braced them, kissing them tenderly and bathing their faces and hair with her tears. It was a piteous thing to hear her sweet voice thanking God and the marquis that she had her children in her arms again, and those who stood by could only turn away their faces and weep.

"But this was a happy day for all, and it was the beginning of many long happy years, for never again did the marquis doubt his wife's love and truth, but they and their children lived together in great peace and high prosperity; and they fetched home to the palace the old father of Grisildis, and there he dwelt with them as long as he lived.”

Chaucer says that we are not to understand by this story that we have any right to make trials for other people, but it is told in order that, by thinking of the beautiful trust and patience of Grisildis, we may be helped to bear the losses and trials, which God sends us in this life, with perfect love and trust, knowing that "He does not willingly afflict nor grieve the children of men," and "tempteth no man.

And, perhaps, Chaucer also wished to show that, in all the love of our lives, there must be trust and patience; for love is worth little which cannot stand any trial, but gives way to anger and displeasure, because we do not understand the conduct of others.

NOTE. As this is not a critical History of English Literature, the arguments for and against the genuineness of works ascribed to Chaucer have not been taken into account, but those commonly received have been accepted as his.

CHAPTER IV.

GOWER, WYCLIF, AND LANGLAND (1300-1400).

WE have seen how the large mind and heart of Chaucer took in all the life of England in his day, and, unlike the old romancers, gave to every class a place in English literature, though he speaks but little of many things that were going on in England at that time. This was not because he did not see or care for what was happening at the time, but because he saw how seeming evil works out good, and he had firm trust that God is really ruling the world in the best way; and this we shall find to be the faith of all our greatest men in English literature.

There were stormy days in England during Chaucer's lifetime, for there were dark clouds in two different quarters; some rising from the corruptions in the Church, and others from the miserable state of the poor. The story of our English Literature has to do with both of these; for, as we have seen, literature is the voice, and history the action of a nation.

Before the days of Chaucer, Englishmen were beginning to cry out at the interference of the Pope of Rome in the English Church, and to complain of the sums of money he exacted from the English nation. But in the time of Edward III. these things had grown worse. The Pope claimed the right of appointing clergy to a large number of English parishes, and he gave the livings often not to Englishmen but to Italians, who could not teach the people, for they did not know a word of English, and, as they liked Italy best, never came to England at all, but received the

income of the livings all the same. Then there were a large number of begging friars who got money from the people, and of pardoners, who went about selling for money pardons for sins. Chaucer has represented these among his pilgrims. At this time the Parliament complained that the money carried out of England to Rome was five times as much as the taxes levied by the king. The covetousness and worldliness of the Pope and the Italian clergy had their effect on the English clergy. They, too, cared little for their people, they sought their own interests and pleasures as the end of life; and had they attempted to teach "the love of Christ and His Apostles twelve," it would have been of little use, since they did not "follow it themselves," and their teaching would have had no authority. But, besides this, they had lowered the commands of God and altered the teaching of Christ, so as to get for themselves more power and more money; and though the sense and conscience of the people told them there was something wrong, they had not got the Bible in their hands to show them wherein the wrong lay. The Religious Houses were no longer what they had been at first, centres of light and teaching to the poor around them, but were filled with lazy persons, who, because they liked idleness better than work, lived in these houses on the money which had been left at different times to the communities. We can easily see that, at such a time when the clergy cared more “for the fleece than the flock," few would be found willing to teach the poor, to care for them in their sorrows and their sickness, and to live among them as Christ did when He was in this world. That there were some earnest men who, like Chaucer's poor parson, cared more for the work of God than for their own ease and pleasure we know; but, for the most part, those naturally indolent lived in sloth and plea sure, and those naturally active pressed themselves into offices of power about the Court and king.

We must now see what was the state of the poor at this time. In the year 1348 a most terrible disease called the black death appeared in Europe, and at the end of the year passed over England. So fatal and so infectious was this disease, that during the next few years more than half of the people of England died of it. Amongst the deaths the larger part were of the poor, and the effect of this was that there were not enough labourers left to plough the fields and sow and reap the corn. The fields remained untilled, and harvests rotted on the ground, while the labourers, finding themselves so much in request, would not work excepting for enormous wages, and bands of peasants would wander from village to village seeking for the farmer who would give them the most money for their work. Meantime food became very scarce, and there was famine in the land. A law was then passed called the "Statute of Labourers." By this law labourers were compelled to work for the same wages which they had two years before the black death came; and they were also forbidden to leave the parish in which they lived to seek for work on pain of imprisonment. This pressed very heavily on the poor, because while their wages were to be the same as before the plague, food was a great deal dearer. Many of the poor were now starving, and the question was stirred among them-" On what right are some richer than others? We are all brothers of the same race, why should some be clothed in velvet and furs, and eat and drink more than they need, while we are perishing of cold and hunger?" This feeling spread and found expression in general discontent and peasant revolts, until the Poll-tax still further aroused the indignation of the labourers, and caused the insurrection under Wat Tyler in the reign of Richard II.

There are three writers of this time who set themselves more especially to seek out what the wrong was which led to these corruptions in the Church, and to the miserable

state of the poor; and not only to find out the root or source of these evils, but they strove with earnest endeavour to seek also for some cure for them, and to point persons to it. These were Gower, Wyclif, and Langland. Their work differs in form, but there is agreement in the conclusions they came to, as we shall see.

Disorder

John Gower was a country gentleman of Kent, a poet and friend of Chaucer. He had written early in life short poems, and a longer work in French, on the vices and virtues and the right path by which a sinner might return to God; but in 1382, immediately after Wat Tyler's insurrection, Gower wrote a poem in Latin, which he called "Vox Clamantis," or the "Voice of one Crying." He was living at the time in the very heart of the district disturbed by the revolted peasantry; and he says that the crying was the voice of a fresh grief. He sees, as in a dream, the wild passions of the excited people, under the form of raging wild beasts; but he says all the troubles of the time are not the result of chance; the evils in the state are but the fruit of evil at the root. As we sow, so must we reap. and trouble must always come as the result of unfaithfulness to duty. He then goes through the different classes of society, and asks where has been that failure in duty which has caused the evils of the time. He looks to the Church, and finds there a general forsaking of the teaching of Christ, and of the true ideal of life, as He set it forth in His own character and life. In the soldier class he finds that vainglory, and not the service of God, is the aim of the knights and soldiers. The merchants are guilty of frauds; the lawyers of injustice and corruption by bribes. The servants are greedy and unfaithful, working for gain and with no sense of duty; the peasants are ignorant of God, and live like beasts, discontented, because they cannot feed like a lord. The world is a good world, if people will only live in it by the laws of God its King. He does not con