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It is, indeed, worthy of particular note, how judiciously the poet has adapted throughout, not only the subjects of the respective narratives to the characters, conditions, and consequent associations of the respective narrators; but with what wonderful tact (or intuition rather) he has accommodated the style and language of each to the intellectual, educational, and moral habits, which should, in the course of things, pertain to them. The very dialects of the respective speakers are obviously, and, in many instances, strikingly different marking their provincial, as well as their professional distinctions: in their tales, quite as much as in their dialogue. This of course must have been still more conspicuous to Chaucer's contemporaries than it can be to us: though still we may distinguish many essential varieties, in all their shades and gradations, from the patois of the provincial and mechanic vulgar, to the polished diction of the courtly and the classic book-style of the professionally learned.

It would be an exercise both amusing and instructive to trace the upward progress of these characteristic dialects, accordant with the educational privations or advantages of the respective speakers, and the degrees of approximation in their language towards the current English of the present day. Nor would the effect be unobvious, even upon the rhythmical emphasis, the differences in the syllabic disposition of which constitutes so much of the apparent difference between the harmony of the olden and of our present polished versification.

Of this discrimination, as well as of the characteristically decorous finesse of the host, a further example might indeed be found in what immediately follows: for "the Doctor of Physic" is now respectfully called upon to "tell us a tale" of some honest matter. In conformity with which, and in a style frequently but little remote from the book language of the present day, he gives us a poetical version of the tragical story of Virginia, professedly from Livy.

Of this virgin martyr to a Roman's sense of honour, we are told (and we quote, without the alteration of a single syllable, except in the fashion of the spelling)

That" in her living maidens mighten read,

As in a book, every good word and deed
That 'longeth to a maiden virtuous:
She was so prudent and so bounteous.

For which the fame outsprung on every side
Both of her beauty and her bounty wide,

That, through the land, they praised her each one
That loved virtue-save envy alone."

The sympathy of the host, as excited by this "woeful tragedy," is so mingled with his peculiar vein of humour, that we are tempted (with a little occasional accommodation to the demands of modern ears and the usages of modern pronunciation, in the arrangement of the syllables) to transcribe the whole.

Our host began to swear, as he were wood:

"Harrow," quod he, "by nails, and eke by blood,
A most false churl was this and false justice.
As shameful death as heart can e'er devise
Come to these judges and their advocas.
Algate this simple maid is slain, alas!
Alas! too dearly she her beauty bought.
Whereof I say each day may man be taught
That gifts of fortune, and that gifts of nature,
Are cause of death full oft to many a creature.
Her beauty was hir death, may well be sain;
Alas! so pitiously as she was slain.

From both the gifts that here I speak of now
Men have full often more of harm than prow. [profit]

"But truly say I mine own master dear,

This was a piteous tale for ear to hear:

But natheless pass over; 'tis no force. [no matter]

"I pray to God to save thy gentle corps,
And eke thyne urinals and thy jordánès
Thyne Ypocras, and eke thy Galliánes,
And every boxful of thy lectuarie;

God bless them, and our lady, good Saint Marie.

"So might I thrive thou art a proper man,

And like a prelate, by Saint Ronian;

Said I not well? In terms I cannot speak,

But well I wot thou dost my heart to break,

That I have almost caught a cardiacle:

By corpus domini I must have a triacle, [a restorative]

Or else a draught of moist and corny ale;

Or, but I hear anon a merry tale,

My heart is lost for pity of this maid.

Thou bel amy, thou Pardoner, (he said,)

Tell us some mirth of gibing right anon."

"It shall be done," quod he, " by Saint Ronion.

But first (quod he) here at this ale-stake

I will both drink and biten at a cake."

The "gentilles," however, (the better sort of the Pilgrims,) cry out against having any of his "ribaudrie," and bid him "tell some moral thing." To which the itinerant dealer in relics and dispensations assents; adding, however,

"but I must think

Upon some honest thing, while that I drink."

The honest thing that follows is, first, a description of his preachings and his traffic, given in such a style as sufficiently to shew that it would have required no thinking time to have prepared him for "japes and ribaudry;" and then a story, not unfit to have formed a part of one of the sermons of vulgar cajollery, which he has described himself as in the habit of ranting to his customers. In the end, however, he offers to his fellow pilgrims in general, and, ludicrously enough, to the host in particular, as most enveloped in sin," bargains of his soul-saving pedlary; calling on the latter to "unbuckle his purse," and " he shall kiss the relikes everich one, for a groat." A proposal which honest bailly treats with such ludicrous contempt, that the huckster of holy "trumpery" waxes wroth: to prevent the mirth-marring consequences of which, the worthy knight interferes; and the parties being quickly reconciled,

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"Anon they kissed, and riden forth their way."

