once been of that trade, and he takes revenge by narrating in the same tone the story of the Mill at Trumpington, where two Cambridge scholars were guilty of a similar trick. Next follows the Cook, who begins in the same strain, but after a few verses of his narrative there is in all the manuscripts a very considerable blank. The Sergeant-at-law, encouraged by the landlord, takes up a more decorous subject, and relates the story of the lovely Constance, which, although perhaps with less grace, occurs also in Gower. Here, probably, in accordance with Chaucer's plan, the Wife of Bath begins the confession of her fine feelings and extraordinary experiences, and then gives her own somewhat richly coloured version of one of the tales of the legend of King Arthur's Round Table, which has also been told by Gower. The Mendicant Friar and the Sumptnour, who are ill-disposed to one another on account of their origin, take care that neither shall be much in debt to the other in respect to the coarse and stinging character of their anecdotes. Hereupon the landlord attempts to rouse the Oxford clerk from his modest diffidence, who, borrowing his subject from Petrarch, proceeds to narrate in graceful strophes the charming story of Griselde, whose angelic patience nothing could destroy. The Merchant then takes his turn, and informs his hearers of the manner in which a blind and jealous old husband lets himself be beguiled in his very presence by his faithless wife and her young lover. Next comes the young Esquire, who, taking his subject from the East, tells the story of the Sultan Cambuscan, although unhappily, he has left it incomplete. He is followed in succession by the Frankelin, with his tale of the lovely

R

Dorigene, which he says he has borrowed from an old British legend; by the doctor, who draws from classical sources the history of the virtuous Virginia; and the Pardoner, who has many low examples to bring forward from his own sphere of observation. He finds pleasure in narrating the manner in which a merchant was deceived by his wife and his best friend, a jovial young monk; whereupon the prioress relates the miracle which once took place when the wicked Jews tried to circumvent a Christian child. With admirable humour the landlord now attacks the poet himself, who is always looking upon the ground as if he were tracking a hare, and Chaucer, who does not wait to be called upon a second time, at once begins in the verses of Sir Thopas, to parody the conventional rhyme of that day, with all its harsh words, until his hearers are well nigh stunned, and the landlord sharply interposes. With perfect willingness, and far from wishing for an opportunity of display, the Poet yields to their entreaties, and changing from poetry to prose, relates to them the highly moral and virtuous history of Melibous and the lady Prudentia, which appears to us in the present day even more unbearable than his first contribution, which was unfortunately interrupted. After he has done speaking, the monk gives them some of the conventional and unmeaning poetry of the cloisters, which borrowed its tragical incidents and figures from the Scriptures, including both the Old and the New Testaments. Here the Nun's Priest falls in, appropriately enough, with the nursery fable of the Cock, Chanticleer, on which the Nun relates the legend of Saint Cecilia. Somewhat in opposition to the plan of the work, the Canon's servant

interrupts her with his satirical attacks against the alchemists; on which the Manciple tells the story of the Crow, which betrayed to the husband the faithlessness of his wife, but whether the tale is borrowed from Ovid, Gower, or some other source, is not very certain. The Parson finally declares himself strongly opposed to all fables and scandalous stories, and ends by giving his companions a long, somewhat dry and scholastically orthodox prose sermon, which certainly reminds us less of Wiclif and his adherents than the description which we had previously had of the "parson" himself would have led us to expect. With his Amen the finished portion of the Canterbury Tales closes, for the few concluding lines in which the author, after the manner of Boccaccio, is made to recall all that is sinful in his poem, can scarcely be the production of Chaucer.

It indicates a very limited and senseless comprehension of this great work to reproach the Poet for the coarse ribaldry which he has introduced into these incomparable sketches of genuine national life, for they could as little be spared from his pictures as his adventures of chivalry, his legends, or his moral sermon. It must indeed be admitted that he has been most successful in the tales of the first kind, while he necessarily is obliged to maintain in the others the special tone of colour that belongs to them, and hence the former still retain their original freshness, whilst the latter, independently of their literary interest, have become a dead letter to us. Within the domain which he had so richly cultivated and which he knew how to enliven by such vivid representations, and in his composition of a form of speech, which still survives and which can never grow

wholly obsolete, very few approach him, whilst in respect to genuine poetic realism, he is not even exceeded by Shakespere. He moreover understands, as a true poet should, how to retain breadth and unity in the midst of the great diversity of his representation. This is perfectly in accordance with his mode of treating the great political and religious questions of his age, which never appear to have embarrassed him; for, instead of suffering himself to be drawn to opposite extremes, as was the case with Gower, he seems, as far as one can judge, to have arrived at a perfectly clear comprehension, through his own feelings, of the interests which they involved, and hence he was able to treat them with that objectiveness which seems to belong to his whole nature, and to render the work that has made his name immortal as nobly and richly endowed as his own nature. He may not indeed claim to rank equal with the few chosen spirits to whom Fame has granted her noblest laurels; but no one is more worthy than himself of the honourable name of The Father of English Poetry.

VIII.

JOHN WICLIF.

WITH the Normans the principle of uniformity acquired undisputed pre-eminence both in the State and in the Church of England. The island which had first been brought within the fold of Rome by St. Augustine appeared to link itself more and more closely to Romanism in proportion to the temerity and daring evinced by the Church in its aggressive advance to the summit of its power. Speculative and mystic objections to its doctrines, such as the specially gifted mind of John Erigena had started in the early days of the hierarchy, had for centuries past ceased to be advanced; and it was only here and there that a faint echo of the heretical storms that were disturbing the Continent made itself heard on the shores of Britain. Instead of this, the most renowned leaders of scholastic philosophy had laboured assiduously to maintain in England the fundamental basis of the doctrine of the immutability of the Church, and had thus contributed to raise up an impenetrable bulwark against sectarianism. In England the Crown and Mitre were indeed often brought into collision in their efforts to maintain the supremacy to which each laid claim, and at times the contest between