To him the world and human character are no simple things, nor are actions to be judged as the fruit of one motive alone. Who can wonder if, possessed with this new sense of the complexity of human destiny, he should sometimes have failed to render it with the clearness of an artist dealing with a simpler theme? Those critics are probably right who pronounce the Troylus inferior to the Filostrato in point of literary form; but their criticism, to be complete, should add that it is far more interesting in the history of poetry.

The first of a poet's gifts is to feel; the second is to express. Chaucer possesses this second gift as abundantly as he possesses the first. The point which contemporary and later poets almost invariably note in him is, not his power of telling a story, not his tragedy, his humour, or his character-drawing, but his language. To Lydgate he is

The noble rethor poete of Britayne;'

his great achievement has been

'Out of our tongue to avoyde all rudenesse,
And to reform it with colours of swetenesse.'

To Occleve he was 'the floure of eloquence,'

The firste fynder of our faire langage.'

Dunbar, at the end of the fifteenth century, speaks of his 'fresh enamel'd termës celical'; and long afterwards Spenser gave him the immortal epithet of 'the well of English undefiled.' Chaucer, like Dante, had the rare fortune of coming in upon an unformed language, and, so far as one man could, of forming it. He grew up among the last generation in England that used French as an official tongue. It was in 1362, when Chaucer was just entering manhood, that the session of the House of Commons was first opened with an English speech. Hence it is easy to see the hollowness of the charge, so often brought against him since Verstegan first made it, that 'he was a great mingler of English with French,' that 'he corrupted our language with French words.' Tyrwhitt long since refuted this charge; and if it wanted further refutation, we might point to Piers Plowman's Vision, the work of a poet of the people, written for the people in their own speech, but containing a greater proportion of French words than Chaucer's writings contain. And yet Chaucer is a courtier, a Londoner, perhaps partly French by extraction; above all, he is

a translator, and some influence from the language he is translating passes into his own verse. The truth is that in his hands for the first time our language appears as it is; in structure of course purely Germanic, but rich, assimilative, bold in its borrowings, adopting and adapting at its pleasure any words of any language that might come in its way. How Chaucer used this noble instrument is not to be demonstrated; it is to be felt. De sensibus non est disputandum; it is vain to discuss matters of personal experience, to point to qualities in a poet's verse which must really be judged by the individual ear. Otherwise we might dwell on Chaucer's use of his metre, which varies in such subtle response to his subject and his mood; or on his skill in rhyming, though, as he says, 'ryme in Englisch hath such skarsetë'; or on the 'linked sweetness' of the love-passages in the Troylus; or on the grandeur of his tragic descriptions, where the sound gives so solemn an echo to the sense :

'First on the wal was peynted a forest,

In which ther dwelleth neither man ne best,
With knotty knarry bareyne trees olde
Of stubbes scharpe and hidous to byholde
In which ther ran a swymbel in a swough.'

These qualities come into view at a first reading of Chaucer; and why should the pleasure to be gained from them be kept for the few? How few there are who can read Chaucer so as to understand him perfectly,' says Dryden, apologising for 'translating' him. In our day, with the wider spread of historical study, with the numerous helps to old English that the care of scholars has produced for us, with the purification that Chaucer's text has undergone, this saying of Dryden's ought not to be true. It ought to be not only possible, but easy, for an educated reader to learn the few essentials of Chaucerian grammar, and for an ear at all trained to poetry to tune itself to the unfamiliar harmonies. For those who make the attempt the reward is certain. They will gain the knowledge, not only of the great poet and creative genius that these pages have endeavoured to sketch, but of the master who uses our language with a power, a freedom, a variety, a rhythmic beauty, that, in five centuries, not ten of his successors have been found able to rival.

EDITOR.

THE BOKE OF THE DUCHESSE.

[The following passage is given as a specimen of Chaucer's earliest or French period. The date is 1369.]

