But dwelte at hoom, and kepte wel his folde,
So that the woif ne made it not myscarye.
He was a schepherde and no mercenarie;
And though he holy were, and vertuous,
He was to sinful man nought dispitous,
Ne of his speche daungerous ne digue, (1)
But in his teching discret and benigne.
To drawe folk to heven by fairnesse,
By good ensample, this was his busynesse:
But it were eny person obstinat,

What so he were, of high or lowe estat,

Him wolde he snybbe scharply for the nones. (2)

A bettre preest I trowe ther nowher non is.

He waytede after no pompe and reverence,

Ne makede him a spiced conscience,

But Cristes lore, and his apostles twelve,
He taughte, and first he folwede it himselve.

We have a pardoner from Rome, with some sacred relics-as part of the Virgin Mary's veil, and part of the sail of St. Peter's ship-and who is also brimful of pardons come from Rome all hot.' Among the humbler characters are, a 'stout carl' of a miller, a reve or bailiff, and a sompnour or church apparitor, who summoned offenders before the archdeacon's court, but whose fire-red face and licentious habits contrast curiously with the nature of his duties. A shipman, cook, haberdasher, &c., make up the goodly, company--the whole forming such a genuine Hogarthian picture, that we may exclaim, in the eloquent language of Campbell: What an intimate scene of English life in the fourteenth century do we enjoy in these tales, beyond what history displays by glimpses through the stormy atmosphere of her scenes, or the antiquary can discover by the cold light of his researches Chaucer's contemporaries and their successors were justly proud of this national work. Many copies existed in manuscript (a SIX-text edition is now in progress); and when the art of printing came to England, one of the primary duties of Caxton's press was to issue an impression of these inimitable creations.

*

All the pilgrims in the Canterbury Tales' do not relate stories. Chaucer had not, like Boccaccio, finished his design; for he intended, as we have said, to have given a second series on the return of the company from Canterbury, as well as an account of the transactions in the city when they reached the sacred shrine. The concluding supper at the Tabard, when the successful competitor was to be declared, would have afforded a rich display for the poet's peculiar humour. The parties who do not relate tales-as the poem has reached us-are the yeoman, the ploughman, and the five city mecanics. Like Shakspeare, Chaucer was content to borrow most of the outlines of his plots or stories. The Knight's Tale-the most chivalrous and romantic of the series-is founded on the Theseida of

1 Not high or haughty.

2 Sanb sharply for the occasion.

*Much has been done to elucidate the works of the Father of English Poetry by Mr R. Morris, the Rev. Mr. Skeat. Mr. Ellis. Mr. Furnival, and the Chaucer Society. They may be said to have given quite a revival to the old poet.

Boccaccio. The Clerk's Tale, so touching in its simplicity and pathos, has also an Italian origin. The Clerk says:

The tale thus learned is the pathetic story of Patient Griselde, which was written by Boccaccio, and only translated into Latin by Petrarch. It appears that Petrarch did not translate this tale from Boccaccio's 'Decameron' until the end of September 1373, and Chaucer was in England on the 22d of November following, as is proved by his having that day received his pension in person. But whether or not the two poets ever met, the Italian journey of Chaucer, and the fame and works of Petrarch, must have fired the ambition of the accomplished Englishman, and greatly refined and elevated his literary taste. As a model or example of wifely obedience and implicit faith, this story of Griselde long kept up its celebrity, both in prose and verse. The husband of Griselde certainly carried his trial of his wife's submission to the last extremity-worse even than the trial of the Nut-Brown Maid-when he ordered her to quit his house to make room for a new wife! But even this Griselde could endure:

'And of your new wife God of his grace
So grant you weal and prosperité;
For I will gledly yielden her my place,
In which that I was blissful wont to be.
For sith it liketh you, my lord,' quod she,
'That whilom were all mine herte's rest,
That I shall gon, I will go whap you list.

'But thereas ye profre me such dowayre
As I first brought, it is well in my mind
It were my wretched clothes, no thing fair,
The which to me were hard now for to find.
O good God! how gentle and how kind

Ye seemed by your speech and your visage
The day that maked was our marriage!'

Griselde, the 'flower of wifely patience,' goes to her father's house. But at length the marquis, her husband, sends for her, declares that he has been merely playing an assumed part, that he will have no other wife, nor ever had, and she is introduced to her two children whom she believed dead:

When she this heard, aswoone down she falleth
For piteous joy; and after her swooning
She both her young children to her calleth,
And in her armés piteously weeping,
Embraceth them, and tenderly kissing
Full like a mother, with her salte tears,
She bathed both her visage and her hairs.

O, such a piteous thing it was to see

Her swooning, and her humble voice to hear!

'Grand mercy, lord! God thank it you,' quoth she,

That ye
have saved me my children dear;
Now reck I never to be dead right here
Since I stand in your love and in your grace,
No force of death, nor when my spirit pace.

'O, tender, dear, young children mine!
Your woful mother weened steadfastly,
That cruel houndes or some foul vermin
Had eaten you; but God of his mercy,
And your benign father tenderly

Hath done you keep;' and in that same stound
All suddenly she swapped down to ground.

And in her swoon so sadly holdeth she

Her children two, when she gan them embrace.
That with great sleight and great difficulty
The children from her arm they gan arrace. (1)
O many a tear or many a piteous face
Down ran of them that stooden her beside
Unuethe (2) abouten her might they abide.

