to the Canterbury Tales. The various pilgrims at the Tabard can be seen and painted. Observe, for example, the fine touches in the picture of the friar:—

"Somewhat he lisped for his wantonness

To make his English sweet upon his tongue;
And in his harping, when that he had sung,
His eyen twinkled in his head aright,

As do the starres in a frosty night."

Though Dryden and Goldsmith have imitated Chaucer in describing an ideal pastor, they have both fallen below their master. Yet with this keenness of observation, this power to detect the peculiarities and foibles of men, there is no admixture of cynicism. There is satire, but it is thornless. Chaucer's writings are pervaded by an atmosphere of genial humor, kindness, tolerance, humanity. He says of the lawyer,

"No where so busy a man as he there n'as,

And yet he seemed busier than he was.

He does full justice to the doctor of physic's various attainments, and then adds,

"His study was but litel on the Bible."

Chaucer's treatment of woman in his works is full of interest. He is fond of satirizing the foibles supposed to be peculiar to the sex. But he is not wholly lost to chivalrous sentiment, and nowhere else can we find higher and heartier praise of womanly patience, purity, and truth. He appears to have written the "Legend of Good Women as a kind of amends for the injustice done the sex in the rest of his writings. After all, his real sentiments, let us hope, are found in the following lines: :

"Alas, howe may we say on hem but well,
Of whom we were yfostered and ybore,
And ben all our socoure, and trewe as stele,
And for our sake ful oft they suffre sore?
Without women were al our joy ylore."'

To many other admirable traits, Chaucer added that of courage in misfortune. His cheerful humor never deserted him. In his latter years he was sometimes without money; but instead of repining, he made a song to his empty purse :— "I am sorry now that ye be so light,

For certes ye now make me heavy cheer."

There are passages in his works that are very offensive to modern taste; but they are not to be charged so much to Chaucer's love of indecency, as to the grossness of his age and to his artistic sense of justice. This is his own apology; and in the prologue to one of the most objectionable tales, he begs his gentle readers

"For Goddes love, as deme not that I say

Of evil intent, but that I mote reherse
Hir tales alle, al be they bettre or werse,
Or elles falsen some of my matere."

Then he adds the kindly warning:

"And therefore who so list it not to here,

Turn over the leef, and chese another tale."

Upon the whole, the estimate of James Russell Lowell seems discriminating and just: "If character may be divined by works, he was a good man, genial, sincere, hearty, temperate of mind, more wise, perhaps, for this world than the next, but thoroughly human, and friendly with God and man.”

Chaucer's literary career may be divided into three periods. The first period is characterized by the influence of French models. He began his literary life with the translation of the Roman de la Rose · a poem of more than 22,000 lines, composed in the preceding century by Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meung. In the original works that followed this translationamong which may be mentioned "The Court of Love" and "Chaucer's Dream" - the influence of French models is clearly apparent.

The second period is characterized by an Italian influence, which showed itself in a more refined taste and more elegant handling of material. Italy was the first modern nation to produce a notable literature. Before Chaucer was born, Dante had written the Divina Commedia; and when the English poet was but two years old, Boccaccio was crowned in the Capitol at Rome. When in 1372 Chaucer was sent on a mission to Italy, it is possible that he met Boccaccio and Petrarch. Be that as it may, there can be no doubt that his mission led to a greater interest in Italian literature, from which he borrowed some of his choicest stories. To the Italian period are to be ascribed "Troilus and Cressida," taken from Boccaccio, and "The House of Fame," in which the influence of Dante can be traced. Italy helped Chaucer to unfold his native powers.

The third period in his literary career is distinctly English. His powers reached their full maturity; and instead of depending upon foreign influence, the poet walked independent in his conscious strength. It was during this period, extending from about 1384 to the time of his death, that his greatest work, the 'Canterbury Tales," was produced.

This work calls for special notice. The idea seems to have been suggested by Boccaccio's Decameron. During the prevalence of the plague in Florence in 1348, seven ladies and three gentlemen, all young, rich, and cultivated, retire to a beautiful villa a few miles from the city; and in order to pass the time more agreeably, they relate to one another a series of tales. Such is the plan of the Decameron. Chaucer adopted the idea of a succession of stories, but invented a happier occasion for their narration.

One evening in April a company of twenty-nine pilgrims, of various conditions in life, meet at the Tabard, a London inn, on their way to the shrine of St. Thomas à Becket at Canterbury. At supper the jolly, amiable host offers to accompany them as guide; and in order to relieve the tedium of the journey, he proposes that each one shall tell two tales on the way to the tomb and the same number on their return. The

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one narrating the best tale is to receive a supper at the expense of the others. The poet joins the party; and in the Prologue" he gives us, with great artistic and dramatic power, a description of the pilgrims. The various classes of English society—a knight, a lawyer, a doctor, an Oxford student, a miller, a prioress, a monk, a farmer - are all placed before us with marvellous distinctness. Not a single peculiarity of feature, dress, manner, or character escapes the microscopic scrutiny of the poet. The tales that followthe whole number contemplated was never completed adapted to the several narrators; and, taken altogether, they form the greatest literary work ever composed on the same plan.

are

THE PROLOGUE.

WHAN that Aprille with his schowres swoote
The drought of Marche hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertue engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breethe
Enspired hath in every holte and heethe
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours i-ronne,
And smale fowles maken melodie,
That slepen al the night with open eye,
So priketh hem nature in here corages:
Thanne longen folk to gon on pilgrimages,
And palmers for to seeken straunge strondes,
To ferne halwes, kouthe in sondry londes:
And specially, from every schires ende

Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende,

The holy blisful martir for to seeke,

That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke.

Byfel that, in that sesoun on a day,

In Southwerk at the Tabard as I lay,
Redy to wenden on my pilgrimage
To Caunterbury with ful devout corage,
At night was come into that hostelrie
Wel nyne and twenty in a compainye,
Of sondry folk, by aventure i-falle

In felaweschipe, and pilgryms were thei alle,
That toward Caunterbury wolden ryde;
The chambres and the stables weren wyde,
And wel we weren esed atte beste.
And schortly, whan the sonne was to reste,
So hadde I spoken with hem everychon,
That I was of here felaweschipe anon,
And made forward erly for to ryse,
To take our wey ther as I yow devyse.

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