ended, he thinks of the substance, and asks the lady to let him talk alone with Thomas. He must inquire after the state of his soul:

"I wol with Thomas speke a litel throw:
Thise curates ben so negligent and slow
To gropen tendrely a conscience.

...

Now, dame," quod he, "jeo vous die sanz doute,

Have I nat of a capon but the liver,

And of your white bred nat but a shiver,

And after that a rosted pigges hed,

(But I ne wolde for me no beest were ded,)
Than had I with you homly suffisance.

I am a man of litel sustenance,

My spirit hath his fostring in the Bible.
My body is ay so redy and penible

To waken, that my stomak is destroied."'

Poor man, he raises his hands to heaven, and ends with a sigh

The wife tells him her child died a fortnight before. Straightway he composes a miracle; was he not earning his money? He had a revelation of this death in the 'dortour' of the convent; he saw the child carried to paradise; he rose with his brothers, 'with many a tere trilling on our cheke,' and they sang a Te Deum:

"For, sire and dame, trusteth me right wel,

Our orisons ben more effectuel,

And more we seen of Cristes secree thinges

Than borel folk, although that they be kinges.

We live in poverte, and in abstinence,

And horel folk in richesse and dispence.
Lazar and Dives liveden diversely,

And divers guerdon hadden they therby."''

Presently he spurts out a whole sermon, in monkish style, with manifest intention. The sick man, wearied, replies that he has already given half his fortune to all kinds of monks, and yet he continually suffers. Listen to the grieved exclamation, the true anger of the mendicant monk, who sees himself threatened by the meeting with brother to share his client, his revenue, hi booty, his food-supplies:

The frere answered: "O Thomas, dost thou so
What nedeth you diverse freres to seche?
What nedeth him that hath a parfit leche,

To sechen other leches in the toun ?
Your inconstance is your confusion.
Hold ye than me, or elles our covent,
To pray for you ben insufficient?

Thomas, that jape n' is not worth a mite,

Your maladie is for we han to lite."'g

1 Canterbury Tales, ii. The Sompnoures Tale, p. 222, v. 7397–7429.

'Ibid. p. 223 v. 7450-7460.

Ibid. p. 226, v. 7536–7544.

Recognise the great orator; he employs even the grand style to keep the supplies from being cut off:

"A, yeve that covent half a quarter otes;

And yeve that covent four and twenty grotes ;
And yeve that frere a peny, and let him go:
Nay, nay, Thomas, it may no thing be so.
What is a ferthing worth parted on twelve?
Lo, eche thing that is oned in himselve

Is more strong, than whan it is yscatered
Thou woldest han our labour al for nought.""

Then ne begins again his sermon in a louder tone, shouting at each word, quoting examples from Seneca and the classics, a terrible fluency, a trick of his trade, which, diligently applied, must draw money from the patient. He asks for gold, to make our cloistre,'

... "And yet, God wot, uneth the fundament
Parfourmed is, ne of our pavement

N' is not a tile yet within our wones:

By God, we owen fourty pound for stones.

Now help, Thomas, for him that harwed helle,
For elles mote we oure bokes selle,

And if ye lacke oure predication,

Than goth this world all to destruction.

For who so fro this world wold us bereve,

So God me save, Thomas, by your leve,

He wold bereve out of this world the sonne."

"2

In the end, Thomas, in a rage, promises him a gift, tells him to put his hand in the bed and take it, and sends him away duped, mocked, and defiled.

We have descended now to popular farce: when amusement must be had at any price, it is sought, as here, in broad jokes, even in fithiness. We can see how these two coarse and vigorous plants have blossomed in the dung of the middle age. Planted by the cunning men of Champagne and Ile-de-France, watered by the trouvères, they were destined fully to expand, bespattered and ruddy, in the hands of Rabelais. Meanwhile Chaucer plucks his nosegay from it. Deceived husbands, tricked innkeepers, accidents in bed, kicks, and robberies, these suffice to raise a hearty laugh. Side by side with noble pictures of chivalry, he gives us a train of Flemish grotesque figures, carpenters, joiners, friars, summoners; blows abound, fists descend on fleshy backs; many nudities are shown; they swindle one another out of their corn, their wives; they pitch one another out of a window; they brawl and quarrel. A bruise, a piece of open filthiness, passes in such society for a sign of wit. The summoner, being rallied by the friar, gives him tit for tat:

1 Canterbury Tales, ii. The Sompnoures Tale, p. 226, v. 7545–7553
1 Ibid. p. 230, v. 7685–7695.

Such were the coarse buffooneries of the popular imagination.

V.

