of various classes of society tell a series of tales, extremely beautiful when regarded as compositions and judged on their independent merits, but deriving an infinitely higher interest from the way in which they harmonize with their respective narrators. After giving a brief, picturesque description of spring, the poet informs us that being about to make a pilgrimage from London to the shrine of Thomas à Becket in the cathedral of Canterbury, he passes the night previous to his departure at the Tabard Inn in Southwark. While at the "hostelrie" he meets many pilgrims bound to the same destination :—

"In Southwerk at the Tabard as I lay,
Redy to wenden on my pilgrimage
To Canterbury with ful devout corage,
At night was come into that hostelrie
Wel nyne and twenty in a companye*
Of sondry folk, by aventure y-falle

In felawschipe, and pilgryms were thei alle,
That toward Canterbury wolden ryde."

This goodly company, assembled in a manner so natural in those times of pilgrimages and of difficult and dangerous , roads, agree to travel in a body; and at supper Harry Bailey, the host of the Tabard, a jolly and sociable fellow, proposes to accompany the party as a guide, and suggests that they may much enliven the tedium of their journey by relating stories as they ride. He is accepted by the whole society as a judge or moderator, by whose decisions every one is to abide. The plan of the whole work, had Chaucer completed it, would have comprised the adventures on the journey, the arrival at Canterbury, a description, in all probability, of the splendid religious ceremonies and the visits to the numerous shrines and relics in the Cathedral, the return to London, the farewell supper at the Tabard, and the separation of the pleasant company. The jovial guide proposes

* But in his subsequent enumeration (see next page) Chaucer counts thirty per

sons.

that each pilgrim shall relate two tales on the journey out, and two more on the way home; and that, on the return of the party to London, he who shall be adjudged to have related the best and most amusing story, shall sup at the common cost. Such is the general plan of the poem, and its development is natural. The tales admirably accord with the characters of the persons who relate them, and the remarks and criticisms to which they give rise are no less humorous and appropriate. Some of the stories suggest others, just as it would happen in real life, under the same circumstances. The pilgrims are persons of almost all ranks and classes of society. In the inimitable description of manners, persons, dress, and all the equipage, with which the poet has introduced them, we behold a vast and minute portrait gallery of the social state of England in the fourteenth century. They are-(1.) A Knight; (2.) A Squire; (3.) A Yeoman; (4.) A Prioress, a lady of rank, superior of a nunnery; (5, 6, 7, 8.) A Nun and three Priests, in attendance upon this lady; (9.) A Monk, represented as handsomely dressed and equipped, and passionately fond of hunting and good cheer; (10.) A Friar, or Mendicant Monk; (11.) A Merchant; (12.) A Clerk, or Student of the University of Oxford; (13.) A Serjeant of the Law; · (14.) A Franklin, or rich country gentleman; (15, 16, 17, 18, 19.) Five wealthy burgesses, or tradesmen,—a Haberdasher, or dealer in silk and cloth, a Carpenter, a Weaver, a Dyer, and a Tapisser, or maker of carpets and hangings; (20.) A Cook, or rather the keeper of a cook's-shop; (21.) A Shipman, the master of a trading vessel; (22.) A Doctor of Physic; (23.) A Wife of Bath, a rich cloth-manufacturer; (24.) A Parson, or secular parish priest; (25.) A Ploughman, the brother of the preceding personage; (26.) A Miller; (27.) A Manciple, or steward of a college or religious house; (28.) A Reeve; (29.) A Sompnour, or Sumner, an officer whose duty was to summon delinquents to appear

in the ecclesiastical courts; (30.) A Pardoner, or vendor of Indulgences from Rome. To these thirty persons, must be added Chaucer himself, and the Host of the Tabard, making in all thirty-two.

