It is life in its largeness, its variety, its complexity which surrounds us in the Canterbury Tales.' . And it is life

that he loves-the delicacy of its sentiment, the breadth of its farce, its laughter and its tears, the tenderness of its Griseldis or its Smollett-like adventures of the millers and the clerks. It is this largeness of heart, this wide tolerance, which enables him to reflect man for us as none but Shakespeare has ever reflected him and to do this with a pathos, a shrewd sense and kindly humor, a freshness and joyousness of feeling, that even Shakespeare has not surpassed."-J. R. Green.

"Chaucer's perception of character and his skill in delineChaucer's characters are

ating it were marvellous..

more than portraits of classes: they are people, real, live, individual."-R. H. Stoddard.

ILLUSTRATIONS.

"Wel loved he garleek, oynons, and eek lekes,
And for to drinken strong wyn, reed as blood.
Than wolde he speke and crye as he were wood.
And whan that he wel dronken hadde the wyn,
Than wolde he speke no word but Latyn.
A fewe termes hadde he, two or thre,
That he had lerned out of som decree;
No wonder is, he herde it al the day;
And eek ye knowen well how that a jay
Can clepén Watte' as well as can the pope.
But who-so coude in other thing him grope,
Thanne hadde he spent al his philosophye;
Ay, 'Questio quid iuris,' wolde he crye.
He was a gentil harlot and a kinde;
A bettre felawe sholde men noght finde."

-Prologue to the Canterbury Tales.

"Ther was also a Nonne, a Prioresse,

That of hir smyling was ful simple and coy;
Hir gretteste ooth was but by sëynt Loy;
And she was cleped madame Eglentyne.
Ful wel sche song the service divyne,

Entuned in hir nose ful semely;

And Frensh she spak ful faire and fetisly,
After the scole of Stratford atte Bowe,
For Frensh of Paris was to hir unknowe.
At mete wel y-taught was she with-alle;
She leet no morsel from hir lippes falle,
Ne wette hir fingres in hir sauce depe."

-Prologue to the Canterbury Tales.

"Embrouded was he, as it were a mede
Al ful of fresshe floures whyte and rede.
Singinge he was or floytynge al the day;
He was as fresh as is the month of May.
Short was his goune, with sleves long and wyde.
Wel coude he sitte on hors and faire ryde.

He coude songes make and wel endyte,

Juste and eek daunce, and wel purtreye and wryte.
So hote he lovede that by nightertale

He sleep namore than doth a nightergale.
Curteys he was, lowly, and servisable,
And carf biforn his fader at the table."

-Prologue to the Canterbury Tales.

II. Coarseness. "It is very misleading to apologize, as some writers on Chaucer do, for the gross obscenity of certain of the tales, on the ground that this was the outspoken fashion of the times—that decorum then permitted greater freedom of language. The savor of particular words may have changed since the time of Chaucer; but then, as now, people with any pretensions to refinement were bound to abstain strictly in the presence of ladies from all ribaldry of speech and manner, on pain of being classed with churls' and 'vileins.' And in the Canterbury Tales' Chaucer carefully guards himself against being supposed to be ignorant of this law. The ribald tales are introduced as being the humours of the lower orders, persons ignorant or defiant of the rules of refined society, and, moreover, as we have seen, excited, intoxicated, out for a pilgrimage as riotous as our pilgrimage to the Derby.

Such riotous mirth was very far indeed from being the fashion of the time among fashionable people. Mark how careful Chaucer is to shield himself from the responsibility of it. In the Prologue (line 725) he prays his readers of their courtesy not to set down his plainness of speech as his 'vileinye.' He is bound to record faithfully every thing that was said, though it had been said by his own brother."-William Minto.

"In spite of some external stains, which those who have studied the influence of manners will easily account for without imputing them to any moral depravity, we feel that we can join the pure-minded Spenser in calling him 'most sacred, happy spirit.'"-Lowell.

"In all the unfettered invention and nudity of style, there was no grossness in the temper, and less in the habits, of the poet. He addressed his own age as contemporaries were doing in France and Italy. . . Our poet has himself pleaded that, having fixed on his personage, he had no choice to tell any other tale than what that individual would himself have told."-Isaac D'Israeli.

Illustration of this characteristic is evidently uncalled for here. Those who wish, may find representative specimens in "The Somnours Tale," lines 30 to 50 or 95 to 100.

SPENSER, 1552 (?)-1599

Biographical Outline.-Edmund Spenser, born in London about 1552; his father was "gentleman by birth," though a journeyman weaver, of Lancashire family; Spenser enters the newly founded Merchant Taylors' School, probably in 1561, being one of "certyn poor schollers of the scholls aboute London; " he enters Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, as a sizer in May, 1569; during the same year was published a translation of certain sonnets of du Bellay, ascribed to John Van Der Noodt, but doubtless made by Spenser; all the sonnets were published in 1591 as Spenser's own translation; at Cambridge he wins distinction in Greek, Latin, French, and Italian, and becomes a close student of Petrarch and Chaucer; as an undergraduate he suffers from poverty and ill-health; he forms close friendships with Gabriel Harvey (Hobbinoll) and Edward Kirke; in 1576 he receives from Cambridge the degree of M.A., and leaves the University; he spends some time with kinsfolk near Hurst wood, and there falls in love with "a gentlewoman of no mean house," but she disdains him, and his disappointment is recorded in "The Shepheard's Calendar" (written about this time and published in 1591) and also in "Colin Clout's Come Home Again," written in 1591 and published in 1595; he leaves Hurst wood for London at the advice of Harvey, who was in favor with the Earl of Leicester, and as early as 1598 Spenser becomes a member of the household of Leicester House (afterward Essex House) in the Strand; he writes poems for the amusement of Leicester, and apparently acts as his agent in delivering despatches to Leicester's correspondents in foreign countries; Spenser probably visited Ireland in 1577, and is known to have been

in France and Spain in 1579; through Leicester, he meets Sir Philip Sidney, Leicester's nephew, and they become intimate friends, to their mutual advantage; with Sidney and other friends, Spenser forms a literary club called the Areopagus, where they debate the application of the classical rules of quantity to English metres, though Spenser confesses, "I am more in love with my versifying."

During 1579 and 1580 Spenser wrote several poems, which have either been lost or have been incorporated into poems under titles different from those given them by Harvey and Spenser; among these were nine English comedies, a poem entitled "Dreams," which Harvey thought equal to Petrarch's "Visions" (this was actually prepared for printing, with a glossary and illustrations); "The Dying Pelican" (also prepared for the press), and a prose tract entitled "The English Poet;" some of these last poems are possibly embodied in part in the "Faery Queen;" while Spenser is a member of Leicester's household he also writes his "Hymns in Honor of Love and Beauty" (published in 1596), and begins the

Faerie Queene; "The Shepheard's Calendar " was published December 5, 1579, with a dedication to Sidney, and bearing the pseudonym " Immerito;" Spenser's friend, Kirke, supplied notes and a glossary; the archaic dialect in the "Calendar" is in imitation of the Doric dialect of Theocritus, whose pastoral poetry suggested the theme to Spenser ; Colin in the "Calendar" is Spenser, and Alguind is the Archbishop of Canterbury; the "Calendar" was received with enthusiasm, and passed through five editions in eighteen years; it was translated into Latin by John Dove in 1585, and it gave to Spenser at once the first place among living English poets; in 1580 he published two volumes, consisting of extracts from his correspondence with Harvey and dealing principally with questions of English scansion.

In July, 1580, through the influence of Leicester and Sidney, Spenser is appointed secretary to Lord Grey, then just