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THE SERJEANT-OF-LAW.

51

a gentleman; well educated, and to a certain extent accomplished. Gaily does he go forth

• Embroudid was he as it were a mede,

All ful of fresh flouris both white and rede.
Singing he was, and floitying all the day,
He was as fresh as in the month of May.
Short was his gown with slevis long and wide,

Wel couth he sit an hors, and faire yride.

And songis couth he make, and wel indite,

Just, and eke daunce, and wel portraie, and write."

The yeoman, attendant on this young gallant, clad as a forester, in coat and hood of green, and wearing under his belt a shalf of peacocke feathers bright and kene,' completes the picture. We see the pair issue from the hall door, the yeoman with his great bow in his hand, a sword and buckler by his side, whilst on his breast he wears a silver image of St. Christopher, the patron of field-sports and arbiter of the weather. His costume is thus completed

A horn he bare,-the baudrick was of grene.'

The Serjeant-of-Law, a bustling character, with all the appearance of business when he had not a brief, introducing the Norman-French, used in courts of law, into the conversation, might be drawn for many a barrister even of our own times, when the predilection for what in the Guards is termed 'talking pipeclay' is not extinct even out of the precincts of Westminster Hall.

But the most happy of all the characters is the Host. He is depicted as a large man,

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'A fayrer burgeis is there none in Chepe.'

Bold in speech, wise, well taught, with a certain pomposity of manner; yet he was a 'merry man,' portly, and worthy to take his place in noble, or even regal, entertainments—

'A semely man our hoste was withal,
To bene a marshal in a lordis hall.'

* Warton, vol. ii. p. 450.

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The Host provided as they travelled all the repasts of the pilgrims; and gained great credit for his success as a purveyor.

Grete chere our hostè made us everych one,
And to the suppere set us, he anone;

And servid us with vitailes of the best;

Strong was his wine, and wele to drink us lest.'*

And thus revived, it was easy for the Host to put every one into good humour; to encourage humour and talk; to divert anger and settle disputes; to marshal the company; and by his remarks to connect each tale into one continued poem. The Host is at once facetious and authoritative, the chorus of the whole piece.

The plan of the 'Canterbury Tales' was never finished by Chaucer. The scheme of making every pilgrim tell a story as he returned, as well as on his progress to the holy shrine, was not carried out; although Occleve, or Hockliffe, a poet coeval with Chaucer, contemplated and began a sequel of this description.

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Such is the outline of that work which may be said to form an era in the Literature of Society.' Chaucer had to contend against the difficulties of a barbarous language; he had to form in his countrymen a taste, which had scarcely dawned before his time. Endowed with an almost universal genius, he could paint familiar manners humorously; he could move the passions, touch the best feelings of the heart, and delineate the beauties of nature with sublimity. His works are obsolete only in language; in every variety of beauty they have still,-in thought, feeling, and fancy,—a freshness and originality that would cause them to be read and enjoyed in every age and every English home, could the indelicacy be expunged from poems so full of every species of excellence, yet abounding in the manifestations of a gross and immoral age.

*We liked.

CHAPTER III.

JOHN GOWER.

FRIENDSHIP BETWEEN HIM AND CHAUCER.

ORIGIN AND DOUBTFUL WHETHER HE

FAMILY OF GOWER DISPUTED BY HISTORIANS.
EVER BECAME A JUDGE, OR NOT. CONCLUSIONS DRAWN FROM HIS WEAR-
ING THE COLLAR OF SS. HIS ADHERENCE TO THOMAS OF WOODSTOCK.
SUPPOSED TO BE THE FIRST CROWNED POET IN ENGLAND. THE CHAPLET
HE WORE ADDUCED AS A PROOF. FULLER'S ANGRY OBSERVATIONS ON THIS
POINT. GOWER'S WORKS. THE 'CONFESSIO AMANTIS,' OR LOVER'S CON-
FESSION, DESCRIBED. GOWER ACKNOWLEDGED TO HAVE BEEN, WITH
CHAUCER, THE FATHER OR RESTORER OF ENGLISH POETRY. AS A POET
HIGHLY MORAL. CHAUCER'S LINES TO HIM. SPECIMEN OF GOWER'S
HIS DEATH. DESCRIPTION OF HIS TOMB IN ST. MARIE OVERIES.

--

STYLE.

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AMONG the varied groups of familiar associates who are said to have hung over the death-bed of Geoffrey Chaucer, there stood a blind old man, one of the earliest, one of the bestbeloved amongst the motley assemblage. Of noble form, with a face exquisitely proportioned,—if we may accept as a resemblance the figure on his tomb,-John Gower claims, amid that band of friends, the first place in the affections of Chaucer. They had studied together in the Inner Temple: there Chaucer found Gower already distinguished; there their intimacy grew; there they loved to talk, not only of poetry, but of the still graver interests of religion. Both held the same political, both the same polemical views. Each was attached, by service and loyal regard, to a member of the royal family;-Chaucer to John of Gaunt, Gower to Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester. Here, as Leland tells us, in the quaint chambers of that building which has had beneath its roof so many great men, these two poets and reformers used to argue without anger, and rally each other without pique; the great argument being which should honour the other most. And this affectionate respect, the only true foundation of friendship, lasted until Chaucer sank into the tomb.

Gower, it appears, was the elder of the two: over his birth, there has ever rested an obscurity which is of little moment,

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