was the stately knight on sober steed, who had ridden in Christendom and heathenesse, and had "foughten for our faith at Tramissene;" -and his son, the young squire, a lover, and a lusty bachelor, with curled locks, and gay embroidery; a bold rider, a dancer, and a writer of verses, singing and fluting all day long, and " fresh as the month of May;"-and his “knotheaded" yeoman; a bold forester, in green, with horn, and baudrick, and dagger, a mighty bow in hand, and a sheaf of peacock arrows shining beneath his belt;—and the coy, smiling, simple nun, with her gray eyes, her small red mouth, and fair forehead, her dainty person clad in featly cloak and "'ypinched wimple," her coral beads about her arm, her golden brooch with a love motto, and her pretty oath "by Saint Eloy ;"-and the merchant, solemn in speech and high on horse, with forked beard and "Flaundrish bever hat;"-and the lusty monk, "full fat and in good point," with berry brown palfrey, his hood fastened with gold pin, wrought with a love-knot, his bald head shining like glass, and his face glistening as though it had been anointed;-—and the lean, logical, sententious clerke of Oxenforde, upon his half-starved, scholar-like horse; and the bowsing sompnour, with fiery-cherub face, all knobbed with pimples, an eater of garlick and onions, and drinker of "strong wine, red as blood," that carried a cake for a buckler, and babbled Latin in his cups; of whose brimstone visage" children were sore aferd;"-and the buxom wife of Bath, the widow of five husbands, upon her ambling nag, with her hat broad as a buckler, her red stockings, and sharp spurs ;-and the slender, choleric reeve of Norfolk, bestriding his good gray stot; with close-shaven beard, his hair cropped round his ears, long, lean, calfless legs, and a rusty blade by his side;-and the jolly Limitour, with lisping tongue and twinkling eye, well beloved of franklens and housewives, a great promoter of marriages among young women, known at the taverns in every town, and by every "hosteler and gay tapstere." In short, be fore I was roused from my reverie by the less poetical, but more substantial apparition of a smoking beef-steak, I had seen the whole cavalcade issue forth from the hostel-gate, with the brawny, double-jointed, red-haired miller, playing the bagpipes before them, and the ancient host of the Tabard giving them his farewell God-send to Canterbury. When I told the squire of the existence of this legitimate descendant of the ancient Tabard Inn, his eyes absolutely glistened with delight. He determined to hunt it up the very first time he visited London, and to eat a dinner there, and drink a cup of mine host's best wine, in memory of old Chaucer. The general, who happened to be present, immediately begged to be of the party, for he liked to encourage these long-established houses, as they are apt to have choice old wines. N VOL. II. POPULAR SUPERSTITIONS. Farewell rewards and fairies, Good housewives now may say; Do fare as well as they : And though they sweepe their hearths no lesse Than maids were wont to doe, Yet who of late for cleanlinesse Finds sixpence in her shooe? BISHOP CORBET. I HAVE mentioned the squire's fondness for the marvellous, and his predilection for legends and romances. His library contains a curious collection of old works of this kind, which bear evident marks of having been much read. In his great love for all that is antiquated, he cherishes popular superstitions, and listens, with very grave attention, to every tale, however strange; so that, through his countenance, the household, and, indeed, the whole neigh bourhood, is well stocked with wonderful stories; and if ever a doubt is expressed of any one of them, the narrator will generally observe, that "the squire thinks there's something in it." The Hall of course comes in for its share, the common people having always a propensity to furnish a great superannuated building of the kind with supernatural inhabitants. The gloomy galleries of such old family mansions; the stately chambers, adorned with grotesque carvings and faded paintings; the sounds that vaguely echo about them; the moaning of the wind; the cries of rooks and ravens from the trees and chimney-tops; all produce a state of mind favourable to superstitious fancies. In one chamber of the Hall, just opposite a door which opens upon a dusky passage, there is a full length portrait of a warrior in armour; when, on suddenly turning into the passage, I have caught a sight of the portrait, thrown into strong relief by the dark paneling against which it hangs, I have more than |