The phrases" for Goddes bones" and " by Goddes dignity," with which the call for a tale from "the Good Parson" is interspersed, reveal another trait in the character of the host and of the times: for the parson exclaiming, "Benedicite!

What aileth thee man, so sinfully to swear?"

our host immediately calls out that he " smells a lollard in the wind," and forebodes" a predication."

"This loller here will preachen us somewhat."

So that, it seems, forbearance from ribaldry and profane swearing, in the age of Edward the Third, and of Wickliff, was a proof of heresy, as the same forbearances were of disloyalty, in that of Charles the Second. From the dreaded "predica tion," however, they are relieved by the rude and boisterous interference of "the Shipman," who swears by his father's soul" they will have "no gospel glosen," and insists upon telling his tale; adding,

"And I shall clinken you so merry a bell,

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That I shall waken all this company:
But it shall not ben of philosophy,
Nor of physic, nor of quaint terms of law:
There is but little Latin in my maw."

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The shipman is as good as his word, and monks and con fessors have their full share of the biting inference of the tale,* and the host having sustained the humour of his character in a hearty, "Well said, by corpus Domini," and "God give the monke a thousand last quad year," [a thousand bushels of bad years, or misfortunes,] &c. (for the orthodoxy of our host is not, as has been seen, of a very reverential description) he next displays again the more courteous shade of his character; and turning to the Lady Prioress, (who has been described in the prologue as the fine lady of Saintship-the very quintessence of conventual high breeding,) addresses her in terms

"As curteisly as it had been a maid,"

and requests of her

"A tale the next, if so were that ye would.

Now will ye so vouchsafe my lady dear?"

The lady dear recites, of course, a holy legend-the martyrdom-that of Yonge Heir of Lincoln" by the "cursed

Jews."

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Every man of the company on hearing this woful "miracle," of course,

"So sober was, that wonder was to see;" till our host, who has but little propension to such sobriety, renews his gibes, and calls upon Chaucer for his tale; which puts us in possession of a physiognomical sketch of our author from his own hand.

"What man art thou?" quod he.

“Thou lookest, as thou wouldest find an hare;
For ever on the ground I see thee share.

Approach thou near, and look up merrily.

Now, wave you, Sirs, and let this man have place.
He in the waste is shapen as well as I :
This were a popet in an arm to embrace
For any woman small and fair of face.
He seemeth elvish in his countenance,

For to no wight doeth he dalliance.

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Say somewhat now, since other folks have said:
Tell us a tale of mirth, and that anon."

*It is worthy of remark, however, that though this characteristic gibe of orthodox prejudice is put into the mouth of the host, and echoed by the shipman, no tale reflecting on the Lollards, or calculated to feed the bigotted prejudice against them, occurs in the collection. The superior mind of Chaucer, like that of Shakspeare, knew how to mark, in their proper place, the prejudices and peculiarities of religious factions, without ministering to or inflaming them.

Chaucer replies, that

"other tale for certes he can non,

But of a rime he learned yore agon :"

and recites a fit and a half of the Reine of Sire Topas," evidently introduced to ridicule the minstrel romances of the day. The affected verbiage and descriptive nothingness of this is, however, too much for the shrewd common sense of our host to endure; (though it reminds us, a little, of some of the puffed-up fashionable poetry of our own days,) and he suddenly breaks in upon the recitation :

"No more of this, for Goddes dignity;
Mine ears are aking of thy drafty speech."

He goes on to say,

that

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and Chaucer, modestly pretending that he can do no better in verse, substitutes the prose " tale of Melibus," and of his wife Patience, whose forbearing virtue, by no very agreeable species of association, recalls, with added force, to the mind of our host, the remembrance of his own refractory rib.

The picture he draws of this turbulent and inveterate shrew, together with what immediately ensues as prologue to the Monk's Tale, is so rich in humour, and so illustrative at once of the comic genius of our author, and the characteristic manners of the age, that (with the usual attention to the removal of a few obscurities) we shall venture to add it to the ample quotations already presented.

"When ended was my tale of Melibe,
And of Prudence and her benignity,
Our host, he said, "As I'm a faithful man,
And by the precious corpus Madrian,

I had more leve than of a barrel of ale,

That goody lefe, my wife, had heard this tale:
For she is no such patient, on my life,

As was this Prudence-Melibeus' wife.

"Now, by God's bones, whene'er I beat my kuaves,

She bringeth to me the great clubbed staves,
And cryeth, Slay the dogs, man, every one,
And break both back of them and every bone.'

And if that any neighbour be of mine
That not in church will to my wife encline,
Or be so hardy not to do her grace,

When she comes home she rampeth in my face,

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