of leaving English more full of French than he found it, considers it impossible to ascertain, with any degree of certainty, the exact changes which he produced upon the national style, as we have neither a regular series of authors preceding him, nor authentic copies of their works, nor assurance that they were held as standards by their contemporaries. In spite of this difficulty, Mr. Ellis ventures to consider Chaucer as distinguished from his predecessors by his fondness for an Italian inflexion of words, and by his imitating the characteristics of the poetry of that nation. He has a double claim to rank as the founder of English poetry, from having been the first to make it the vehicle of spirited representations of life and native manners, and from having been the first great architect of our versification, in giving our language the ten syllable, or heroic measure, which though it may sometimes be found among the lines of more ancient versifiers, evidently comes in only by accident. This measure occurs in the earliest poem that is attributed to him, The Court of Love, a title borrowed from the fantastic institutions of that name, where points of casuistry in the tender passion were debated and decided by persons of both sexes. It is a dream, in which the poet fancies himself taken to the Temple of Love, introduced to a mistress, and sworn to observe the statutes of the amatory god. As the earliest work of Chaucer, it interestingly exhibits the successful effort of his youthful hand in erecting a new and stately fabric of English numbers. As a piece of fancy, it is grotesque and meagre; but the lines often flow with great harmony. His story of Troilus and Cresseide was the delight of Sir Philip Sydney; and perhaps, excepting the Canterbury Tales, was, down to the time of Queen Elizabeth, the most popular poem in the English language. It is a story of vast length and almost desolate simplicity, and abounds in all those glorious anacronisms which were then, and so long after, permitted to romantic poetry: such as making the son of King Priam read the Thebais of Statius, and the gentlemen of Troy converse about the devil, justs and tournaments, bishops, parliaments, and scholastic divinity. The languor of the story is, however, relieved by many touches of pathetic beauty. The confession of Cresseide in the scene of felicity, when the poet compares her to the "new abashed nightingale, that stinteth first ere she beginneth sing," is a fine passage, deservedly noticed by Warton. The grief of Troilus after the departure of Cresseide is strongly portrayed in Troilus's soliloquy in his bed. Where is mine owne ladie, lief, and dere? *Written, as some lines in the piece import, at the age of nineteen. The sensations of Troilus, on coming to the house of his faithless Cresseide, when, instead of finding her returned, he beholds the barred doors and shut windows, giving tokens of her absence, as well as his precipitate departure from the distracting scene, are equally well described. Therwith whan he was ware, and gan behold O thou lanterne of which queint† is the light, The two best of Chaucer's allegories, The Flower and the Leaf, and the House of Fame, have been fortunately perpetuated in our language; the former by Dryden, the latter by Pope. The Flower and the Leaf is an exquisite piece of fairy fancy. With a moral that is just sufficient to apologize for a dream, and yet which sits so lightly on the story as not to abridge its most visionary parts, there is, in the whole scenery and objects of the poem, an air of wonder and sweetness; an easy and surprising transition that is truly magical. Pope had not so enchanting a subject in the House of Fame; yet, with deference to Warton, that critic has done Pope injustice in assimilating his imitations of Chaucer to the modern ornaments in Westminster Abbey, which impair the solemn effect of the ancient building. The many absurd and fantastic particulars in Chaucer's House of Fame will not suffer us to compare it, as a structure in poetry, with so noble a pile as Westminster Abbey in architecture. Much of Chaucer's fantastic matter has been judiciously omitted by Pope, who at the same time has clothed the best ideas of the old poem in spirited numbers and expression. Chaucer supposes himself to be snatched up to heaven by a large eagle, who addresses him in the name of St. James and the Virgin Mary, and, in order to quiet the poet's fears of being carried up to Jupiter, like another Ganymede, or turned into a star like Orion, tells him, that