"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 himself

Is more strong, than whan it is yscatered .
Thou woldest han our labour al for nought.'"1

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 covered with filth.

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

1 Canterbury Tales, ii. The Sompnoures Tale, p. 226, l. 7545–7558. Ibid. p. 230, l. 7685-7695.

the dung of the middle age. Planted by the sly fellows of Champagne and Ile-de-France, watered by the trouvères, they were destined fully to expand, speckled and ruddy, in the large hands of Rabelais. Meanwhile Chaucer plucks his nosegay from it. Deceived husbands, mishaps in inns, accidents in bed, cuffs, kicks, and robberies, these suffice to raise a loud 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:

666 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.'

" 1

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 describe living individualities, a thing unheard of in his time, but which the renovators in the sixteenth century, and first among them Shakspeare, will do afterwards. Is it already the English positive common sense and aptitude for seeing the inside of things which begins 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 life 2 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, the character described stands out in relief; its parts are connected; it is no longer an unsubstantial phantom. You may guess its past and foretell its future action. Its externals manifest the personal and incommunicable details of its inner nature, and the

1 Canterbury Tales, ii. The Sompnoures Prologue, p. 217, l. 72547279.

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.

Το

infinite complexity of its economy and motion.
this day, after four centuries, that character is individu-
alised, and typical; it remains distinct in our memory,
like the creations of Shakspeare and Rubens.
We
observe this growth in the very act. Not only does
Chaucer, like Boccaccio, bind his tales into a single
history; but in addition-and this is wanting in Boc-
caccio he begins with the portrait of all his narrators,
knight, summoner, man of law, monk, bailiff or reeve,
host, about thirty distinct figures, of every sex, condition,
age, each painted with his disposition, face, costume,
turns of speech, little significant actions, habits, ante-
cedents, each maintained in his character by his talk and
subsequent actions, so that we can discern here, sooner
than in any other nation, the germ of the domestic novel
as we write it to-day. Think of the portraits of the
franklin, the miller, the mendicant friar, and wife of
Bath. There are plenty of others which show the broad
brutalities, the coarse tricks, and the pleasantries of
vulgar life, as well as the gross and plentiful feastings of
sensual life. Here and there honest old swashbucklers,
who double their fists, and tuck up their sleeves; or con-
tented beadles, who, when they have drunk, will speak
nothing but Latin. But by the side of these there are
some choice characters; the knight, who went on a
crusade to Granada and Prussia, brave and courteous:

"And though that he was worthy he was wise,
And of his port as meke as is a mayde.

He never yet no vilanie ne sayde

In alle his lif, unto no manere wight,

He was a veray parfit gentil knight."

Prologue to Canterbury Tales, ii. p. 3, l. 68–72.

"With him, ther was his sone, a yonge Squier,
A lover, and a lusty bacheler,

With lockes crull as they were laide in presse,
Of twenty yere of age he was I gesse.
Of his stature he was of even lengthe,
And wonderly deliver, and grete of strengthe.
And he hadde be somtime in chevachie,
In Flaundres, in Artois, and in Picardie,
And borne him wel, as of so litel space,
In hope to stonden in his ladies grace.

Embrouded was he, as it were a mede
Alle ful of fresshe floures, white and rede.
Singing he was, or floyting alle the day,
He was as fresshe, as is the moneth of May.
Short was his goune, with sleves long and wide.
Wel coude he sitte on hors, and fayre ride.

He coude songes make, and wel endite,

Juste and eke dance, and wel pourtraie and write.
So hote he loved, that by nightertale

He slep no more than doth the nightingale.
Curteis he was, lowly and servisable,

And carf befor his fader at the table." 1

There is also a poor and learned clerk of Oxford; and finer still, and more worthy of a modern hand, the Prioress," Madame Eglantine," who as a nun, a maiden, a great lady, is ceremonious, and shows signs of exquisite taste. Would a better be found now-a-days in a German chapter, amid the most modest and lively bevy of sentimental and literary canonesses ?

"Ther 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 Eglentine.

1 Prologue to Canterbury Tales, ii. p. 3, l. 79–100.