This Tale is generally fuppofed to be taken from The Decameron, d. viii. n. 1, but I fhould rather be lieve that Chaucer was obliged to fome older French fableour, from whom Boccace had alfo borrowed the ground-work of his novel, as in the cafe of The Reve's Tale. Upon either fuppofition a great part of the incidents must probably have been of his own invention.

$32. The tranfition from the Tale of The Shipman to that of The Prioreffe is happily managed. I have not been able to difcover from what legende of The Miracles of our Lady The Prioreffe's Tale is taken. From the fcene being laid in Afia it should seem that this was one of the oldeft of the many stories which have been propagated, at different times, to excite or juftify feveral mercilefs perfecutions of the Jews upon the charge of murthering Chriftian children (27.) The ftory of Hugh of Lincoln, which is mentioned in in the last stanza,

the year 1255.

placed by Matthew Paris under

(27) In the first four months of the Acta San&orum, by Bollandus, I find the following names of children canonized, as having been murdered by Jews; xxv Mart. Willielmus Norwicenfis, 1144. Richardus, Parifiis, 1179. xvii Apr. Rudolphus, Bernæ, 1287. Wernerus, Wefaliæ. an. eod. Albertus, Poloniæ, 1598. I suppose the remaining eight months would furnith at leaft as many more. See a Scottish ballad [Rel, of Anc. Poet. v. i. p. 32,] upon one of thefe fuppofed murders. The editor has very ingeniously conjectured that Mirryland, in ver. 1, is a corruption of Milan. Perhaps the real occafion of the ballad may have been what is faid to have happened at Trent in 1475 to a boy called Simon. The Cardinal Haerian, about fifty years after, mentioning the rocks of 'Trent, adds, “quo Judæi ob Si"monis cædem ne afpirare quidem audent." Pref. ad librum de Serm. Lat. The change of the name in the fong from Simon to Hugh is natural enough in this country, where fimilar ftorics of Hugh of Norwich and Hugh of Lincoln had been long

current.

$33. Next to the Prioreffe Chaucer himself is called upon for his Tale. In the Prologue he has dropped a few touches defcriptive of his own person and manner, by which we learn that he was used to look much upon the ground, was of a corpulent habit, and referved in his behaviour. His Rime of Sire Topas was clearly intended to ridicule the pulpable grofs fictions of the common rhymers of that age, and fill more, perhaps, the meaanels of their language and vertinication. It is full of phrafes taken from Ifumbras, Lį beaus Defconus, and other romances in the fame ftyle, which are ftill extant. A few of his imitations of them will be pointed out in the Notes,

$34. For the more complete reprobation of this fpecies of rhyming even the Hoft, who is not to be fufpected of too refined a tafte, is made to cry out against it, and to cut fhort Sive Thopas in the midil of his adventures, Chaucer has nothing to fay for his rhyme but that it is the befte be can, Ever. 13856,] and readily confents to tell another Tale; but having just laughed fo freely at the bad poetry of his time he might think it, perhaps, too invidious to exhibit a fpecimen of better in his own perfon, and therefore his other Tale is in profe, a mere tranflation from Le Livre de Melibee et de Dame Pridan, of which feveral copies are still preferved in mf. (28.) It is in truth, as he calls it, [ver. 13868,] u morul iale vertuous, and was probably much esteemed in its time, but in this age of levity I doubt fome readers will be apt to regret that he did not rather give us the remainder of Sire Thopas.

(28) Two copies of this work are in the Museum, mss. Reg, 19 C. vii, and 19 C. xi, in French profe. Du Frefuoy, Biblioth, des Romans, v. ii. p. 248, mentions two copies of the fame work en vers, dans la Bibiotheque Seguier.

$35. The Prologue of The Monke's Tale connects it with Melibee. The Tale itfelf is certainly formed upon the plan of Boccace's great work De cafibus Virorum Illuftrium, but Chaucer has taken the feveral ftories of which it is compofed from different authors, who will be particularized in the Notes.

§ 36. After a reasonable number of melancholy ditties or tragedies, as the Monk calls them, he is interrupted by the Knight, and the Hoft addreffes himfelf to the Nonne's Preeft to tell them fwiche thing as may their beries glade.

