"Throughout every regioun
Y-went this foulé trumpet's sound
As swift as pellet out of gun
When fire is in the powder run;
And such a smoke began out-wend
Out of the foulé trumpet's end,
Black, blue, and greenish, swartish, red,
As doeth, where that men melt lead.
And aye the farther that it ran,
The greater waxen, it began,
As doth the river from a well,
And it stank as the pit of hell.'

A third company now petition for celebrity; and the fickle goddess granting it in the kindest manner, bids Eolus lay aside his black trumpet, and blow a blast with

the other.

"Full gladly, lady mine," he said,
And out his trump of gold he brayed
Anon, and set it to his mouth,
And blew it east and west and south
And north, as loud as any thunder,
That every wight hath of it wonder,
So broad it ran, before it stent;
And, certes, all the breath that went
Out of the trumpet's mouth y-smelled
As men a potful of balm held
Among a basketful of roses.'

What! false thieves, and so ye would
Be faméd good, and nothing n'ould
Deserven why, nor never thought.
Men rather you to hangen ought;
For you be like the sleepy cat

That would have fish, but, wot you what?
He willen nothing wet his claws.
Evil thirst come to your jaws

And mine also, if I you it grant.' Foreseeing the decision, Eolus had his black trumpet already at his mouth, and when the goddess had ended, he began to blazon out a blast as loud as wind bellowing in the bowels of the earth, and at the same time so comical, that all present, except the poor subjects of the blast, were thrown into convulsions of laughter.

illustrious criminals are satisfied.

'Fame,'

Next came a number of persons who had done nothing but what was wicked, but who nevertheless petitioned for fame. Their request is refused. Lastly, there come in, leaping and dancing, a crowd of monomaniacs and illustrious criminals, who petition the goddess to cause them to be known for what they are proud of beingthe greatest scoundrels in history. 'MadA fourth company now appeared, con- am,' said one of these gentlemen, in resisting of a very few persons, who standing ply to a question of the goddess, in me in a row in front of the goddess, said, 'In- you behold the person who set fire to the deed, lady, we have done well with all our temple of Isis. I wish to be spoken of as might; but we have no care for fame. If the man who set fire to a temple.' Eolus possible, let our names be forgotten.' I blows a blast on his black trumpet, and the grant your request,' said the goddess; and they withdrew. The fifth company presented a similar petition, saying they had done good for its own sake, and had no wish for reputation. What,' answered the tetchy goddess, do you insult me in my own house? Are you to do good, think you, and yet escape the consequences? Blow, Eolus, and let the world ring with these folk's praises.' Eolus took his golden trumpet, and blew the required blast. The sixth Chaucer's great work, as every one company make a somewhat impudent request. They had spent their lives, they knows, is The Canterbury Tales.' The said, in doing nothing at all; nevertheless plan of the work is as follows:-In the they humbly hoped the goddess would make sweet and showery month of April, when their names famous; in particular, they men feel the longing to go on pilgrimages, would like the reputation of having been it so happened that nine-and-twenty persons great lady-killers. Strange to say, the re-met one evening at the Tabard Inn, in quest of these modest personages is com- Southwark, ready to set out on the morrow plied with; and they obtain one of the wind-god's very best blasts on the golden trumpet. A seventh company, however, preferring identically the same petition, drive the eccentric little lady into a passion.

Fie on you, quoth she, every one,
Ye nasty swine, ye idle wretches,
Fulfilled of rotten slowé tetches.

At this instant, some one standing behind Chaucer taps him on the shoulder, and asks if he has come for fame. says the alarmed poet, 'no, grammercy! not I; 1 want no wight to have my name on hand. I wot myself best how I stand; and whatever I brew I will drink it all myself.' And after a tour about the temple, and another whirl with his eagle through a bewitched atmosphere, he awakes.