Jove wishes him to sing of other subjects than love and "blind Cupido," and has therefore ordered, that Dan Chaucer should be brought to behold the House of Fame. In Pope, the philosophy of fame comes with much more propriety from the poet himself, than from the beak of a talkative eagle. It was not until his green old age that Chaucer put forth, in the Canterbury Tales, the full variety of his genius, and the pathos and romance, as well as the playfulness of fiction. In the serious part of those tales he is, in general, more deeply indebted to preceding materials than in the comic stories, which he raised upon slight hints to the air and spirit of originals. The design of the *Shut. † Extinguished. Since. To make joyous. Chau whole work is after Boccaccio's Decamerone; | but exceedingly improved. The Italian novelist's ladies and gentlemen who have retired from the city of Florence, on account of the plague, and who agree to pass their time in telling stories, have neither interest nor variety in their individual characters; the time assigned to their congress is arbitrary, and it evidently breaks up because the author's stores are exhausted. cer's design, on the other hand, though it is left unfinished, has definite boundaries, and incidents to keep alive our curiosity, independent of the tales themselves. At the same time, while the action of the poem is an event too simple to divert the attention altogether from the pilgrims' stories, the pilgrimage itself is an occasion sufficiently important to draw together almost all the varieties of existing society, from the knight to the artisan, who, agreeably to the old simple manners, assemble in the same room of the hostelerie. The enumeration of those characters in the Prologue forms a scene, full, without confusion; and the object of their journey gives a fortuitous air to the grouping of individuals who collectively represent the age and state of society in which they live. It may be added, that if any age or state of society be more favourable than another to the uses of the poet, that in which Chaucer lived must have been peculiarly picturesque;-an age in which the differences of rank and profession were so strongly distinguished, and in which the broken masses of society gave out their deepest shadows and strongest colouring by the morning light of civilization. An unobtrusive but sufficient contrast is supported between the characters, as between the demure prioress and the genial wife of Bath, the rude and boisterous miller and the polished knight, &c. &c. Although the object of the journey is religious, it casts no gloom over the meeting; and we know that our Catholic ancestors are | justly represented in a state of high good-humour, on the road to such solemnities. The sociality of the pilgrims is, on the whole, agreeably sustained; but in a journey of thirty persons, it would not have been adhering to probability to have made the harmony quite uninterrupted. Accordingly the bad-humour which breaks out between the lean friar and the cherubfaced sompnour, while it accords with the hostility known to have subsisted between those two professions, gives a diverting zest to the satirical stories which the hypocrite and the libertine level at each other. Chaucer's forte is description; much of his moral reflection is superfluous; none of his characteristic painting. His men and women are not mere ladies and gentlemen, like those who furnish apologies for Boccaccio's stories. They rise before us minutely traced, profusely varied, and strongly discriminated. Their features and casual manners seem to have an amusing congruity with their moral characters. He notices minute circumstances as if by chance; but every touch has its effect to our conception so distinctly, that we seem to live and travel with his personages throughout the journey. What an intimate scene of English life in the fourteenth century do we enjoy in those 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! Our ancestors are restored to us, not as phantoms from the field of battle, or the scaffold, but in the full enjoyment of their social existence. After four hundred years have closed over the mirthful features which formed the living originals of the poet's descriptions, his pages impress the fancy with the momentary credence that they are still alive; as if Time had rebuilt his ruins, and were reacting the lost scenes of existence. THE PROLOGUE TO WHANNE that April with his shourès sotea THE CANTERBURY TALES. That hem hath holpen, whan that they were seke.' Befelle, that, in that seson on a day, In Southwerk at the Tabard as I lay, Redy to wenden on my pilgrimage And shortly, whan the sonne was gon to reste, And made forword erly for to rise, To take oure way ther as I you devise. Or that I forther in this talè pace, a Sweet. Root.