him of his antique garb, give him a modern hat and coat, and you no longer see him

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that left half told

The story of Cambuscan bold;"

and whose calm and sweet face, as depicted by Occleve, gives you the idea of

Elysian beauty, melancholy grace

Brought from a pensive, though a happy place."

Let us only have a correct text-I mean as correct as it can be a copious glossary, and explanatory notes, and we have all the aids to the study of Chaucer, which we can hope for or require. By the way, Chaucer, like almost all great men, must have been an early riser; for he delights in pictures of the morning; and one of those pictures in "The Knightes Tale" is not to be surpassed for its simplicity and beauty. Yet it is not more remarkable in itself, than for the manner in which it has been modernized by Dryden.

Listen first to Dan, and then to his interpreter

"The busy larke, messager of daye,
Salueth in hire song the morwe gray;
And fyry Phebus ryseth up so bright
That all the orient laugheth of the sight,
And with his stremes dryeth in the greves
The silver dropes hongyng on the leeves."

So far Chaucer. Can any picture be more fresh and life-like? That fourth line could only have been conceived by a truly great poet. Now for Dryden :

"The morning lark, the messenger of day, Saluted in her song the morning grey;

And soon the sun arose with beams so bright

That all the horizon laughed to see the joyous sight.
He with his tepid rays the rose renews,

And licks the drooping leaves, and dries the dews."

Thus we have one of the most charming touches of poetry transformed into a common-place description, with an additional, and essentially prosaic image; one of the "beauties," forsooth, which, as Dryden says, "if I lose in some places, I give to others which had them not originally." "Up roos the sonne, and up roos Emelye," is a fine line, also betokening Chaucer's love of early rising; and near the commencement of "The Knightes Tale" we have an exquisite morning glimpse of Emelye. After describing the imprisonment of Palamon and his "felawe Arcite," who expect evermore to lie in durance vile, since "ther may no gold hem quyte," the poet says:

"This passeth yeer by yeer, and day by day,
Till it fell oones in a morwe of May

That Emelye, that fairer was to seene

Than is the lilie on hire stalkes grene,

And fresscher than the May with floures newe-
For with the rose colour strof hire hewe,
I not which was the fyner of hem two-
Er it was day, as sche was wont to do,
Sche was arisen, and al redy dight;
For May wole have no sloggardye a night.
The sesoun priketh every gentil herte,
And maketh him out of his sleepe sterte,
And seith, Arys, and do thin observance,'
This maked Emelye han remembrance.

To do honour to May, and for to ryse,
I-clothed was sche, fressh for to devyse;

Hire yolwe heer was browdid in a tresse
Byhynde hire bak, a yerde long I gesse.
And in the gardyn at the sonne upriste
Sche walketh up and doun wher as hire liste--
Sche gadereth floures, partye whyte and reede,
To make a sotel* gerland for hire heede,

And as an aungel, hevenly sche song."

Sir Walter Scott owns that Dryden's description of Emily must yield the palm to Chaucer's original. It certainly must.

TALBOT. Give us some more passages, HARTLEY, from Chaucer's morning songs. Again and again, if I remember rightly, he doffs his nightcap, leaps out of his bed, and goes forth into the woods to hear the singing of the birds.

HARTLEY. Yes, the old Father loved well every sweet scene, and every lovely sound and colour that unite to make this world a blessed place still, in spite of all its sorrow. Nothing was too simple to attract his notice and win his love. The little birds, which make the bushes quake and tremble with their joy, the daisies whitening the grass, the noise of the hidden brook, the chirp of the grasshopper-all made his heart rejoice, and compelled him to sing for very gladness. Much as he loved books, he loved nature more; and when the spring called him out to "do observance," he threw aside his studies, and went into the green fields to solace his fancy, and gain a higher inspiration than any which books can yield. In the Legende of Goode Women," Chaucer tells us how he

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* Curiously braided.

delights in books, giving them "feyth and ful credence," and how nothing can draw him from them, except when in the month of May he hears the birds sing, and sees the flowers spring; and then, with the most charming simplicity, he continues :

"Now have I thanne suche a condicion,

That of al the floures in the mede

Thanne love I most these floures white and rede,

Suche as men callen daysyes in our toune.

To hem have I so grete affeccioun,

As I seyde erst, whanne comen is the May,
That in my bed ther daweth me no day
That I nam uppe and walkyng in the mede,
To seen this floure ayein the sunne sprede,
Whan it up ryseth erly by the morwe;

That blisfull sight softeneth al my sorwe."

Ay, dear Chaucer, I can well believe it did; for who that considers the lilies of the field but will find his burden lightened in the smile of their beauty, and in the happy thought that, as they in their unthinking life are watched over and tended, much more shall we, whose hairs are numbered, be guided by a loving hand, even when we stumble over stony ground, far from the green pastures and the still waters.

I think, in those days, May must have been a far lovelier month than it has proved of late years; for Chaucer, like many of the old poets, is always enthusiastic in praise of its beauty. Let me give you one or two more proofs of this. I hope my reading is intelligible. The passages I have selected do not need a glossary.

TALBOT. You read Chaucer well, HARTLEY, and a

good reader of Chaucer acts at the same time as his interpreter.

HARTLEY. I am glad you think so; for to give the proper rhythmical cadence to Chaucer's verse is not always easy. But now for

"The flowery May, that from her green lap throws
The yellow cowslip, and the pale primrose."

In the poem from which I have just quoted there is another passage, in which once again the poet sings the praise of his favourite flower. He laments that neither in rhyme nor prose can he praise the daisy aright, and tells us how, with "glad devocion," he arose before daybreak on the first morn of May, to see the flower unclose :

"And doune on knees anoon ryght I me sette,
And as I koude, this fressh flour I grette,
Knelyng alwey, til it unclosed was,

Upon the smale, softe, swote gras,

That was with floures swote embrouded al.

Adoune ful softeley I gan to synke,

And lenynge on myn elbowe and my syde,
The longe day I shoope me for t'abide
For nothing elles and I shal nat lye,
But for to loke upon the daysie;
That men by reson wel it calle may
The daisie, or elles the ye of day,

The emprise, and floure of floures alle."

Many a great poet has expressed his affection for the daisy, but none-not even Wordsworth or Burns-with such a leal-hearted devotion as Chaucer. With what a