The happy ending of the story and the husband's declaration:

I have done this deed

For no malice, ne for no cruelty,

But for t' assay thee in thy womanhood

will not reconcile the reader to his marital experiment; but such tales appear to have been more suited to the ideas of the spinsters and knitters in the sun' in the old age.' The Squire's Tale, 'the story of Cambuscan bold,' by which Milton characterises Chaucer, has not been traced to any other source. For two of his stories-the 'Man of Law's Tale,' and the 'Wife of Bath's Tale,' Chaucer was indebted to the Confessio Amantis' of his contemporary Gower. Boccaccio was laid under contribution for other outlines, but the influence of French literature was perhaps more predominant with the poet than that of Italy. The Prioress's Tale, the scene of which is laid in Asia, is supposed to be taken from some legend of the miracles of the Virgin, one of the oldest of the many stories, which have been propagated at different times, to excite or justify several merciless persecutions of the Jews upon the charge of murdering Christian children.' The Nun's Priest's Tale (containing the fable of the cock and the fox) and the Merchant's Tale (modernised by Pope) have some minute painting of natural objects and scenery in Chaucer's clear and simple style. The tales of the Miller and Reve are coarse, but richly humorous. The following extracts are slightly modernised:

The Poor Country Widow.-From the Nun's Priest's Tale.
A poor widow, somedeal stoop'n in age,
Was whilom dwelling in a narwe cottage
Beside a grove standing in a dale.
This widow, which I tell you of my tale,
Since thilke day that she was last a wife,
In patience led a full simple life,

For little was her cattle and her rent;
By husbandry of such as God her sent,
She found herself and eke her daughters two.
Three large sowés had she, and no mo,

Three kine, and eke a sheep that hight Mail:
Full sooty was her bower and eke her hall,
In which she ate full many a slender meal;
Of poignant sauce her needed never a deal ;
No dainty morsel passed through her throat;
Her diet was accordant to her coat:
Repletion ne made her never sick;
Attemper diet was all her physic,
And exercise, and heartés suffisance;
The goute let (1) her nothing for to dance,

Ne apoplexy shente (2) not her head;

No wine ne drank she neither white nor red;

Her board was served most with white and black,
Milk and brown bread. in which she found no lack,
Seinde (3) bacon, and sometime an egg or tway,
For she was as it were a manner dey. (4)
A yard she had, enclosed all about
With sticks, and a dry ditch without,

In which she had a cock hight Chanticleer,

In all the land, of crowing n'as his peer.

His voice was merrier than the merry organ,

On massé-days that in the churché gon;
Well sickerer (5) was his crowing in his lodge,
Than is a clock, or an abbey horologe.
By nature knew he each ascension
Of equinoctial in that town:

For when degrees fifteen were ascended,
Then crew he that it might not be amended.
His comb was redder than the fine coral,
And 'battled as it were a castle wall;
His bill was black, and as the jet it shone;
Like azure were his legs and his ton; (6)
His nails whiter than the lily flower,

And like the burnished gold was his colour.

The King of Inde.-From the Knight's Tale.

The great Emetrius, the king of Inde,

Upon a steed bay, trapped in steel

Covered with cloth of gold, diapered well,

Came riding like the god of arms, Mars.

His coat-armour was of cloth of Tars,

Couched with pearls white, and round, and great;
His saddle was of brent gold new i-beat;

A mantelet upon his shoulders hanging
Bret-ful of rubies red, as fire sparkling.
His crisp hair like rings was i-run

And that was yellow and glittered in the sun.
His nose was high, his eyen bright citron,
His lippes round, his colour was sanguine.
A few freckles in his face i-sprent.
Betwixt yellow and somedel black i-ment.

2 Hurt. 3. Singed or broiled.

Mr.

4 Mr. Tyrwhitt supposed the word dey to refer to the management of a dairy. Morris states that, in the statute 37 Edward H. (1363), the dergis mentioned among others of a certain rank, not having goods or chattels of forty shillings value.

5 Surer.

6 Toes.

And as a lion he his looking cast.

Of five and twenty year his age I cast.
His beard was well beginnen for to spring;
His voice was as a trump thundering.
Upon his heed he weared of laurel green
A garland fresh and lusty for to sene,
Upon his hand he bare for his delight,
An eagle tame, as any lily white.
An hundred lords had he with him there,
All armed safe, their heads in their gear,
Full richly in all manner things

For trusteth well that dukes, earls, kings
Were gathered in this noble company,
For love, and for increase of chivalry.
About this king there ran on every part
Full many a tame lion and leopart.

Emily. From the Knight's Tale.
Thus passeth year by year, and day by day,
Till it fell once on a morrow of May,
That Emily, that fairer was to seen
Than is the lily upon her stalk green,
And fresher than the May with floures new-
For with the rose colour strove her hue,
I n'ot which was the fairer of them two-
Ere it was day, as it was her wont to do,
She was arisen, and all ready dight-
For May will have no sluggardie a-night.
The season pricketh every gentle heart,
And maketh him out of his sleepé start,
And saith: Arise, and do thine observance !'
This maketh Emily have remembrance
To do honour to May, and for to rise,
Yclothed was she fresh for to devise.
Her yellow hair was braided in a tress,
Behind her back, yardé long, I guess;
And in her garden, as the sun uprist,
She walked up and down, and as her list,
She gathereth floures, party white and red,
To make a sotil (1) garland for her head;
And as an angel heavenly she sung!

The Death of Arcite.-From the same.
Swelleth the breast of Arcite, and the sore
Encreaseth at his hearte more and more. . . .
All is to-bursten thilke region;

Nature hath now no domination:

And certainly where nature will not werche, (2)
Farewell physic; go bear the man to church.
This is all and some, that Arcite muste die;
For which he sendeth after Emily,.
And Palamon, that was his cousin dear;
Then said he thus, as ye shall after hear:
'Nought may the woful spirit in mine heart
Declare one point of all my sorrows' smart
To you my lady, that I love most.
But i bequeath the service of my ghost
To you aboven every creature,

Since that my life ne may no longer durc.
2 Work.

1 Subtle, artfully contrived.