and fashion during three centuries in the East, in France, in Wales, in Provence, in Italy. All that had rolled his way, clashed together, broken, or polished by the stream of centuries, and by the great jumble of human memory, he holds in his hands, arranges it, composes therefrom a long sparkling ornament, with twenty pendants, a thousand facets, which by its splendor, varieties, contrasts may attract and satisfy the eyes of those most greedy for amusement and novelty." -Taine.

"Chaucer is a great narrative poet, and in this species of poetry, though the author's personality should never be obtruded, it yet unconsciously pervades the whole, and communicates an individual quality—a kind of flavor of its own.

The pleasure Chaucer takes in telling his stories has in itself the effect of consummate skill, and makes us follow all the windings of his fancy with sympathetic interest. His best tales run on like one of our inland rivers, sometimes hastening a little and turning upon themselves in eddies that dimple without retarding the current; sometimes loitering smoothly, while here and there a quiet thought, a tender feeling, a pleasant image, a golden-hearted verse, opens quietly as a water-lily, to float on the surface without breaking it into ripples."-Lowell.

"He is the prince of story-tellers; and however much he may move others, he is not moved himself. . . The 'Canterbury Tales '-a story-book than which the world does not possess a better."--Alexander Smith.

"He conducts us through his narratives with facile eloquence, smoothing over what is unpalatable, waving aside. digressions, interspersing easy reflections, never staying too long upon one topic.. No poet could be more ani

mated than Chaucer. All his works are full of bright color, fresh feeling, rapid ease, and gaiety of movement. There is no tedious dulness in his descriptions, no lingering in the march of his narrative. With all his loquacity and vivacity,

he knows when his readers have had enough of one thing, and passes easily on to something else. The ease of his transitions is very remarkable; he always keeps his main subject firmly and clearly in view; and his well-marked digressions add to the general animation by dispersing the feeling of rigid restraint without tending in the least to produce confusion.”—William Minto.

"He is our greatest story-teller in verse. All the best tales are told easily, sincerely, with great grace, and yet with so much homeliness that a child would understand them." -Stopford Brooke.

"A great poet by virtue of his natural gifts, he was the greatest of narrative poets by virtue of his knowledge of mankind."-R. H. Stoddard.

ILLUSTRATIONS.

"This duk, of whom I make mencioun,
When he was come almost unto the toun,
In al his wele and in his moste pryde,
He was war, as he caste his eye asyde,
Wher that ther kneled in the hye weye
A companye of ladies, tweye and tweye,
Ech after other, clad in clothes blake;
But swich a cry and swich a wo they make
That in this world nis creature livinge
That herde swich another weymentinge,
And of this cry they wolde never stenten
Til they the reynes of his bredel henten."
—The Knightes Tale.

"A theef he was, for sothe, of corn and mele,
And that a sly and usaunt for to stele.
His name was hoten deynous Simkin.
A wyf he hadde y-comen of noble kin;
The person of the toun hir fader was.
With hir he yaf ful many a panne of bras,
For that Simkin sholde in his blood allye.
She was y-fostred in a nonnerye ;

For Simkin wolde no wyf, as he sayde,
But she were wel e-norissed and a mayde,
To saven his estaat and yomanrye,

And she was proud and pert as is a pye."

"At Sarray, in the land of Tartarye,

- The Reeves Tale.

Ther dwelte a king that werreyed Russye,
Thurgh which ther deyde many a doughty man.
This noble king was cleped Cambinskan,
Which in his tyme was of so greet renoun
That ther nas no-wher in no regioun
So excellent a lord in alle thing;

Him lakked noght that longeth to a king.
As of the secte of which that he was born
He kept his lay, to which that he was sworn ;
And the-rto he was hardy, wys, and riche,
And piëtous and just alwey y-liche;
Sooth of his word, benigne, and honurable,
Of his corage as any centre stable."

-The Squieres Tale.

9. Realism-Minuteness-Single Strokes-Vividness." Other fourteenth century writers can tell a story but none else of that day can bring the actual world

of men and women before us with the movement of a Florentine procession picture, and with a color and a truth of detail that anticipate the great Dutch masters of painting."T. H. Ward.

"When Chaucer describes anything, it is commonly by one. of those simple and obvious epithets or qualities that are so easy to miss. Is it a woman? He tells us that she is fresh; that she has glad eyes; that every day her beauty newed. Sometimes he describes amply by the merest hint, as where the Friar, before setting himself softly down, drives away We know without need of more words that he has chosen the snuggest corner. . . Nothing escapes his sure eye for the picturesque-the cut of the beard, the soil of

the cat.

armor on the buff jerkin, the rust on the sword, the expression of the eye. Chaucer is the first to break away from the dreary traditional style and give us not merely stories, but the lively pictures of real life as the ever renewed substance of poetry. His parson is still unmatched, though Dryden and Goldsmith have both tried their hands on him." -Lowell.

"Chaucer excels as the poet of manners or of real life. Chaucer most frequently describes things as they are. The characteristic of Chaucer is intensity.

As Spenser was the most romantic and visionary, so Chaucer was the most practical of all the great poets, the most a man of business and the world. His poetry reads like history. Everything has a downright reality, at least in the relator's mind. A simile or a sentiment is as if it were given in upon evidence. He speaks of what he wishes to describe with the accuracy, the discrimination of one who relates what has happened to himself, or has had the best information from those who have been eye-witnesses of it. The strokes of his pencil always tell. He dwells only on the essential, on that which would be interesting to the person really concerned : yet, as he never omits any material circumstance; he is prolix from the number of points on which he touches, without being diffuse on any one. . The chain of his story is composed of a number of fine links, closely connected together, and riveted by a single blow."-William Hazlitt.

"In these [the characters of the Canterbury Tales'] his knowledge of the world availed him in a peculiar degree, and enabled him to give such an accurate picture of ancient manners as no contemporary nation has transmitted to posterity. It is here that we view the pursuits and employments, the customs and diversions of our ancestors, copied from the life, and represented with equal truth and spirit, by a judge of mankind whose penetration qualified him to discern their foibles or discriminating peculiarities and by an artist who understood

that proper selection of circumstances and those predominant characteristics which form a finished portrait.”—Thomas Warton.

"The Canterbury Tales' are as real as anything in Shakespeare or Burns. . . . The prologue, . . in which we make the acquaintance of the pilgrims, is the ripest, most genial and humorous-altogether the most masterly thing which Chaucer has left us. In its own way, and within its own limits, it is the most wonderful thing in the language. The people we read about are as real as the people we brush clothes with in the street-nay, much more real; for we not only see their faces and the fashion and texture of their garments, we know also what they think, how they express themselves, and with what eyes they look out on the world. Chaucer's art in this prologue is simple perfection. He indulges in no irrelevant description; he airs no fine sentiments; he takes no special pains as to style or poetic ornament; but every careless touch tells, every sly line reveals character; the description of each man's horse-furniture and array reads like memoir."-Alexander Smith.

"To read Chaucer closely is really to live for the moment in the fourteenth century, to hear the talk and see the faces of the whole people. Shakespeare never did so much for his time. He gave us philosophy, thoughts, fancy, dramatic action, but we do not get from him a whole century alive again, a whole nation speaking for itself, class by class, the real English home-life; men and their thoughts at once; the colors, the manners, the accents, the dress, the characters, the sentiments, the science,-town, field, park and river scenery, farm-house, inn, castle, and wharf, all brought back to us, down to the very scent of them, down to the cat driven from the best seat, the pet dog, birds, and the coals on the fire. We get that from Chaucer. His characters are splendidly varied and true to nature."-H. R. Haweis.