But all be that he was a philosopher,
Yet hadde he but little gold in coffer,
But all that he might of his friendés hent,
On bookes and on learning he it spent,
And busily 'gan for the soulės pray

Of them that gave him wherewith to scholay.
Of study took he mosté cure and heed;
Not a word spake he moré than was need;
And that was said in form and reverence,

And short and quick, and full of high sentence:
Sounding in moral virtue was his speech,

And gladly would he learn, and gladly teach.

A noble verse, containing all the zeal and singleheartedness of a true love of knowledge. The ac

count of

THE SERGEANT OF THE LAW

contains a couplet, which will do for time everlasting to describe a bustling man of business. If Fielding had read Chaucer, he would assuredly have applied it to his Lawyer Dowling, who "wished he could cut himself into twenty pieces," he had so much to do. No where so busy a man as he there n'as,*

AND YET HE SEEMED BUSIER THAN HE WAS.

THE SAILOR.

A shipman was there, wonéd far by west;
For aught I wot, he was of Dartémouth:
He rode upon a rouncy as he couth,

[He rode upon a hack-horse as well as he could.]

All in a gown of falding to the knee.
A dagger hanging by a lace had he
About his neck under his arm adown:

The hoté sunimer had made his hue all brown:

* Pronounced noz, was not.

And certainly he was a good fellaw;

Full many a draught of wine he haddé draw

From Bourdeaux ward, while that the chapmen sleep:
Of nicé consciénce took he no keep.

If that he fought and had the higher hand,
By water he sent them home to every land.
But of his craft to reckon well his tides,
His streamés and his strandés him besides ;
His harberow, his moon, and his lodemanage,
There was none such from Hull unto Carthage.
Hardy he was, and wise, I undertake;
With many a tempest had his beard been shake:
He knew well all the havens, as they were
From Gothland to the Cape de Finistere ;
And every creek in Bretagne and in Spain;
His barge yclepéd was the Magdalen.

THE PARISH PRIEST.

Wide was his parish, and houses far asunder;
But he ne left naught, for no rain nor thunder,
In sickness and in mischief, to visit

The farthest in his parish much and lite.

He setté not his benefice to hire,
And let his sheep accumbred in the mire,
And ran unto Londón, unto Saint Poule's,
To seeken him a chantery of souls,
Or with a brotherhood to be withold;
But dwelt at home, and kepté well his fold,
So that the wolf he made it not miscarry ;
He was a shepherd, and no mercenary ;

He waited after no pomp or reverence,

Ne makéd him no spicéd conscience,

But Christés love, and his apostles twelve
He taught, but first he followed it himself.

How admirably well expressed is spiced conscience!

a conscience requiring to be kept easy and sweet with drugs and luxurious living.

SPECIMENS OF CHAUCER.

No. II.

EVERAL of Chaucer's best poems are translations from the Italian and French; but of so exquisite a kind, so improved in character, so enlivened with fresh natural touches, and freed from comparative superfluity (in some instances, freed from all superfluity), that they justly take the rank of originals. We are sorry that we have not the poem of Boccaccio by us, from which he took the "Knight's Tale," containing the passages that follow, in order that we might prove this to the reader: but it is lucky perhaps in other respects, for it would have led us beyond our limits; and all that we profess, in these extracts, is to give just so many passages of an author as shall suffice for evidence of his various characteristics. We take, from his garden, specimens of the flowers for which he is eminent, and send them before the public as in a horticultural show. To see them in their due juxtaposition and abundance, we must refer to the gardens themselves; to which it is, of course, one of our objects to tempt the beholder.

PHYSICAL LIFE AND MOVEMENT.

A young knight going a-Maying.

Compare the saliency and freshness and natural language of the following description of Arcite going

a-Maying, with the more artificial version of the passage in Dryden. Sir Walter Scott says of it, that the modern poet must yield to the ancient, in spite of "the beauty of his versification." But, with all due respect to Sir Walter, here is the versification itself, as superior in its impulsive melody, even to Dryden's, as a thoroughly unaffected beauty is to a beauty half spoilt.

The busy lark, the messenger of day,
Salueth* in her song the morrow gray;
And fiery Phoebus riseth up so bright,
That all the orient laugheth of the sight,
And with his streamés drieth in the grevés†
The silver droppès hanging on the leavés :
And Arcite, that is in the court reál‡
With Theseus, the squiér principal,
Is risen, and looketh on the merry day;
And for to do his observance to May,
Remembring on the point of his desire,
He on his courser, starting as the fire,

[An admirable image! He means those sudden catches and impulses of a fiery horse, analogous to the shifting starts of a flame in action ;]

Is ridden to the fieldés, him to play,

Out of the court, were it a mile or tway;

[These are the mixtures of the particular with the general, by which natural poets come home to us ;]

And to the grove of which that I you told,

By aventure § his way he gan to hold,

To maken him a garland of the grevés,

Were it of woodbind or of hawthorn leaves;

* Saluteth.

† Groves.

§ Per aventura (Italian), — by chance.

‡ Royal.

And loud he sang against the sunny sheen :*
May, — with all thy flowers and thy green,
Right welcome be thou, fairé freshé May:
I hope that I some green here getten may.

an ex

["I hope that I may get some green here,” pression a little more off-hand and trusting, and fit for the season, than the conventional commonplaces of the passage in Dryden:

"For thee, sweet month, the groves green liveries wear!” &c.]

PORTRAITS OF TWO WARRIOR-KINGS.

There mayst thou see, coming with Palamon,
Licurge himself, the greaté King of Thrace:
Black was his beard, and manly was his face;

[Here was Dryden's and Pope's turn of line anticipated under its most popular form.]

The circles of his eyen in his head

They gloweden betwixen yellow and red;
And like a griffon looked he about,

With combéd hairés on his browés stout;

[That is to say, a forehead of the simplest, potent appearance, with no pains taken to set it out.]

His limbés great, his brawnés hard and strong,
His shoulders broad, his armés round and long;

And, as the guisé was in his countrée,

Full high upon a car of gold stood he.

With fouré whité bullés in the trace

Instead of coat armour on his harnáce,†
With nailés yellow, and bright as any gold;
He had a bearé's skin, cole-black for old.
His longé hair was combed behind his back
As any raven's feather it shone for black;