Petrarch confessed that he had borrowed from Boccaccio, who remodelled it from some old legend. It deserves to be told in yet better language, by some poet of our own day.

Dryden and Pope have modernized some parts of Chaucer's great work, but not the best. The former says of him, "He is a perpetual fountain of good sense." Emerson accuses Chaucer of being a "huge borrower," using "poorGower" (an author of that time) "as if he were only a brickkiln or stone quarry, out of which to build his house." This may be very true, but it is hard to criticise severely the genius who borrows indifferent material and makes it immortal..

His Tales remained in manuscript form for seventy years, and were then published by Caxton, the first printer of England.

In regard to the personal appearance of Chaucer himself, but little is known. "His common dress consisted of red hose, horned shoes, and a loose frock of camlet reaching to the knee, with wide sleeves, fastened at the wrist."

A miniature introduced, as was the fashion of those times, into one of the most valuable manuscript copies of his works, gives him a pleasant, thoughtful, and somewhat abstracted countenance. As a young man, he was handsome, elegant, and graceful, his mouth, especially noticed for its beauty of color and outline. But, toward the end of his life, he grew rather corpulent, and always walked with downcast face, as if absorbed in meditation. When called on in his turn to amuse the pilgrims by a story, he is rallied by honest Harry Bailey, who was not a slender man himself, on his obesity and studious air; and the amiability with which the poet receives these jokes, proves him a true gentleman as well as a fine writer.

Listen for a moment to the burly landlord:

"What man art thou? quod he,

Thou lookest as thou woldest find a hare;

For ever on the ground I see thee stare.

Approach near, and loke merrily.

Now ware you sires, and let this man have room,

He in wast is shape as well as I.

This were a popet in an arm to embrace

For any woman and fair of face;

He seemeth elveisch by his countenance,

For unto no wight doth he dalliance."

Crowned with plenty and content, enjoying a quiet, happy old age, warmed once more by the sunshine of royal favor, Chaucer spent his last and best days writing his greatest work in a pleasant home at Woodstock, receiving a liberal pension and a pitcher of wine daily from the cellar of the king.

He died in 1400, and was buried in Westminster Abbey, in what is now called the "Poet's Corner." It is said that he repeated in his last moments the "Balade made by Geoffrey Chaucer upon his dethe bed, lying in his great anguisse." Here is a portion of it, with the modern spelling:

"Fly from the crowd, and be to virtue true,

Content with what thou hast though it be small;
To hoard brings hate, nor lofty thoughts pursue,
He who climbs bigh endangers many a fall.
Envy's a shade that ever waits on fame,
And oft the sun that rises it will hide;
Trace not in life a vast expansive scheme,
But be thy wishes to thy state allied.
Be mild to others, to thyself severe,

So truth shall shield thee or from want or fear."

Chaucer was the type of his age, a connecting link between the days of chivalry and the great Reformation, uniting in his character the knight and the Christian.

Those who

The first poet, like the snow-drop, the harbinger of spring, attracts all eyes and wins all hearts. followed Chaucer admired and imitated him.

They called

his words "the gold dew-drops of speech," and himself

"superlative in eloquence," "the chief poet of Britain,” "the first finder of our fair language." Wordsworth speaks of

"That noble Chaucer, in those former times,

Who first enriched our English with his rhymes;
And was the first of ours that ever broke
Into the Muses' treasures, and first spoke

In mighty numbers, delving in the mine
Of perfect knowledge."

He first introduced the heroic metre into our language, and his vigorous Anglo-Saxon was inlaid with such a number of Norman-French words, that contemporaries complained that he imported a "wagon-load of foreign words." A French accent is often necessary to make the rhythm perfect.

His principal works, besides the "Canterbury Tales," are "The Flower and the Leaf," "Troilus and Creseide," "Romaunt of the Rose," and "The House of Fame." Pope, in his "Temple of Fame," has imitated the last poem to some extent.

His poetry exhibits a rare combination of opposite excellences" the sportive fancy, painting and gilding every thing with the keen, observant, matter-of-fact spirit, that looks through whatever it glances at; the soaring and creative imagination, with the homely sagacity and healthy relish for all the realities of things; the unrivalled tenderness and pathos, with the quaintest humor and the most exuberant merriment; the wisdom at once and the wit; the all that is best, in short, both in poetry and prose at the same time.”

Henry Reed says: "You look at him in his gay mood, and it is so genial that that seems to be his very nature, an overflowing comic power, or rather that power touched with thoughtfulness and tenderness-humor in its finest estate. And then you turn to another phase of his

genius, and with something of wonder, and more of delight, you find it shining with a light as true and natural and beautiful into the deeper places of the human soulits woes, its anguish, and its strength of suffering and of heroism. In this, the harmonious union of true tragic and comic powers, Chaucer and Shakespeare stand alone in our literature; it places them above all the other great poets of our language."

Most persons have the idea that Chaucer was a remarkable poet for the age in which he lived, but that now "he is dead and buried in a literary as well as a literal sense," regarding his works as relics of an almost barbarous age. But those who are willing to master the difficulties of his style will be amply rewarded. "It will conduct you,' to use the beautiful words of Milton, to a hill-side; laborious, indeed, at the first ascent, but else so smooth, so green, so full of goodly prospects and melodious sounds on every side, that the harp of Orpheus was not more charming."

Leigh Hunt has given us the story in exquisite prose of the "glorious, sainted Griselda." He says: "The whole heart of Christendom has embraced her. She has passed into a proverb; ladies of quality have called their children after her, the name surviving (we believe) among them to this day, in spite of its griesly sound; and we defy the manliest man of any feeling to read it in Chaucer's own consecutive stanzas (whatever he may do here) without feeling his eyes moisten." And then follows his version:

"At Saluzzo, in Piedmont, under the Alps—

'Down at the root of Vesulus the cold'

there reigned a feudal lord, a marquis, who was beloved by his people, but too much given to his amusement, and an enemy of marriage; which alarmed them, lest he

should die childless, and leave his inheritance in the hands of strangers. They, therefore, at last sent him a deputation which addressed him on the subject; and he agreed to take a wife, on condition that they should respect his choice wheresoever it might fall.

"Now, among the poorest of the marquis's people—

'There dwelt a man

Which that was holden poorest of them all :

But highé God sometimé senden can
His grace unto a little ox's stall;
Janicola, men of that thorp him call;
A daughter had he fair enough to sight,
And Grisildis this youngé maiden hight.'

Tender of age was 'Grisildis' or 'Grisilda' (for the poet calls her both); but she was a maiden of a thoughtful and steady nature, and as excellent a daughter as could be, thinking of nothing but her sheep, her spinning, and her 'old poor father,' whom she supported by her labor, and waited upon with the greatest duty and obedience.

'Upon Griseld', this pooré creáture,

Full often sith this marquis set his eye,
As he on hunting rode peráventure;
And, when it fell that he might her espy,
He not with wanton looking of folly
His eyen cast on her, but in sad wise

Upon her cheer he would him oft avise.'

"The marquis announced to his people that he had chosen a wife, and the wedding-day arrived: but nobody saw the lady; at which there was great wonder. Clothes and jewels were prepared, and the feast too; and the marquis, with a great retinue, and accompanied by music, took his way to the village where Griselda lived.

"Griselda had heard of his coming, and said to herself, that she would get her work done faster than usual, on purpose to stand at the door, like other maidens, and see