rusticitie for a better place. Soone after entred a faire Ladie [Una] in mourning weedes, riding on a white Asse, with a dwarfe behind her leading a warlike steed, that bore the Armes of a knight, and his speare in the dwarfes hand. She fall ing before the Queene of Faeries, complayned that her father and mother, an ancient King and Queene, had bene by a huge dragon many yeers shut up in a brazen Castle, who thence suffered them not to issew: and therefore besought the Faery Queene to assigne her some one of her knights to take on him that exployt. Presently that clownish person upstarting, desired that adventure; whereat the Queene much wondering, and the Lady much gaine-saying, yet he earnestly importuned his desire. In the end the Lady told him, that unlesse that armour which she brought would serve him (that is, the armour of a Christian man specified by Saint Paul, v. [vi.] Ephes.) that he could not succeed in that enterprise : which being forth-with put upon him with due furnitures thereunto, he seemed the goodliest man in al that company, and was well liked of the Lady. And eftesoones taking on him knighthood, and mounting on that straunge Courser, he went forth with her on that adventure: where beginneth the first booke, viz. A gentle Knight was pricking on the playne,' &c.

[Letter to Sir Walter Raleigh, dated 23 Ianuarie, 1589.']

DESCRIPTION OF THE RED-CROSS KNIGHT AND UNA.

By EDMUND SPENSER. [See p. 54.]

'A gentle Knight was pricking [spurring] on the plaine,

Ycladd in mightie armes and silver shielde,

Wherein old dints of deepe wounds did remaine,

The cruel markes of many a bloudy fielde;

Yet armes till that time did he never wield: *
His angry steede did chide his foming bitt,
As much disdayning to the curbe to yield:
Full jolly knight he seemd, and faire did sitt,
As one for knightly giusts and fierce encounters fitt.

And on his brest a bloudie crosse he bore,

The deare remembrance of his dying Lord,

For whose sweete sake that glorious badge he bore,
And dead as living ever him ador'd:

Upon his shield the like was also scor'd,

For soveraine hope, which in his helpe he had :
Right faithfull true he was in deede and word,

But of his cheere did seeme too solemne sad;

Yet nothing did he dread, but ever was ydrad [dreaded].

'A lovely ladie rode him faire beside,

Upon a lowly asse more white then snow,

Yet she much whiter, but the same did hide

Under a vele, that wimpled was full low,

Cf. Letter to Sir Walter Raleigh, Extract XXIII,

And over all a blacke stole she did throw

As one that inly mournd: so was she sad
And heavie sat upon her palfrey slow:

Seemed [it] in heart some hidden care she had,

And by her in a line a milke white lambe she lad [led], [Faery Queene, Bk. i., Canto i. 1, 2, 4.]

THE ELIZABETHAN STAGE.

By SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [See p. 52, and also p. 59.]

'Our Tragedies, and Comedies, (not without cause cried out against,) obseruing rules, neyther of honest ciuilitie, nor of skilfull Poetrie, excepting Gorboduck, [by Sackville,-see p. 61, s. 38] (againe, I say, of those that I haue seene,) which notwithstanding, as it is full of stately speeches, and well-sounding Phrases, clyming to the height of Seneca his stile, and as full of notable moralitie, which it doth most delightfully teach; and so obtayne the very end of Poesie: yet in troth it is very defectious in the circumstaunces; which greeueth mee, because it might not remaine as an exact model of all Tragedies. For it is faulty both in place, and time, the two necessary companions of all corporall actions. For where the stage should alwaies represent but one place, and the vttermost time presupposed in it, should be, both by Aristotle's precept, and common reason, but one day: there is both many dayes, and many places, inartificially imagined. But if it be so in Gorboduck, how much more in al the rest? where you shal have Asia of the one side, and Affrick of the other, and so many vnder-kingdoms, that the Player when he commeth in, must euer begin with telling where he is: or els, the tale wil not be conceiued. Now ye shal have three Ladies, walke to gather flowers, and then we must beleeue the stage to be a Garden. By and by, we heare newes of shipwracke in the same place, and then wee are to blame, if we accept it not for a Rock.

Vpon the backe of that, comes out a hidious Monster, with fire and smoke, and then the miserable beholders, are bounde to take it for a Caue. While in the mean-time, two Armies flye in, represented with foure swords and bucklers, and then what harde heart will not receiue it for a pitched fielde? * &c.'

[An Apologie for Poetrie, 1595 (Arber's Reprint, 1868), 63-4.] *Cf. Shakespeare, King Henry V., Chorus:

Mr. Knight thinks that Sidney's words may have prompted Shakespeare's appeal to his audience in this address to 'piece out our imperfections with your thoughts.' See also as to the wooden O,' p. 59, s. 37.

APPENDIX B.

THE CANTERBURY TALES.'

In the account given on p. 36, s. 17, the Canterbury Tales were roughly dated 1390. It has been conjectured, however, that the scheme of the Pilgrimage had been adopted, and the Prologue composed, about 1385-6; that some already written tales were fitted to the new scheme; that others were then written, but not enough to complete the projected plan. The order in which the tales were produced cannot, of course, be finally settled; but it may fairly be assumed that the best work-especially in regard to characterisation -is the latest. Four tales, those of the Second Nun, the Clerk, the Man of Laws, and the Monk, are among those supposed to have been written, wholly or in part, before the scheme of the poem had been formed; and the Knight's tale is probably a remodelling of a lost Palamon and Arcite. For the sources of the tales see Skeat's Chaucer, iii. 371-504, and the Originals and Analogues published by the Chaucer Society. The order of the tales in the following list is that proposed nearly thirty years ago by Dr Furnivall, the thoroughness of whose work may be estimated by the fact that scholars have found but little room even for the suggestion of modification. †

*

I. KNIGHTE'S TALE is a condensed version of the Teseide of Boccaccio (1313-1375), and recounts the loves of Palamon and Arcite for Emily, sister of Theseus' wife, Hippolita. She is made the prize of battle. Arcite wins, but, dying by an accident, bequeaths the lady to Palamon, in a speech, which for its dramatic eloquence Mr. Cowden Clarke (Riches of Chaucer, Advertisement to

* For a brief statement of the arguments, more or less satisfactory, see Mr. Pollard's Primer, §§ 45-8.