on a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Thomas, at Canterbury. While they are sitting at supper, the host, a large seemly fellow, with eyes deep in his head and twinkling with genius and humor, offers to accompany them to Canterbury, at his own cost, to act as their guide; and proposes that on their way going and coming they shall amuse each other by telling stories. The

proposal is received with acclamation; the for disputing who shall tell the next, or host is created captain on the spot, with making jests at each other's expense and unlimited power to maintain order and ar- beginning to quarrel. On all these occarange all the proceedings, and the party sions the host is the principal figure; and retire to rest. Next morning early they though he tells no tale himself, we are conmount their horses and set out, with the stantly admiring his rich humorous genius, host at their head. The cavalcade, exclu- the ease with which he appreciates all the sive of the host, consists of a knight, who characters he has to deal with, the tact had seen service in all the great wars of with which he draws them out, and the Christendom; his son, a comely young kingly decision with which he acts in all squire; their servant, a round-pated, brown-emergencies. These prologues serve also faced yeoman; two nuns, one of them a to mark the progress of the pilgrims on prioress, demure and coy; a manly and their journey. The tales, or at least those jovial monk, on a palfrey as brown as a which were really written by Chaucer, berry, his bridle jingling and whistling in come to a conclusion before the cavalcade the wind as clear as a chapel-bell; a beg-reaches Canterbury; so that, had the work ging friar, wanton and merry, a full solemn been completed, it would have been of man well known over all the country; a much greater length. According to the merchant, with a forked beard and an out-plan proposed by the host before setting out, landish dress; a clerk of Oxford, lean with each person was to tell four tales, which, if study; a serjeant of the law; a franklin or fulfilled, would have made about a hundred gentleman-farmer, of fresh ruddy com- and twenty tales in all. plexion; a haberdasher, a carpenter, a The first tale, and with one exception the weaver, a dyer, and a tapister (maker of longest of the series, is told by the Knight. tapestry), all honest and thriving citizens It is a classical story, told, however, quite of London, fit to be aldermen; a cook, well in the spirit of the chivalrous age. Theskilled in his craft; a sailor, bluff and seus, Duke of Athens, having conquered hardy, who knew every harbor from Goth-Thebes, two young Theban knights, Palaland to Finisterre; a doctor of physic, well mon and Arcite, sworn friends to each grounded in astronomy and other science, other, are carried prisoners to Athens, and but his study was but little on the Bible;' confined in a tower of the palace. Both a wife of Bath, who had survived five hus- fall in love with Emily, the duke's young bands and was still fair and buxom ; poor, sister-in-law, whom they see walking in the hard-working parson of a parish, holy in palace-garden; and from being friends they thought and work; ploughman, a peace- become rivals. Suddenly Arcite is liberaable, laborious man; a reeve or land-bai- ted and sent out of Athens with orders not liff, a slender choleric personage, close-to return on pain of death. Each now shaven to the ears; a big, brawny miller; thinks his own case the worst: Arcite a sompnour, or summoner of culprits before wishes he were Palamon, to be near the ecclesiastical courts, with an ugly, fiery visage, all covered with pimples and blotches; a pardoner, with a wallet brimful of indulgences, just come from Rome, a smooth, womanish-looking personage, with a feeble voice and long soft yellow hair; a manciple, or purveyor of provisions for one of the inns of court; and, lastly, the poet himself. The Prologue to the poem, describing these various personages, is unrivalled in literature as a collection of portraits; and every intending reader of Chaucer ought to commence with it. The portraits of the nun-prioress, the friar, the clerk, and the miller, have been most admired, and often quoted.

Emily; and Palamon wishes he were at liberty, like Arcite, so that he might attempt to carry off his love. Arcite at length returns to Athens in disguise, and is employed in the household of Duke Theseus, with whom he becomes a favorite. Meanwhile Palamon makes his escape; but while riding in a grove in the neighborhood of the city, he meets his rival Arcite. Palamon being unarmed, their combat is put off till next day, when Arcite brings him armor and weapons, and they fall on each other like lions. While they are thus engaged, Duke Theseus, with his queen, her sister Emily, and a hunting party, arrive at the spot. Palamon now divulges The tales are twenty-four in number, the whole affair to the duke, who swears and most of them are introduced with aby mighty Mars the Red,' that they shall prologue, in which we hear the various both die, but at length relents, moved by pilgrims making comments on the last tale, the tears of the ladies, and ordains a tour