Me thoghtë thus, that hyt was May,
And in the dawnynge, ther I lay,
Me mette thus in my bed al naked,
And loked forth, for I was waked
With smale foulës, a grete hepe,
That had afrayed me out of slepe,
Thorgh noyse and swetnesse of her songe.
And as me mette, they sate amonge

Upon my chambre roof wythoute,

Upon the tylës al aboute;

And songen everych in hys wyse

The mostë solempnë servise

By noote, that ever man, Y trowe,

Had herd. For somme of hem songe lowe,
Somme high, and al of oon acorde.
To tellë shortly at oo word,

Was never herd so swete a steven,
But hyt hadde be a thyng of heven,
So mery a soun, so swete entewnes,
That, certes, for the toune of Tewnes,
I nolde but I had herd hem synge,
For al my chambre gan to rynge,
Thorgh syngynge of her armonye;
For instrument nor melodye

Was no-wher herd yet half so swete,
Nor of acorde ne half so mete.

For ther was noon of hem that feynede
To synge, for eche of hem hym peynede 2

1 I dreamed.

2 took trouble.

To fynde out mery crafty notys;
They ne sparede not her throtys.
And, sooth to seyn, my chambre was
Ful wel depeynted, and with glas
Were alle the wyndowes wel yglased
Ful clere, and nat an hoole ycrased,
That to beholde hyt was grete joye.
For holy al the story of Troye
Was in the glasynge ywrought thus ;
Of Ector, and of kyng Priamus,
Of Achilles, and of kyng Lamedon,
And eke of Medea and of Jason,
Ɔf Paris, Eleyne, and of Lavyne ;
And alle the walles, with coloures fyne
Were peynted, bothë text and glose,
And al the Romaunce of the Rose.
My windowes were shet echon,
And throgh the glas the sonnë shon
Upon my bed with bryghtë bemys,
With many gladë, gildë stremys ;
And eke the welken was so faire,
Blewe, bryghtë, clerë was the ayre,
And ful atempre, for sothe, hyt was;
For nother to cold nor hoote yt nas,
Ne in al the welkene was a clowde.

TROYLUS AND CRISEYDE.

[Troylus sees Criseyde in the Temple, and loves her at first sight.]

But though that Grekës hem of Troye in shetten1,
And hire cité beseged al aboute,

Hire olde usagës wolde thai noght letten,
As for to honoure hire goddës ful devoute,
But aldermost in honour, out of doute,
They had a relyk hight Palladioun,
That was hire trist aboven everichoun.

1 shut.

And so byfel, whan comen was the tyme
Of Aperil, whan clothed is the mede

With newë grene, of lusty Veer the prime,
And swotë smellen floures, white and rede;
In sondry wisë schewed, as I rede,

The folk of Troye hire observaunces olde,
Palladyones festë for to holde.

And to the temple, in alle hire bestë wise,
In general ther wentë many a wyght
To herken of Palladyoun servise,

And namely so mony a lusty knyght,

So many a lady fresshe, and mayden bryght,
Ful wele araied, bothë moste and leste,
Ye, bothë for the seson and the feeste.

Among thise other folk was Criseyda,
In wydewes habit blak; but nathëles,
Right as oure firstë lettre is now an A,
In beauté first so stood sche makëles';
Hire goodly lokyng gladded al the prees:
Nas nevere seyn thyng to ben preysed derre2,
Nor under cloudë blak so bright a sterre,

As was Criseyde, as folk seyde everychon,
That hire byhelden in hire blakë wede;
And yet sche stood ful low and stille allone
Byhynden other folk in litel brede 3,

And neygh the dore, ay under schames drede,
Symple of atyre, and debonair of cheere,
Wyth ful asseured lokynge and manere.

This Troylus, as he was wont to gyde
His yonge knyhtës, ladde hem up and down,
In thilkë largë temple on every syde,
Byholdynge ay the ladies of the town;
Now here now ther, for no devocioun

1 matchless.

VOL. I.

2 dearer.
C

3

a little way.