It is high time to return to Chaucer himself. Beyond the two notable characteristics which settle his place in his age and school of poetry, there are others which take him out of his age and school. if he was romantic and gay like the rest, it was after a fashion of his own. He observes characters, notes their differences, studies the coherence of their parts, endeavours to bring forward living and distinct persons,a thing unheard of in his time, but which the renovators in the sixteenth century, and first amongst them Shakspeare, will do afterwards. It is the English positive good sense, and aptitude for seeing the inside of things, beginning to appear. A new spirit, almost manly, pierces through, in literature as in painting, with Chaucer as with Van Eyck, with both at the same time; no longer the childish imitation of chivalrous life or monastic devotion, but the grave spirit of inquiry and craving for deep truths, whereby art becomes complete. For the first time, in Chaucer as in Van Eyck, character stands out in relief; its parts are held together; it is no longer an unsubstantial phantom. You may comprehend its past and see its present action. Its externals manifest the personal and incommunicable details of its inner nature, and the infinite complexity of its economy and motion. To this day, after four centuries, that character is individualised, and typical; it remains distinct in our memory, like the creations of Shakspeare and

1 Canterbury Tales, ii. The Sompnour's Prologue, p. 217, v. 7254-7279. See in The Canterbury Tules the Rhyme of Sir Topas, a parody on the chival ic histories. Each character there seems a precursor of Cervantes.

Rubens. We observe this growth in the very act. Not only does Chaucer, like Boccacio, bind his tales into a single history; but in addition-and this is wanting in Boccacio-he begins with the portrait of all his narrators, knight, summoner, man of law, monk, bailiff of reeve, host, about thirty distinct figures, of every sex, condition, age, each painted with his disposition, face, costume, turns of speech, little significant actions, habits, antecedents, each maintained in his character by his talk and subsequent actions, so well, that we can discern here, before any other nation, the germ of the domestic novel as we write it to-day. Think of the portraits of the franklin, the miller, the mendicant friar, and merchant. There are plenty of others which show the broad brutalities, the coarse tricks, and the pleasantries of vulgar life, as well as the gross and plentiful feastings of sensual life. Here and there honest old soldiers, who double their fists, and tuck up their sleeves; or the contented beadles, who, when they have drunk, will speak nothing but Latin. But by the side of these there are select characters; the knight, who went on a crusade to Granada and Prussia, brave and

courteous:

'And though that he was worthy he was wise,
And of his port as meke as is a mayde.

He never yet no vilanie ne sayde

In alle his lif, unto no manere wight,

He was a veray parfit gentil knight."1

'With him, ther was his sone, a yonge Squier,
A lover, and a lusty bacheler,

With lockes crull as they were laide in presse.
Of twenty yere of age he was I gesse.
Of his stature he was of even lengthe,
And wonderly deliver, and grete of strengthe
And he hadde be somtime in chevachie,
In Flaundres, in Artois, and in Picardie,
And borne him wel, as of so litel space,
In hope to stonden in his ladies grace.

Embrouded was he, as it were a mede
Alle ful of fresshe floures, white and rede.
Singing he was, or floyting alle the day,
He was as fresshe, as is the moneth of May.
Short was his goune, with sleves long and wide.

Wel conde he sitte on hors, and fayre ride.

He coude songes make, and wel endite,

Juste and eke dance, and wel pourtraie and write.

So hote he loved, that by nightertale

He slep no more than doth the nightingale.

Curteis he was, lowly and servisable,

And carf befor his fader at the table.'

аз

There is also a poor and learned clerk of Oxford; and finer still, and

'Prologue to Canterbury Tales, ii. p. 3, v. 68–72.

'Ibid. p. 3, v. 79–100.

more worthy of a modern hand, the Prioress, 'Madame Eglantine,' who as a nun, a maiden, a great lady, is ceremonious, and shows sign of exquisite taste. Would a better be found now-a-days in a German chapter, amid the most modest and lively bevy of sentimental and literary canonesses?

"Ther was also a Nonne, a Prioresse,

That of hire smiling was ful simple and coy;
Hire gretest othe n'as but by Seint Eloy ;
And she was cleped Madame Eglentine.
Ful wel she sange the service devine,
Entuned in hire nose ful swetely;

And Frenche she spake ful fayre and fetisly,
After the scole of Stratford-atte-bowe,
For Frenche of Paris was to hire unknowe.
At mete was she wel ytaughte withalle;
She lette no morsel from hire lippes falle,
Ne wette hire fingres in hire sauce depe.
Wel coude she carie a morsel, and wel kepe,
Thatte no drope ne fell upon hire brest.
In curtesie was sette ful moche hire lest.
Hir over lippe wiped she so clene,
That in hire cuppe was no ferthing sene
Of grese, whan she dronken hadde hire draught,
Ful semely after hire mete she raught.
And sikerly she was of grete disport,
And ful plesant, and amiable of port,
And peined hire to contrefeten chere
Of court, and ben estatelich of manere,
And to ben holden digne of reverence."

Are you offended by these provincial affectations? On the contrary, it is delightful to behold these nice and pretty ways, these little affectations, the waggery and prudery, the half-worldly, half-monastic smile. We inhale a delicate feminine perfume, preserved and grown old under the stomacher:

'But for to speken of hire conscience,

She was so charitable and so pitous,
She wolde wepe if that she saw a mous
Caughte in a trappe, if it were ded or bledde
Of smale houndes hadde she, that she fedde
With rosted flesh, and milk, and wastel brede.
But sore wept she if on of hem were dede,
Or if men smote it with a yerde smert:
And all was conscience and tendre herte."

Many elderly ladies throw themselves into such affections as these, for lack of others. Elderly! what an objectionable word have I employed! She was not elderly:

1 Prologue to Canterbury Tales, ii. p. 4, v. 118–141.

Ibid. p. 5, o 142-150