nament on that day fifty weeks, at which visaged Summoner takes ample revenge, the rivals are to appear backed by a hun- by a story at the expense of the whole dred knights each, to fight for the hand of fraternity of begging friars. These two the fair Emily. When the day arrives, the humorous tales precede the famous Clerk's knights appear, both confident of success; tale of 'Griseldis, or the Patient Wife,' Arcite is victorious. Advancing, however, rendered from Petrarch's version of Boccacto where Emily sits overlooking the lists, cio's original-a composition which for he is thrown from his horse, and dying in sweetness and pathos never has been riconsequence, Palamon weds his bride. valled. Next comes the Merchant's tale, Such is the outline of the tale, which of which it will be sufficient to say that it abounds in tender and beautiful passages. is a churlish' tale, like those of the Miller The Knight's tale being finished, the and the Reeve. To it succeeds the Squire's Miller, who is excessively drunk, insists on tale, admired by Milton, relating how the telling the next, and, the Host bidding him King of Arabie sendeth to Cambuscan, go on for a fool, he tells a tale in which a King of Sarra, a horse and sword of rare clerk is made to outwit a silly carpenter. quality, and to his daughter Canace a glass The tale is well received by the whole com- and a ring, by the virtue whereof she unpany, except the Reeve, who being a car- derstandeth the language of all fowls.' This penter by trade, regards it as a personal in- tale is not finished. The Franklin's tale, sult, and retorts by a tale in which a miller which follows, is a recommendation of comes off with the worst. The language courteous behavior, as the most efficient in of both these tales is exceedingly gross, a all circumstances; and the Doctor's is a fault for which Chaucer apologizes, by pre- metrical version of the Roman story of facing the remark that tales of churls must Virginia. The Pardoner next tells a story be told in churlish mannere.' The of a company of rioters, who sally out in a Reeve is followed by the Cook, whose tale, drunken fit to kill Death, and who, naturrespecting an idle apprentice, is left un- ally enough, lose their lives in the attempt; finished. After him comes the Man of he winds up, however, with an advertiseLaw, whose tale of the wanderings and ment of his wares-indulgences, which he sufferings of Custance, the pious daughter will sell cheap, and relics from Rome, of the Emperor of Rome, is one of the which he will allow people to kiss for only most beautiful in the collection. The a groat. His harangue is cut short by the opening apostrophe to Poverty is particu- Host, who expresses a most healthy conlarly fine. tempt for relics and indulgences, and quite reduces the poor Pardoner. The Shipman's, or Sailor's tale, is of the same class as the Merchant's; it is followed by the Prioress's Miracle of the holy Christian child, murdered by the Jews,' a beau. tiful little thing, which has been modernized by Wordsworth.

The Man of Law is followed by the Wife of Bath, who after a long prologue, in which she details her own history and matrimonial experiences, entertains the company with a tale of a bachelor of King Arthur's court, who is enjoined by the queen, on pain of death, to tell what thing it is that women do most desire.' The When the Prioress's tale is finished, the poor knight is extricated from his dilemma by an ugly old hag whom he meets, and who promises to teach him the proper answer to the queen's question, on condition that he shall afterwards grant her whatever she may request. He assents, and she informs him that what women desire most is sovereignty. The answer proves satisfactory; but, horrible to relate, the hag appears at court, and demands him in marriage. In the depths of his despair, the hag, who is a fairy, becomes young and beautiful.

To the Wife of Bath succeeds the Friar, who tells a tale of a summoner who is entrapped into a bargain with Satan, and carried off by him. For this tale the fiery

Host, who for some time has been eyeing our poet, with a view to ascertain what sort of a person he is, calls upon him for his tale. The Poet, professing that he has no tale, offers, instead, a rhyme, which he says he learned long ago. The Host, expecting ' some dainty thing,' bids him proceed; upon which Chaucer, without any warning that what he is going to repeat is a bur lesque, begins

'Listeneth lordings, in good intent,
And I will tell you verament
Of mirth and of solace;
All of a knight was fair and gent
In battle and in tournament,
His name was Sir Thopas.'