If each of these pilgrims had related two tales on the journey to Canterbury, and two on the return, the work would have contained one hundred and twenty-eight stories, independently of the subordinate incidents and conversations; but the pilgrims do not arrive at their destination, and there are many evidences of confusion in the tales which Chaucer has given us, leading to the conclusion that the materials were not only incomplete, but also were left in an unarranged state by the poet. The stories that we possess are twenty-five in number,-three of which, the Cook's, the Squire's, and Chaucer's first, are "left half," or less than half, “told,” and one, Gamelyn,* is either entirely spurious or written by the poet for a different purpose. Eleven of the pilgrims are left silent. A Canon and his Yeoman unexpectedly join the cavalcade during the journey, but it is uncertain whether this episode, which was probably an afterthought of the poet, takes place on the journey to or from Canterbury. The Canon, who is represented as an Alchemist, half swindler and half dupe, is driven away from the company by shame at his attendant's indiscreet disclosures; and the Yeoman, remaining with the pilgrims, relates a most amusing story of the villanous artifices of the charlatans who pretended to possess the Great Arcanum. The stories narrated by the pilgrims are admirably introduced by what the author calls "prologues," consisting of remarks and criticisms on the preceding tale, and of incidents of the journey. The Tales are all in verse, with the exception of two, that of the Parson, and Chaucer's second narrative, the

*The Cook's Tale of Gamelyn, if really written by Chaucer, was a close copy of one of the ballad stories common among the people, and was perhaps intended to be related on the journey home.

allegorical story of Melibeus and his wife Prudence. Those in verse exhibit an endless variety of metrical forms, used with consummate ease and dexterity; indeed, no English poet is more exquisitely melodious than Chaucer. The nature of the versification will often assist us in tracing the sources whence he derived or adapted his materials. He appears in no instance to have taken the trouble to invent the intrigues of his stories, but to have freely borrowed them, either from the multitudinous fabliaux of the Provençal poets, the legends of the medieval chroniclers, or the immense storehouse of the Gesta Romanorum, and the rich treasury of the early Italian writers.

The Tales themselves may be roughly divided into the two great classes of serious, tragic or pathetic, and comic or humorous. We are filled with delight and admiration, whether we study his wonderful painting of character, the conciseness and vividness of his descriptions, the loftiness of his sentiment and the intensity of his pathos, or revel in the richness of his humor and the surpassingly droll, yet perfectly natural extravagance of his comic scenes. The finest of the pathetic stories are, the Knight's Tale-the longest of them all, in which is related the adventure of Palamon and Arcite; the Squire's Tale, a wild, half-Oriental story of love, chivalry, and enchantment; the Man of Law's Tale, the beautiful and pathetic story of Constance; the Prioress's Tale, the charming legend of "litel Hew of Lincoln," the child who was murdered for perseveringly singing his hymn to the Virgin; and above all the Clerk of Oxford's Tale, perhaps the most beautiful pathetic narration in the whole range of literature. This, the story of Griselda, the model and heroine of wifely patience and obedience, is the tenderest of all the serious narratives, as the Knight's Tale is the masterpiece among the descriptions of love and chivalric magnificence.

The Knight's Tale is freely borrowed from the Theseida

of Boccaccio. Though the action and personages of this noble story are assigned to classical antiquity, the sentiments, manners, and feelings of the persons introduced are those of chivalric Europe; the "Two Noble Kinsmen,” Palamon and Arcite, being types of the knightly character. The Squire's Tale bears evident marks of Oriental origin; but whether it be a legend directly derived from Eastern literature, or received by Chaucer after having filtered through a Romance version, is now uncertain. It is equal to the preceding story in splendor and variety of incident. and in word-painting, but far inferior in depth of pathos and ideal elevation of sentiment; yet it was by the Squire's Tale that Milton characterized Chaucer in that passage of the Penseroso where he evokes the recollections of the great poet:

"And call up him that left half-told
The story of Cambuscan bold,
Of Cambal, and of Algarsife,

And who had Canace to wife

That owned the virtuous ring and glass;
And of the wondrous horse of brass

On which the Tartar king did ride."

The Man of Law's Tale is taken with little variation from Gower's voluminous poem, "Confessio Amantis," the incidents of Gower's narrative being in their turn traceable to a multitude of romances.

The most pathetic of Chaucer's stories, that of Patient Griselda, narrated by the clerk of Oxford, is traceable to Petrarch's Latin translation of the last tale in Boccaccio's Decameron.

The finest of Chaucer's comic and humorous stories are those of the Miller, the Reeve, and the Sompnour. Among these it is difficult to give the palm for drollery, acute painting of human nature, and exquisite ingenuity of incident. It is much to be regretted that the comic stories turn upon events of a kind which the refinement of modern manners