- Such.-d Run.- Them.-f Their. g Inclination.-h To keep.-i Holidays.-j Known.- Go. Sick.-m Fallen.-n Would.—o Every one. Me thinketh it accordant to reson, A KNIGHT ther was, and that a worthy man That fro the timè that he firste began To riden out, he loved Chevalrie, Trouthe and honour, fredom and curtesie. Ful worthy was he in his lordès werre,P And therto hadde he ridden, no man ferre, As wel in Cristendom as in Hethenesse, And ever honoured for his worthinesse. At Alisandre he was whan it was wonne. In Lettowe hadde he reysed' and in Ruce, Whan they were wonne; and in the Grete see But for to tellen you of his araie, His hors was good, but he ne was not gaie. With him ther was his sone a yongè Squier, gesse. Of his stature he was of even lengthe, Embrouded was he, as it were a mede P War.- Farther. Been placed at the head of the table.- Travelled.- Praise.- Wore a short cassock.-wSmutted.-Coat of mail.- Curled. Nimble. a Horse skirmishing. Embroidered.- Playing the flute. So hote he loved, that by nightertaled A Yeman hadde he, and servantes no mo A not-hed hadde he, with a broune visage. Ther was also a Nonne, a Prioresse, But for to speken of hire conscience, Ful semely hire wimple ypinched was; d Night-time.-e Carved.-f It pleased him.-gArrow.i A round-head.- Knew. Armour for the arm. 1 Called.-m Neatly. Her pleasure. Smallest spot. P Rose. Took pains. To imitate.- Worthy.-t Stick.u Smartly, adv.- Straight.— Of low stature. Ful fetise was hire clock, as I was ware. Of smale coràll aboute hire arm she bare A pair of bedès, gauded all with grene; And theron heng a broche of gold ful shene, On whiche was first ywritten a crouned A, And after, Amor vincit omnia. Another Nonne also with hire hadde she, That was hire chapelleine, and Preestès thre. A Monk ther was, a fayre for the maistrie, An outrider, that loved venerie ; A manly man, to ben an abbot able. The reule of Seint Maure and of Seint Beneit, What shulde he studie, and make himselven wood Or swinkene with his hondès, and laboure, His botes souple, his hors in gret estat; z Neat.- Hunting.- Gave.-a Mr. Twyrhitt supposes, that this should be righelles, i. e. out of the rules by which the monks were bound. Mad. Toil.-d Biddeth.Hard rider.- Wrought on the edge.-g A fine kind of fur. Deep in the head.-i Knew. And eke with worthy wimmen of the toun: His tippet was ay farsed" ful of knives, And over all, ther as profit shuld arise, Yet wold he have a ferthing or he went. A Marchant was ther with a forked berd, Have. Poor.- Shriven.- Durst make a boast.n Stuffed. A stringed instrument.-p Story-telling.Have. Poor people. Farm.- Purchase.-u Days appointed for the amicable settlement of differences.v Half-cloak. Souning alway the encrese of his winning. And he was not right fat, I undertake; w Kept, or guarded. The old subsidy of tonnage and poundage was given to the king pour la saufgarde et custodie del mer.' (Tyrwhitt.)- Exchanges.-y Crowns. An agreement for borrowing money.-a Hollow.Uppermost cloak of coarse cloth. He would rather haved Get-e Study.-f Wary. The paruis, or portico before a church-a place frequented by lawyers. The place of the lawyers' paruis in London is assigned to different places by different antiquaries. (Tyrwhitt.)A Suspicion.-i Cases and decisions.-j No one could find a flaw in his writings.- Coat of mixed stuff.-m A girdle.— " With small stripes.- A freeholder of considerable estate. Girt with a seint of silk, with barrès" smale; A Frankelein was in this compagnie ; An housholder, and that a grete was he; So changed he his mete and his soupère. At sessions ther was he lord and sire. A Coke they hadden with hem for the nones," Stored P Morning Wine. The saint of hospitality. with wine. It suewed, that is, there was great abundance.-u Secret.-v Fixed ready.-w Knife.- Purse. -y Morning. Mr. Tyrwhitt conjectures, but merely offers it as a conjecture, that the contour was foreman of the hundred court.-a Vavasour. Of this term Mr. T. is doubtful of the meaning. A weaver.- A maker of tapestry.-d Livery.-ef Their gear was spruce.- Every way. Burgher. The deis; a part of the hall that was floored and set apart for a place of respect. (Tyrwhitt.)--j Fit. Else.- Royally. Supported.- For the purpose. The meaning not ascertained.-p Sweet cyperus. |