or that still finer one of Constance, when she is

'Have ye not seen sometime a pale face
(Among a prees) of him that hath been lad
Toward his deth, wheras he geteth no grace,
And swiche a colour in his face hath had,
Men mighten know him that was so bestad,
Amonges all the faces in that route;

So stant Custance, and loketh hire aboute.'

The beauty, the pathos, here does not seem to be of the poet's seeking, but a part of the necessary texture of the fable. He speaks of what he wishes to describe with the accuracy, the discrimination, of one who relates what has happened to himself, or has had the best information from those who have been eye-witnesses of it. The strokes of his pencil always tell. He dwells only on the essential, on that which would be interesting to the persons really concerned; yet as he never omits any material circumstance, he is prolix from the number of points on which he touches, without being diffuse on any one; and is sometimes tedious from the fidelity with which he adheres to his subject, as other writers are from the frequency of their digressions from it. The chain of his story is composed of a number of fine links, closely connected together, and riveted by a single blow.

There is an instance of the minuteness which he introduces into his most serious descriptions in his account of Palamon when left alone in his cell :

'Swiche sorrow he maketh that the grete tour
Resouned of his yelling 1 and clamour;

The pure fetters on his shinnes grete
Were of his bitter salte teres wete.'

The mention of this last circumstance looks like a part of the instructions he had to follow, which he had no discretionary power to leave out or introduce at pleasure. He is contented to find grace and beauty in truth. He exhibits for the most part the naked object, with little drapery thrown over it. His metaphors, which are few, are not for ornament, but use, and as like as possible to the things themselves. He does not affect to show his power over the reader's mind, but the power which his subject has over his own. The readers of Chaucer's poetry feel more nearly what the persons he describes must have felt, than perhaps those of any other poet. His sentiments are not voluntary effusions of the poet's fancy, but [are] founded on the natural impulses and habitual prejudices of the charac

1 This term is used by Chaucer merely in the sense of vehement crying. Browne employs it in the same sense in his Britannica's Pastorals.' - ED.

ters he has to represent. There is an inveteracy of purpose, a sincerity of feeling, which never relaxes or grows vapid, in whatever they do or say. There is no artificial, pompous display, but a strict parsimony of the poet's materials, like the rude simplicity of the age in which he lived. His poetry resembles the root just springing from the ground, rather than the fullblown flower. His Muse is no 'babbling gossip of the air,' fluent and redundant, but, like a stammerer or a dumb person that has just found the use of speech, crowds many things together with eager haste, with anxious pauses, and fond repetitions to prevent mistake. His words point as an index to the objects, like the eye or finger. There were none of the commonplaces of poetic diction in our author's time, no reflected lights of fancy, no borrowed roseate tints; he was obliged to inspect things for himself, to look narrowly, and almost to handle the object, as in the obscurity of morning we partly see and partly grope our way; so that his descriptions. have a sort of tangible character belonging to them, and produce the effect of sculpture on the mind. Chaucer had an equal eye for truth of nature and discrimination of character; and his interest in what he saw gave new distinctness and force to his power of observation. The

picturesque and the dramatic are in him closely blended together and hardly distinguishable; for he principally describes external appearances as indicating character, as symbols of internal sentiment. There is a meaning in what he sees; and it is this which catches his eye by sympathy. Thus the costume and dress of the Canterbury Pilgrims, of the Knight, the Squire, the Oxford Scholar, the Gap-toothed Wife of Bath, and the rest, speak for themselves. To take one or two

of these at random,

'There 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 Englentine.
Ful wel she sange the service divine
Entuned in hire nose ful semyly;

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 wel ytaughte was she withalle;
She lette no morsel from hire lippes falle,
Ne wette hire fingres in hire sauce depe.1

And sikerly she was of great disport,

And ful plesant, and amiable of port,

1 Chaucer found these and others laid down in the manuals of good behaviour, current in his time, as rules of conduct at table. See Mr. Furnival's Babees Boke,' 1868. - ED.

And peined hire to contrefeten chere
Of court, and ben estatlich of manere,
And to ben holden digne of reverence.
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.

'Ful semely hire wimple ypinched was;
Hire nose streight; hire eyen grey as glas ;
Hire mouth ful smale; and therto soft and red;
But sickerly she hadde a fayre forehed:

It was almost a spanne brode, I trowe.

A Monk there was, a fayre for the maistrie,
An out-rider, that loved venerie :

A manly man, to ben an abbot able.

Ful many a deinte hors hadde he in stable: And when he rode, men mighte his bridel here Gyngle in a whistling wind as clere,

And eke as loude, as doth the chapell belle,

Ther as this lord was keper of the celle.
The reule of Seint Maure and of Seint Beneit;
Because that it was olde and somdele streit,

This ilke monk lette forby hem pace,
And held after the newe world the space.

He yave not of that text a pulled hen,
That saith, that hunters ben not holy men ;-
Therfore he was a prickasoure a right:

Greihoundes he hadde as swift as fowel in flight;