre,
As wel in Cristendom as in Hethenesse,
And ever honoured for his worthinesse.

Though that he was worthy he was wise;
And of his port, as meke as is a mayde:
He never yet no vilainie ne sayde,
In all his lif, unto no manere wight,
He was a veray parfit gentil knight.
But, for to tellen you of his araie,-
His hors was good, but he ne was not gaie
Of fustian he wered a gipon
Alle besmatred with his habergeon,

1 A short cassock.

15

For he was late ycome fro his viage, And wente for to don his pilgrimage.

With him, ther was his sone, a yonge Squier,
A lover, and a lusty bacheler;

With lockes crull as they were laide in presse.
Of twenty yere of age he was, I gesse.
Of his stature he was of even lengthe;
And wonderly deliver, and grete of strengthe,
And he hadde be, somtime, in chevachiel
In Flaundres, in Artois, and in Picardie,
And borne him wel, as of so litel space,
In hope to standen in his ladies grace.

Embrouded was he, as it were a mede
All full of freshe floures, white and rede.
Singing he was, or floyting all the day:
He was as freshe as is the moneth of May.
Short was his goune, with sleves long and wide.
Wel coude he sitte on hors, and fayre ride,
He coude songes make, and wel endite;
Juste and eke dance; and wel pourtraie and write :
So hote he loved, that by nightertale2
He slep no more than doth the nightingale :
Curteis he was, lowly and servisable;
And carf before his fader at the table.

A Yeman hadde he; and servantes no mo
At that time; for him luste to ride so:
And he was cladde in cote and hode of grene;
A shefe of peacock arwes bright and kene
Under his belt he bare ful thriftily;
Wel coude he dresse his takel yemanly:
His arwes drouped not with fetheres lowe,
And in his hand he bare a mighty bowe.
A not-hed3 hadde he with a broun visage,
Of wood-craft coude he wel alle the usage.
Upon his arme, he bare a gaie bracer;4
And by his side, a swerd and a bokeler;
And on that other side, a gaie daggere,
Harneised wel, and sharpe as point of spere:
A Cristofre on his brest of silver shene.
An horne he bare, the baudrik was of grene.
A forster was he, sothely, as I gesse.

Ther was also a Nonne, a Prioresse,
That of hire smiling was full simple and coy;
Hire gretest othe n'as but by Seint Eloy ;
And she was cleped 5 Madaine Eglentine.
Ful wel she sange the service devine,
Entuned in hire nose ful swetely;
And Frenche she spake ful fayre and fetisly,6
After the scole of Stratford atte Bowe,
For Frenche of Paris was to hire unknowe.
At mete was she wele ytaughte withalle;
She lette no morsel from her lippes falle,
Ne wette hire fingres in hire sauce depe.
Wel coude she carie a morsel, and wel kepe,
Thatte no drope ne fell upon hire brest.
In curtesie was sette ful moche hire lest.7
Hire over-lippe wiped she so clene,
That in hire cuppe was no ferthing sene
Of grese, whan she dronken hadde hire draught.
Ful semely after hire mete she raught.9
And sikerly she was of grete disport,
And ful plesant, and amiable of port,
And peined 10 hire to contrefeten 11 chere
Of court, and ben estatelich of manere,
And to ben holden dignel2 of reverence.

But for to speken of hire conscience,
She was so charitable and so pitous,
She wolde wepe if that she saw a mous
Caughte in a trappe, if it were ded or bledde.
Of smale houndes hadde she, that she fedde

With rosted flesh, and milk, and wastel brede.
But sore wept she if on of hem were dede,
Or if men smote it with a yerdel smerte:2
And all was conscience and tendre herte.

