plussed by the continuity of the tempest, stooped at last, accepted the halter, and turned the domestic mill like a conjugal and resigned ass:

For as an hors, I coude bite and whine;

I coude plain, and I was in the gilt.

I plained first, so was our werre ystint.

They were ful glad to excusen hem ful blive
Of thing, the which they never agilt hir live.
I swore that all my walking out by night
Was for to espien wenches that he dight.
For though the pope had sitten hem beside,
I wold not spare hem at hir owen bord. . . .
But certainly I made folk swiche chere,
That in his owen grese I made him frie
For anger, and for veray jalousie.

By God, in erth I was his purgatorie,

For which I hope his soule be in glorie.'1

She saw the fifth first at the burial of the fourth:

And Jankin oure clerk was on of tho:
As helpe me God, whan that I saw him go
Aftir the bere, me thought he had a paire
Of legges and of feet, so clene and faire,
That all my herte I yave unto his hold.
He was, I trow, a twenty winter old,
And I was fourty, if I shal say soth.
As helpe me God, I was a lusty on,
And faire, and riche, and yonge, and well begon.'

...

Was human delusion ever more happily painted?

You

What a speech! How lifelike is all, and how facile! It is the satire of marriage. will find it twenty times in Chaucer. Nothing more is wanted to exhaust the two subjects of French mockery, than to unite with the satire of marriage the satire of religion.

It is here; and Rabelais is not more bitter. The monk whom Chaucer paints is a hypocrite, a jolly fellow, who knows good inns and jovial hosts better than the poor and the houses of charity:

A Frere there was, a wanton and a mery

Ful wel beloved, and familier was he

With frankeleins over all in his contree,

And eke with worthy wimmen of the toun.

Full swetely herde he confession,

And plesant was his absolution.

He was an esy man to give penance,

1 Canterbury Tales, ii. Wife of Bath's Prologue, p. 179, v. 5968-6072.

2 Ibid. p. 185, v. 6177-6188.

Men mote give silver to the poure freres.'1

This lively irony had an exponent before in Jean de Meung.

But

Chaucer pushes it further, and sets it in action. His monk begs from house to house, holding out his wallet:

In every hous he gan to pore and prie,
And begged mele and chese, or elles corn.
"Yeve us a bushel whete, or malt, or reye,
A Goddes kichel, or a trippe of chese,
Or elles what you list, we may not chese
A Goddes halfpeny, or a masse peny;
Or yeve us of your braun, if ye
have any,

A dagon of your blanket, leve dame,

;

Our suster dere, (lo here I write your name)." .

And whan that he was out at dore, anon,

He planed away the names everich on.'2

He has kept for the end of his tour, Thomas, one of his most liberal clients. He finds him in bed, and ill; here is an excellent fruit to suck and

squeeze :

" "God wot," quod he, “laboured have I ful sore,
And specially for thy salvation,

Have I sayd many a precious orison.

...

I have this day ben at your chirche at messe

And ther I saw our dame, a, wher is she?" '8

The dame enters:

Then, in his

and says:

"This frere ariseth up ful curtisly,

And hire embraceth in his armes narwe,

And kisseth hire swete and chirketh as a sparwe.'4

sweetest and most caressing voice, he compliments her,

Have we not here already Tartuffe and Elmire? But the monk is with

a farmer, and can go more straight and quick to his task. Compliments

1

2 Ibid. The Sompnoures Tale, ii. p. 220, v. 7319-7340. 3 Ibid. p. 221, v. 7366.

4 Ibid. p. 221, v. 7384.

Canterbury Tales, prologue, ii. p. 7, v. 208 et passim.

5 Ibid. p. 222, v. 7389.

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."'1

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 borel folk in richesse and dispence.

Lazar and Dives liveden diversely,

And divers guerdon hadden they therby."'s

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 a brother to share his client, his revenue, his 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."'3

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

2 Ibid. p. 223, v. 7450–7460.

3 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 he 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 filthiness. 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.
2 Ibid. p. 230, v. 7685–7695.

"This Frere bosteth that he knoweth helle,
And, God it wot, that is but litel wonder,
Freres and fendes ben but litel asonder.
For parde, ye han often time herd telle
How that a Frere ravished was to helle
In spirit ones by a visioun,

...

And as an angel lad him up and doun,
To shewen him the peines that ther were,
And unto Sathanas he lad him doun.
(And now hath Sathanas," saith he, " a tayl
Broder than of a carrike is the sayl.)
Hold up thy tayl, thou Sathanas, quod he,
and let the Frere see

Wher is the nest of Freres in this place.
And er than half a furlong way of space,
Right so as bees out swarmen of an hive,
Out of the devils . . . ther gonnen to drive,
A twenty thousand Freres on a route,
And thurghout hell they swarmed al aboute,
And com agen, as fast as they may gon.'

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 life2 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.

2 See in The Canterbury Tales the Rhyme of Sir Topas, a parody on the chivalric histories. Each character there seems a precursor of Cervantes.