He has reached the thirty-third stanza of ness to refresh in some points the memothis monotonous effusion, when the Host, ries of those who are acquainted with the thoroughly disgusted, interrupts him, and poet, and to convey to those who are not bids him stop that drafty rhyming,' such acquainted with him, a general idea of his rhyming I never heard; it may well be productions. If we have at all succeeded, rhyme doggerel, quoth he.' He then asks we are sure that the strongest impression the Poet, if he can do nothing else, at least left on the minds of our readers, will be to tell something in prose, in which there that of the poet's variedness-an impresbe some mirth or some doctrine.' Thus sion, never more fittingly expressed than in invited, the Poet commences the prose the following passage from the pen of a tale of Melibeus, how Prudence, his dis- living critic Even like the visible creacreet wife, persuaded him to patience, and tion around us, Chaucer's poetry, too, has to receive his enemies to mercy and grace.' its earth, its sea, its sky, and all the sweet This specimen of Chaucer's prose is re- vicissitudes of each. Here you have the markable for it clearness, the fine musical clear-eyed observer of man as he is, catchcadence of its sentences, and its almost ing the manners living as they rise,' and Baconian pregnancy with meaning; as an fixing them in pictures where not their example of which last we may refer to the minutest lineament is or ever can be lost; passage in which Prudence exhibits to her here he is the inspired dreamer by whom husband the errors he has committed in earth and all its realities are forgotten, as his manner of choosing his counsellors. his spirit soars and sings in the finer air The Monk follows, with a metrical enu- and amid the diviner beauty of some far-off meration of certain remarkable historical world of its own. Now the riotous verse instances of reverse of fortune, or descent rings loud with the turbulence of human from a condition of happiness to one of merriment and laughter, casting from it, as misery. The personages whose cases are it dashes on its way, flash after flash of all discussed or commented on, are Lucifer, the forms of wit and comedy; now it is the Adam, Samson, Hercules, Nebuchadnez- tranquillizing companionship of the sights zar, Belthazar, Zenobia, Nero, Holofernes, and sounds of inanimate nature of which Antiochus, Alexander, Julius Cæsar, Crosus, Peter of Spain, Petro King of Cyprus, Barnabo Viscount of Milan, and Hugelin Earl of Pisa. The Monk is succeeded by the Nun-Priest, whose tale of 'Chaunticleer and Dame Partelot' is generally known through Dryden's version. Next comes the second Nun's story of the Life and Death of St. Cecily. Just when it is ended, two new pilgrims of strange appearance join the company, one a canon, the other his man. Our host immediately makes acquaintance with the latter, and understanding that his master is an alchemist, induces him to tell how they live by that profession. The canon, seeing that he is to be the subject of his man's story, moves off; and the Chanon's yeoman' commences his tale-one of the most powerful of the whole collection, and interesting on account of its subject. He is followed by the Manciple, who tells a story of a speaking crow; and the whole is wound up by a sermon from the Parson, on Repentance and the Seven deadly Sins a production not more striking in itself, than as being the finale to so motley a collection of tales. We have thus glanced over the whole of Chaucer's works, in a very cursory manner indeed, but still perhaps with sufficient ful- and Literature.

the poet's heart is full-the springing herbage, and the dew-drops on the leaf, and the rivulets glad beneath the morning ray, and dancing to their own simple music."*

There are three critical observations of a more precise character on the poetry of Chaucer, to which, omitting much else that might be said, we shall confine ourselves; the rather, that they appear to embody in the shape of general propositions much that commentators have naturally dwelt upon in their discoursings about Chaucer.