Ful semely hire wimple ypinched was;
Hire nose tretis ;3 hire eyen grey as glas;
Hire mouth ful smale, and thereto soft and
red;

But sikerly she hadde a fayre forehed.
It was almost a spanne brode I trowe;
For hardily she was not undergrowe.4

Ful fetise was hire cloke, as I was ware.
Of smale corall aboute hire arm she bare
A pair of bedes, gauded all with grene;
And thereon heng a broche of gold ful shene,
On whiche was first ywriten a crouned A,
And after, Amor vincit omnia.
Another Nonne also with hire hadde she,
That was hire chapelleine, and Preestes thre.
A Monk ther was, a fayre for the maistrie,
An out-rider, that loved venerie;

A manly man, to ben an abbot able.
Ful many a deinte hors hadde he in stable;
And when he rode, men mighte his bridel here
Gingeling, in a whistling wind, as clere
And eke as loude as doth the chapell belle,
Ther as this lord was keper of the celle.

The reule of Seint Maure and of Seint Beneit,
Because that it was olde and somdele streit,
This ilke monk lette olde thinges pace,
And held after the newe world the trace.
He yave not of the text a pulled hen,
That saith that hunters ben not holy men;
Ne that a monk, whan he is rekkeles,
Is like to a fish that is waterles;
(This is to say, a monk out of his cloistre);
This ilke text he held not worth an oistre.
Therfore he was a prickasoure7 a right:
Greihoundes he hadde as swift as foul of flight:
Of pricking, and of hunting for the hare
Was all his lust; for no cost wolde he spare.
I saw his sleves purfiled at the hond
With gris, and that the finest of the lond,
And, for to fasten his hood, under his chinne
He hadde, of gold ywrought, a curious pinne,-
A love-knotte in the greter ende ther was.
His hed was balled, and shone as any glas,
And eke his face, as it hadde ben anoint.
He was a lord ful fat and in good point.
His eyen stepe, and rolling in his hed,
That stemed as a furneis of a led;
His bootes souple, his hors in gret estat;
Now certainly he was a fayre prelat.
He was not pale as a forpined gost.
A fat swan loved he best of any rost.
His palfrey was as broun as is a bery.

A Marchant was ther with a forked berd, In mottelee, and highe on hors he sat, And on his hed a Flaundrish bever hat, His bootes clapsed fayre and fetisly, His resons spake he ful solempnely, Souning alway the encrese of his winning. He wold the see were kept, for any thing, Betwixen Middleburgh and Orewell. Wel coud he in eschanges sheldes 9 selle. This worthy man ful wel his wit besette; Ther wiste no wight that he was in dette, So stedfastly didde he in his governance, With his bargeines, and with his chevisance.10 Forsothe he was a worthy man withalle. But soth to sayn, I no't how men him calle.

8 Straight. 4 Of low statura 7 A hard rider. 8 Fur. 10 An agreement for borrowing

A Clerk ther was of Oxenforde also,
That unto logike hadde long ygo.
As lene was his hors as is a rake,
And he was not right fat I undertake;
But looked holwe, and thereto soberly.
Ful thredbare was his overest courtepy,
For he hadde geten him yet no benefice,
He was nought worldly to have an office.
For him was lever han, at his beddes hed,
Twenty bokes clothed in black or red,
Of Aristotle and his philosophie,
Than robes riche, or fidel, or sautrie:
But all be that he was a philosophre,
Yet hadde he but litel gold in cofre;
But all that he might of his frendes hente,1
On bokes and on lerning he it spente;
And besily gan for the soules praie
Of hem that yave him wherwith to scolaie.
Of studie toke he most cure and hede.
Not a word spake he more than was nede;
And that was said in forme and reverence,
And short and quike, and full of high sentence:
Souning in moral vertue was his speche;
And gladly wolde he lerne, and gladly teche.
A Frankelein was in this compagnie ;
White was his berd as is the dayesie.
Of his complexion he was sanguin.
Wel loved he by the morwe2 a sop in win.
To liven in delit was ever his wone.3
For he was Epicures owen sone,
That held opinion, that plein delit
Was veraily felicite parfite.

An housholder, and that a grete was he;
Seint Julian he was in his contree.
His brede, his ale, was alway after on;
A better envyned man was no wher non.
Withouten bake mete never was his hous,
Of fish and flesh, and that so plenteous,
It snewed in his hous of mete and drinke,
Of alle deintees that men coud of thinke.
After the sondry sesons of the yere,
So changed he his mete and his soupere.
Ful many a fat partrich hadde he in mewe;
And many a breme, and many a luce, in stewe.
Wo was his coke but if his sauce were
Poinant and sharpe, and redy all his gere.
His table, dormant in his halle, alway
Stode redy covered alle the longe day.

