Maner : fate de 15 my ma is Catetery Ze la i ze jen a jens hoved to the Daten Be a more ne pe suposed to it te ime y de jesus galing sa års 11 & soczty ious year Furan bung i te i la Umoser's plan is Cia: A smpany of some very plus eclect * tie Tür In Svä sai ie the shine of St. Tuna ibiza (eg The mider påharing contains

mena i masy Fay darke da timme in the streets ud iones of Engind Ate the Fringe his described the exgay ni ter start a brave Smiz tezed by the Syrian 1 te frst the The fu.vs the Vie -éveken of we;" and the nie ges mod fa many, but sometimes of vila vE billing the miles of the weary road As Chancer kevin the plan of the work in his Frigne each pizzim ought to bill two stories when ging to Canterbury, and two more on the komeward way; and the whole proceedings were to be wound up with a supper at the Tabard where the teller of the best tales was to be entertained by the rest of the band The poet did not live to complete his design. Twenty-four tales only are given; the arrival at Canterbury, the scenes at the shrine, the tales of the return, the wind-up supper, are all untold. Two of the stories -the Tale of Melbus and the Persones Tale-are in prose, and afford a very favourable specimen of Chaucer's power in that kind of writing. Nothing could surpass the "Canterbury Tales," as a series of pictures of the middle-class English life during the fourteenth century. Every character is a perfect study, drawn from the life with a free yet careful hand,-in effect broad, and brilliant in colour, but painted with a minuteness of touch and a careful finish that remind us strongly of the elaborate pencilling of our Pre Raphaelite artists, whose every ivy-leaf and straw is a perfect picture,

This great work was written during the quiet sunset of

CHAUCER'S MINOR WORKS.

57

the poet's life, when, after his sixtieth year, he rested from the toils and troubles of a public career. It is composed in pentameter couplets,-a form of verse thoroughly suited to the spirit of our English tongue, and used by almost all the great masters of our literature. The abundance of French words in the language of Chaucer is easily accounted for by the fact that French was not in the poet's day quite superseded as the speech of the upper classes in England. Many of Chaucer's words require a French accentuation; such as aventúre, licóur, coráge. There has been much discussion about the true way of reading Chaucer; some maintaining that the rhythm is to be preserved by certain pauses, while others, following Tyrwhitt, sound as a separate syllable the e, which is now silent at the end of so many words. Most prefer the latter method, which has the advantage of giving to the language an antique air, suitable to the cast of the plot and the period of the poem. The ed at the end of certain verbs, and the es terminating nouns in the plural number or the possessive case, are always to be made separate syllables.

The

Most of Chaucer's minor and earlier works are either in part or altogether translated from French, Italian, and Latin. The Court of Love, and a heavy tragic poem in five books, called Troilus and Creseide, are thought to have been the work of his college days. The Romaunt of the Rose is an allegory, in which the troubled course of true love is painted in rich descriptive verse. House of Fame depicts a dream, in which the poet is borne by a huge eagle to a temple of beryl, built on a rock of ice, where he sees the Goddess of Fame dispensing her favours from a carbuncle throne. The Legende of Goode Women narrates some passages in the lives of Cleopatra, Dido, Ariadne, and other dames of old classic renown. But most beautiful of all these is the allegory called The Flour and the Lefe, of which the plot is thus given: "A gentlewoman out of an arbour, in a grove, seeth a great companie of knights and ladies in a daunce upon the greene grasse; the which being ended, they all kneele down, and do honour to the daisie, some to the flower, and some to the leafe. The meaning hereof is this:-They which honour the flower, a thing fadi

58

"THE KNIGHT AND THE SQUIER."

with every blast, are such as looke after beautie and worldly pleasure. But they that honour the leafe, which abideth with the root, notwithstanding the frosts and winter storms, are they which follow vertue and during qualities without regard of worldly respects." While a prisoner in the Tower, Chaucer wrote, in imitation of Boethius, his longest prose work, called The Testament of Love.

In closing our sketch of Geoffrey Chaucer, the recorded opinions of a great poet and a great critic are well worthy of remembrance. While Spenser says,—

That renowned Poet

Dan Chaucer, well of English undefyled,

On Fame's eternall beadroll worthy to be fyled,

no less a literary judge than Hallam classes him with Dante and Petrarch in the great poetic triumvirate of the Middle Ages. The following are specimens of Chaucer's verse:

66 THE FLOUR AND THE LEFE."

Of fustian he wered a gipon,

Alle besmotred with his habergeon.

For he was late ycome from his viage,

And wente for to don his pilgrimage.

With him ther was his sone a yongé SQUIER, A lover, and a lusty bacheler,

59

[a short cassock

[smutted

[voyage

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 chevachie,
In Flaundres, in Artois, and in Picardie,
And borne him wel, as of so litel space,
In hope to stonden in his ladies grace.

Embrouded was he, as it were a mede
Alle ful of fresshe floures, white and rede.
Singing he was, or floyting alle the day,
He was as fresshe 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,

[curled

[nimble

[an expedition

[embroidered

playing on the flute

Juste and eke dance, and wel pourtraie and write.
So hote he loved, that by nightertale

He slep no more than doth the nightingale.
Curteis he was, lowly, and servisable,
And carf before his fader at the table.

[relate

[the night-time

carved.

STANZAS FROM "THE FLOUR AND THE LEFE."

And at the last I cast mine eye aside,
And was ware of a lusty company
That came roming out of the field wide,
Hond in hond a knight and a lady;
The ladies all in surcotes, that richely
Purfiled were with many a rich stone,
And every knight of green ware mantles on.

Embrouded well so as the surcotes were,
And everich had a chapelet on her hed,
Which did right well upon the shining here,
Made of goodly floures white and red,
The knightes eke, that they in honde led,
In sute of hem ware chapelets everichone,
And before hem went minstrels many one,

[kirtles

[worked on the edge

[hair

[imitation-them