Whereof I had so inly great pleasure,
That as me thought I surely rauished was
Into Paradice, where my desire

Was for to be, and no ferther passe,
As for that day, and on the sote grasse,
I sat me downe, for as for mine entent,
The birds song was more conuenient,

And more pleasaunt to me by manifold,
Than meat or drinke, or any
other thing,

Thereto the herber was so fresh and cold,
The wholesome sauours eke so comforting,
That as I demed, sith the beginning

Of the world was neuer seene or than
So pleasaunt a ground of none earthly man.

And as I sat the birds harkening thus,

Me thought that I-heard voices sodainly,
The most sweetest and most delicious

That euer any wight I trow truly
Heard in their life, for the armony
And sweet accord was in so good musike,
That the uoice to angels was most like."

There is no affected rapture, no flowery sentiment: the whole is an ebullition of natural delight “welling out of the heart," like water from a crystal spring. Nature is the soul of art: there is a strength as well as a simplicity in the imagination that reposes entirely on nature, that nothing else can supply. It was the same trust in nature, and reliance on his subject, which enabled Chaucer to

describe the grief and patience of Griselda; the faith of Constance; and the heroic perseverance of the little child, who, going to school through the streets of Jewry,

"Oh Alma Redemptoris mater, loudly sung,"

and who after his death, still triumphed in his song. Chaucer has more of this deep, internal, sustained sentiment, than any other writer, except Boccaccio. In depth of simple pathos, and intensity of conception, never swerving from his subject, I think no other writer comes near him, not even the Greek tragedians. I wish to be allowed to give one or two instances of what I mean. I will take the following from the Knight's Tale. The distress of Arcite, in consequence of his banishment from his love, is thus described:

"Whan that Arcite to Thebes comen was,

Ful oft a day he swelt and said Alas,
For sene his lady shall he never mo.

And shortly to concluden all his wo,
So mochel sorwe hadde never creature,
That is or shall be, while the world may dure.
His slepe, his mete, his drinke is him byraft,
That lene he wex, and drie as is a shaft.
His eyen holwe, and grisly to behold,
His hewe salwe, and pale as ashen cold,

And solitary he was, and ever alone,

And wailing all the night, making his mone.
And if he herde song or instrument,

Than wold he wepe, he might not be stent.
So feble were his spirites, and so low,

And changed so, that no man coude know
His speche ne his vois, though men it herd."

This picture of the sinking of the heart, of the wasting away of the body and mind, of the gradual failure of all the faculties under the contagion of a rankling sorrow, cannot be surpassed. Of the same kind is his farewel to his mistress, after he has gained her hand and lost his life in the combat:

、་

"Alas the wo! alas the peines stronge, That I for you have suffered, and so longe!

Alas the deth! alas min Emilie!

Alas departing of our compagnie ;

Alas min hertes quene! alas my wif!

Min hertes ladie, ender of my lif!

What is this world? what axen men to have?
Now with his love, now in his colde grave
Alone withouten any compagnie."

The death of Arcite is the more affecting as it comes after triumph and victory, after the pomp of sacrifice, the solemnities of prayer, the celebration of the gorgeous rites of chivalry. The de

scriptions of the three temples of Mars, of Venus, and Diana, of the ornaments and ceremonies used in each, with the reception given to the offerings of the lovers, have a beauty and grandeur, much of which is lost in Dryden's version. For instance, such lines as the following are not rendered with their true feeling.

"Why shulde I not as well eke tell you all
The purtreiture that was upon the wall
Within the temple of mighty Mars the rede-
That highte the gret temple of Mars in Trace
In thilke colde and frosty region,

Ther as Mars hath his sovereine mansion.
First on the wall was peinted a forest,
In which ther wonneth neyther man ne best,
With knotty knarry barrein trees old

Of stubbes sharpe and hidous to behold;

In which ther ran a romble and a swough,

As though a storme shuld bresten every bough."

And again, among innumerable terrific images of death and slaughter painted on the wall, is this

one:

"The statue of Mars upon a carte stood
Armed, and loked grim as he were wood.
A wolf ther stood beforne him at his fete
With eyen red, and of a man he ete."

The story of Griselda is in Boccaccio; but the

Clerk of Oxforde, who tells it, professes to have learned it from Petrarch. This story has gone all over Europe, and has passed into a proverb. In spite of the barbarity of the circumstances, which are abominable, the sentiment remains unimpaired and unalterable. It is of that kind," that heaves no sigh, that sheds no tear;" but it hangs upon the beatings of the heart; it is a part of the very being; it is as inseparable from it as the breath we draw. It is still and calm as the face of death. Nothing can touch its ethereal purity: tender as the yielding flower, it is fixed as the marble fir mament. The only remonstrance she makes, the only complaint against all the ill-treatment she receives, is that single line where, when turned back naked to her father's house, she says,

"Let me not like a worm go by the way."

The first outline given of the characters is inimitable:

"Nought fer fro thilke paleis honourable,
Wher as this markis shope his mariage,
Ther stood a thorpe, of sighte delitable,
In which that poure folk of that village
Hadden hir bestes and her herbergage,
And of hir labour toke hir sustenance,
After that the erthe yave hem habundance..