At sessions ther was he lord and sire;
Ful often time he was knight of the shire.
An anelaces and a gipcieres all of silk
Heng at his girdel, white as morwe milk.
A shereve hadde he ben and a countour.
Was no wher swiche a worthy vavasour.7
An Haberdasher, and a Carpenter,
A Webbe, a Deyer, and a Tapiser,
Were alle yclothed in 08 livere
Of a solempne and grete fraternite.

Ful freshe and newe hir gere ypiked was;
Hir knives were ychaped not with bras,

But all with silver wrought full clene and wel,
Hir girdeles and hir pouches, every del.
Wel semed eche of hem a fayre burgeis,
To sitten in a gild halle, on the deis.
Everich, for the wisdom that he can,
Was shapelich for to ben an alderman.
For catel hadden they ynough, and rent.
And, eke, hir wives wolde it wel assent,
And elles certainly they were to blame,
It is full fayre to ben ycleped Madame-
And for to gon to vigiles all before,
And have a mantel reallich ybore.

A good Wif was ther of beside Bathe; But she was som del defe, and that was scathe. Of cloth making she hadde swiche an haunt, She passed hem of Ipres, and of Gaunt. In all the parish, wif ne was ther non That to the offring before hire shulde gonAnd if ther did, certain so wroth was she, That she was out of alle charitee. Hire coverchiefs weren ful fine of ground, (I dorste swere they weyeden a pound), That on the Sonday were upon hire hede: Hire hosen weren of fine scarlet rede, Ful streite yteyed, and shoon ful moist and newe. Bold was hire face, and fayre and rede of hew. She was a worthy woman all hire live: Housbondes, at the chirche dore, had she had five, Withouten other compagnie in youthe, But thereof nedeth not to speke as nouthe. And thries hadde she ben at Jerusaleme; She had passed many a strange streme: At Rome she hadde ben, and at Boloigne, In Galice at Seint James, and at Coloine: She coude moche of wandring by the way, Gat-tothed was she, sothly for to say. Upon an ambler esily she sat, Ywimpled wel; and on hire hede an hat As brode as is a bokeler, or a targe; A fore-mantel about hire hippes large; And on hire fete a pair of sporres sharpe. In felawship, wel coude she laughe and carpe Of remedies of love she knew perchance; For, of that arte, she coude the olde dance. Ther was also a Reve and a Millere, A Sompnour, and a Pardoner also, A Manciple, and myself; ther n'ere no mo. The Miller was a stout carl for the nones, Ful bigge he was of braun, and eke of bones; That proved wel; for over all ther he came, At wrastling he wold bere away the ram. He was short shuldered, brode, a thikke gnarre,1 Ther n'as no dore, that he n'olde heve of barre, Or breke it at a renning with his hede. His berd as any sowe or fox was rede, And therto brode, as though it were a spade: Upon the cop right of his nose he hade A wert, and theron stode a tufte of heres, Rede as the bristles of a sowes eres : His nose-thirles blacke were and wide. A swerd and bokeler bare he by his side. His mouth as wide was as a forneis: He was a jangler, and a goliardeis,2 And that was most of sinne and harlotries. Wel coude he stelen corne and tollen thries. And yet he had a thomb of gold parde. A white cote and a blew hode wered he. A baggepipe wel coude he blowe and soune, And therwithall he brought us out of toune. The Reve was a slendre colerike man; His berd was shave as neighe as ever he can: His here was by his eres round yshorne ; His top was docked like a preest beforne: Ful longe were his legges, and ful lene, Ylike a staff, ther was no calf ysene. Wel coude he kepe a garner and a binne; Ther was non auditour coude on him winne. Wel wiste he, by the drought and by the rain, The yelding of his seed and of his grain. His fordes shepe, his nete,3 and his deirie,4 His swine, his hors, his store, and his pultrie, Were holly in this Reves governing; And by his covenant yave he rekening, Sin that his lord were twenty yere of age; Ther coude no man bring him in arerage.

2