The Tale of the Nonne's Preeft is cited by Dryden, together with that of The Wife of Bath, as of Chaucer's own invention. But that great poet was not very converfant with the authors of which Chaucer's library feems to have been compofed. The Wife of Bathe's Tale has been fhewn above to be taken from Gower, and the fable of the Cock and the Fox, which makes the ground of The Nonne's Preefte's Tale, is clearly borrowed from a collection of Æfopean and other fables by Marie, a French poetefs, whofe collection of lais has been mentioned before in n. 24. As her fable is fhort and well told, and has never been printed, I fhall infert it here at length (29,) and the more will

(29) From mf. Harl. 978. f. 76.

D un cok recunte, ki eflot
Sur un femer, e fi chantot.
Par de lez li vient un gupilz,
Si l'apela par muz beaus diz.
Sire, fet il, muz te vei hel;
-Unc ne vi fi gent oifel.

Clere voiz as fur tute rien,
Fors tun pere, qe jo vi bien;
Unc oifel neuz ne chanta;
Mes il le fift meuz, kar il clura.
Si puis jeo fere, dift li cocs.
Les eles bat, les oilz ad clos,

ingly because it furnishes a convincing proof how able Chaucer was to work up an excellent Tale out of very fmall materials.

Chanter quida plus derement.
Li gupil faut, e fil prent;
Vers la forest od lui f'en va.
Par mi un champ, u ii passa,
Curent apres tut li paftur;
Li chiens le huent tut entur.
Veit le gupil, kile cok tient,
Mar le guaina fi par eus vient.
Va, fet li cocs, fi lur eferie,
Qe fui tuens, ne me larras mie.
Li gupil volt parier en haut,
E li cocs de fa puche faut.
Sur un haut fuit s'e muntez.
Quant li gupilz s'eft reguardez,
Mut par fe tient enfantille,
Que li cocs l'ad fi enginne.
De mal talent e de droit ire
La buche commence a maudire,
Ke parole quant devereit taire.
Li cocs refpunt, fi dei jeo faire,
Maudire l'oil, ki volt cluiner,
Quant il deit guarder e guaiter,
Que mai ne vient a lur Seiguur.

Ceo funt li fol tut li plafur,
Parolent quant deivent taifer,
Teifent quant il deivent parler.

The resemblance of Chaucer's Tale to this fable is obvious, and it is the more probable that he really copied from Marie, because no fuch fable is to be found either in the Greek Alop or in any of the Latin compilations (that I have seen) which went about in the dark ages under the name of Æfop. Whether it was invented by Marie, or whether the translated it, with the rest of her fables, from the Anglo-Saxon verfion of Æfop by King Alfred, (as the fays herself) Icannot pretend to determine. Though no Anglo-Saxon verfion of Æfop be now (as I can find) extant, there may have been one formerly, which may have palled like many other translations into that language) undertle name of Alfred; and it may be urged in support of the probability of Marie's positive affertion, that the appears, from paila

$37. The fixteen lines which are printed at the end of The Nonne's Preefte's Tale might perhaps more properly be confidered as the beginning of the Prologue to the fucceeding Tale, if it were certain what Tale was intended to fucceed. In both Dr. Afkew's mil. the last of thefe lines is read thus,

Seide unto the Nunne as ye thul heer

and there are fix more lines to introduce her Tale; but as thefe fix lines are manifeftly forged for the purpofe I have chofen rather to adhere to the other mif. which acknowledge themfelves defective in this part, and give us The Nonne's Tale as I have done, without any introduction. It is very probable, I think, that Chaucer himself had not determined whether he fhould connect The Nonne's Tale with that of The Nonne's Preeft, or whether he should interpofe a 'Tale or two, or perhaps more, between them.

The Tale of the Nonne is almoft literally tranflated from the life of St. Cecilia in the Legenda Aurea of Jacobus Januenfis. It is mentioned by Chaucer as a feparate work in his Legende of Good Women, [ver. 426,] under the title of The Life of Seint Cecile, and it fall retains evident marks that it was not originally compofed in the form of a Tale to be Spoken by the

ges in her lais, to liave had fome knowledge of English. I muft obferve that the name of the king, whofe Englith verfion the profefles to follow, is differently flated in different mff. In the beft mf. Harl. 978, it is plainly Li reis Allured; in a later ms. Vefp. D. xiv, it is Li reis Henris. Pafquier [Recherches, 1. viii. c. i,] calls him Li roy Auuert; and Du Chefne (as quoted by Menage, v. Roman) Li rois Mires: but all the copies agree in making Marie declare that the tranflated her work de l'Anglois en Roman. A Latin Æsop, mf. Reg. 15 A. vii, has the same Bory of an English verfion by order of a Rex Angliæ Aflrus.