The metre of the Canterbury Tales is generally the rhymed heroic couplet. A writer in the Westminster Review gives the following 'golden rule' for reading Chaucer. 'Pronounce the final e whenever the metre demands it, and the final syllable in all words of French origin, as e.g. in coráge, visage, honoúr, clamoúr, maniér. Bear in mind, also, that the strangeness of three-fourths of the words results from the antiquated way in which they are spelled, and that when deprived of an e or an n, or otherwise slightly altered, they become familiar. They are old friends disguised in foreign garb; when we hear them speak their strangeness vanishes.'

Second Edition, 1870) places beside the elegy over Sir Lancelot, quoted at p. 281 (Extract XVII.)

"Naught may the woful spirit in myn herte
Declare a poynt of alle my sorwes smerte

To you, my lady, that I love most;
But I byquethe the service of my gost
To you aboven every creature,

Syn that my lyf ne may no lenger dure.
Allas, the woo! allas, the peynes stronge,
That I for you have suffred, and so longe!
Allas, the deth! allas myn Emelye!
Allas, departyng of our companye!
Allas! myn hertes queen! allas, my wyf
Myn hertes lady, endere of my lyf!

What is this world? what asken men to have?
Now with his love, now in his colde grave
Allone, withouten eny companye.

Farwel! my swete foo! myn Emelye
And softe tak me in your armes tweye,
For love of God, and herkneth what I seye,
I have heer with my cosyn Palamon
Had stryf and rancour many a day i-gon,
For love of yow, and for my jelousie.
And Jupiter so wis my sowle gye [guide],

To speken of a servaunt proprely,

With alle circumstaunces trewely,

That is to seyn, truthe, honour, and knighthede
Wysdom, humblesse, estaat, and hey kynrede,
Fredam, and al that longeth to that art,

So Jupiter have of my soule part,

As in this world right now ne knowe I non
So worthy to be loved as Palamon,
That serveth you, and wol don all his lyf
And if that evere ye schul ben a wyf,
Foryet not Palamon, the gentil man."
And with that word his speche faile gan;
For fro his feete up to his breste was come
The cold of deth, that hadde him overcome.'
[11.1907-1942

Dryden has paraphrased this tale under the title of Palamon and Arcite.

II. MELLERE'S TALE.-The Miller, who is drunk, tells a broad tale, for which no original has been traced, of the mischances of a carpenter.

III. REEVE'S TALE.—The Reeve, a carpenter by trade, and withal 'a sklendre colerik man,' retorts with an equally injurious tale of a miller, based upon a French fabliau.

IV. COOK'S TALE begins as a story of a disorderly London prentice; and breaks off after some fifty lines. Then generally follows the Tale of Gamelyn, of which the plot resembles Shake

speare's As You Like It (see Appendix C., No. X.). This is an older tale (c. 1340 ?), not by Chaucer, which he, it is thought, intended to rewrite for the Yeoman.

V. SERGEANT OF LAWE'S TALE is the story of Constance in Gower's Confessio Amantis, Book ii.; both, however, drew from the Life of Constance in Nicholas Trivet's Anglo-Norman Chronicle (c. 1334).

VI. SCHIPMAN'S TALE is in the Decameron (D. viii., N. i.), and shows how a good-for-nothing Monk used the money he had borrowed from a merchant to ruin his wife.

VII. PRIORESSE'S TALE tells how the Jews murdered a Christian child, who, dead and cast in a pit, by miracle:

"Ther he with throte i-corve lay upright,

He Alma redemptoris gan to synge

So lowde, that al the place bigan to rynge.'

VIII. CHAUCER'S TALES.-When called upon for his tale, Chaucer commences a parody of the Metrical Romances, entitled the Rime of Sir Thopas, 'full of phrases taken from Isumbras, Li beaus desconus, and other Romances in the same style' (Tyrwhitt). Being cut short by the frank disapprobation of the Host, who bids him tell

'som what atte lest

In which ther be som merthe or doctrine,

he relates, in prose, a highly edifying Tale of Melibeus and his wife, Prudence, from a French original. The prologue to Sir Thopas contains that description of the Poet's appearance which has been already referred to (see p. 34, s. 17).

• -Oure host to jape began,

And than at erst he loked upon me

And sayde thus, "What man art thou?" quod he;

"Thou lokest as thou woldest fynde an hare

For ever upon the ground I se the stare;

Approche ner, and loke merily.

Now ware you, sires, and let this man have space.

He in the wast is schape as wel as I ;

This were a popet in an arm to embrace
For any womman, smal and fair of face.
He semeth elvisch by his countenaunce
For unto no wight doth he daliaunce.'

IX. MONK'S TALE.-The Monk follows with a number of doleful tragedies of illustrious men, of which he has an hundred in his cell,' until his audience stop him, the Host saying plainly that 'therein is no disport, ne game.'

X. NONNE PRESTE'S TALE is that of The Cock and the For, paraphrased by Dryden, and is derived from the Roman de Renart, ch. v.

CL Extract V., Appendix A, as to the doings of the Jews of Norwich.
U