In the first place, it is evident to us, from Chaucer's writings, that in his time very much of the business of poetry was conceived to consist in what may be termed the metrical dissemination of information. All Chaucer's critics have noticed his habit of bringing in, on all occasions where it was possible, a number of instances apropos from classical history; as, in the first book of the House of Fame,' where the mention of the infidelity of Æneas to Dido leads him to give a list of all the notorious parallel cases of heroes proving false to their mistresses. This habit is frequently indulged to such a degree as to cause what

* Craik's Sketches of the History of Learning

in a modern poet would be intolerable pro-| Perhaps the special manifestation of this lixness and pedantry. Now it seems to us largeness which will most readily strike a that the explanation of this is what we reader of Chaucer, is his fondness for have stated; namely, that at the period of minute and elaborate descriptions of scenethe revival of letters in Europe, information, ry, ceremonials, &c. This characteristic and especially information connected with may have been in some degree a constituthe history of literature, was so precious, tional peculiarity of Chaucer; we think, that for a poet to exhibit the extent of his howeyer, it may be referred to more genereading in his verses was deemed a perfect- ral causes. In the age of manuscripts, ly legitimate mode of exciting interest. At when a reader could not turn as he pleased such a period, for a poet to permit himself from one composition to another, what was such digressions and long parenthetical written, behoved to be leisurely enjoyed; passages as those which critics have some- and the description of a wedding-procession times found fault with in Chaucer, was to in twenty stanzas, or of an arbor of honeyact under one of the most profound feelings suckle in six, was less an offence against of the time, veneration for books and read- the feeling of proportion than it would be ing; it was to disseminate in an agreeable now. It is remarkable, however, that we do manner, information deemed rare and valu- not observe this arbitrariness in the writings able, On the same principle it is, that we of the classics, whose circumstances were would explain and vindicate another habit so far the same. The reason probably is, that of Chaucer and his poetical contempora- in Chaucer's age the whole process of exries; the habit, namely, of borrowing sen- pressing one's thoughts and feelings in writtences and passages from other authors. ten language was more a mystery; so that Numerous instances might be pointed out, it would have appeared more ungracious to in which Chaucer has translated passages interfere with the liberty of an author to from the classics, the romancists, and his gratify his own tastes as to what parts of great Italian predecessors into his own pro- his composition he should bestow most ductions, not to mention those in which he pains upon. Reviewing had not yet become has availed himself merely in a general way a craft; and men still used the large incorof what such writers had done, as for exam- rect utterance of the early gods. And with ple, when he borrows the plot of a tale from regard to Chaucer's attentiveness to the Boccaccio. The fact is, that at that time, minutiæ of external appearances, this apa thought, a sentiment, a plot, an image, a pears to have belonged essentially to the description, were all precious to the poet, spirit of his age, the age of chivalry and whencesoever obtained; and that the duty heraldry. We are tempted to assert that if of repeating or translating the fine passages a list of all the greatest poets of the world, of another author, was more strongly felt from Homer downwards, were made out, than the desire of being original. it would be possible to show in their cases We remark, in the second place, a pecu- that this feeling of interest in the appearliar largeness, if we may so express it, ances of inanimate nature has undergone a about Chaucer's poetry, as if it were writ- series of marked modifications in the differten not for men of ordinary stature or ent ages of the world's progress. To exmoderns, but for giants, or leisurely ante- tend the same remark, let us add that there diluvians. There is no haste about it, no could not in our opinion be a more interliterary eagerness, no deference to a stand-esting speculation than that which would ard of length or proportion, no subordina- arise from viewing the six or seven great tion of parts to the whole; all is slow, calm, arbitrary, immense, as if an Egyptian temple were a-building. If the grief of a child parting from her parents is described, it is done on a scale so large and colossal as literally to fulfil the poet's own hyperbole in the Man of Law's Tale'

I trow, at Troy, when Pyrrhus brake the wall
Or Ilion brent, or Thebes the citie,
Ne at Rome for the harm through Hannibal
That Romans hath vanquished times three,
N' as heard such tender weeping for pitie
As in the chamber was for her parting.'

poets whom the world has produced, purely in their connexion with their respective ages, with the endeavor to expiscate their profound characteristic differences, and thus to arrive at some feasible law of human development, according to which the great poets of different ages might be exhibited as constituting a natural series of Pythagorean transmutations or Hindoo avatars.

Our third remark is one concerning that naïveté and quaintness of expression, which delight us in Chaucer and other old writers, whether of prose or verse. These are to