And al so trewe was he unto me.

I pray to God that sitte in mageste
So blesse his soule, for his mercy deere.
Now wol I say my tale, if ye wol heere.'

6

The Frere lough when he had herd al this: 'Now, dame,' quod he, so have I joye and blis, This a long preambel of a tale.'

And whan the Sompnour herd the Frere gale, 'Lo!' quod this Sompiour, for Goddes armes tuo, A frer wol entremet him evermo.

Lo, goode men, a flie and eek a frere

Woln falle in every dissche and matiere.
What spekst thou of perambulacioun?'

What? ambil, or trot; or pees, or go sit doun;
Thou lettest oure disport in this matere.'

'Ye, woltow so, sir sompnour! quod the Frere:
Now, by my fay, I schal, er that I go,
Telle of a sompnour such a tale or tuo,
That alle the folke schuln laughen in this place.'
Now, ellis, frere, I byschrew thy face,"

Quod this Sompnour, and I byschrewe me,
But if I telle tales tuo or thre

Of freres, er I come to Sydingborne,

That I schall make thin herte for to morne;
For wel I wot thy paciens is goon.'

Oure Hoste cride, 'Pees, and that anoon;'
And sayde,' Let the womman telle hir tale.
Ye fare as folkes that dronken ben of ale.

Do, dame, tel forth your tale, and that is west.'
'Al redy, sir,' quod sche, right as you lest,
If I have licence of this worthy frere.'

"Yis, dame,' quod he, tel forth, and I schal heere.'

1 The Sompnour's ear is caught by the word preamble, which he supposes to allude to his professional perambulations.

The meaning is, I accept your challenge. Do your worst, and if

you do not, I beshrew or invoke a curse on your face.

3 Sittingbourne, about half way between Rochester and Canterbury. -W.

THE WYF OF BATHES TALE.

[THE story told by this celebrated personage may be consi dered as an illustration of her prologue, her object in both being to show that what women most desire, and what they moreover ought to have, is their will. The story of Florent, in Gower, and The Marriage of Sir Gawaine, in Percy's Reliques, are both founded upon this theme. Percy says that the latter is chiefly taken from the fragment of an old ballad in the Editor's MS., which he has reason to believe inore ancient than the time of Chaucer, and what furnished that bard with The Wyf of Bathes Tale. Tyrwhitt thinks that both Chaucer's and Gower's versions are taken from an older narrative in the Gesta Romanorum, or some such collection; and that The Marriage of Sir Gawaine was written by some one who had seen both. Percy may, however, be right; for he states that his ballad was only founded on a mutilated copy, the deficiencies of which he probably sup plied from Gower and Chaucer; and this may account for the impression which his ballad conveyed to Tyrwhitt. The characteristic peculiarities of this bold and witty woman of the world are well preserved in her manner of relating the story:] IN olde dayes of the kyng Arthour,1

Of which that Britouns speken gret honour,

1. All that is now known of this celebrated hero of romance is contained in the History of Geoffrey of Monmouth, a Welsh Benedictine monk, who about the year 1128 translated into Latin an ancient chronicle in the Welsh or British language, entitled Brut-y-Brenihed; or, the History of the Kings of Britain, and discovered about the year 1100 by Walter Archdeacon of Oxford, in Armorica or Bretagne. What became of the British original is not known; and all the numerous romances on the same subject are supposed to be subsequent to, and derived from Geoffrey's Latin translation: Arthur's very existence has been called in question; but this arose probably from the idea prevalent among the antiquaries of the last century, that it was a point of honour to disbelieve anything told by a monk; yet it seems unphilosophical to reject a popular tradition preserved in all the national poetry of the Welsh and Britons of a period not very far removed from the date of their hero's existence, which is assigned to about the year 506. It would be endless to caumerate the romances and ballads founded or

Al was this lond fulfilled of fayrie;

The elf-queen," with hir joly compaignye,

Arthur's exploits and magnificence, which formed the delight and th model of princes and knights in the days of Chaucer. Walsingham relates that Edward III., after his triumphant return from Scotland, established in the castle of Windsor a fraternity of twenty-four knights for whom he erected a round table, with a round chamber, which still remains, according to a similar institution of King Arthur.

The ancient Britons of the time of Arthur were a mixed race, composed of the aboriginal inhabitants and the Roman colonists, who brought with them from Italy that beautiful form of pantheism which still lives in the pages of Ovid. But when Christianity emerged from the catacombs, it was not long in reaching the most distant colonies; and its missionaries taught the people to regard their old deities as evil spirits, who had adopted that mode of withdrawing them from the worship of the true God. Thus in Acts xvi. St. Paul is said to have cast out of a young woman an evil spirit of Python, or Apollo, which had enabled her to prophesy and, 1 Cor. x. 20, he says, The things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to dæmons. Following Scripture, our great Christian poet, in his enumeration of the fallen spirits who first rose from the burning lake, after mentioning the gods of the Philistines describes the classic deitles—

The rest were long to tell, though far renowned;
The Ionian gods, of Javan's issue held

But though the Church taught that these idols were ministers of the Evil Spirit, whom Christians had renounced, it was difficult to eradicate a form of pantheism so fascinating that even now it captivates many minds; and so the matter was compromised. Like the Israelites, under similar circumstances, the people worshipped Jehovah, and served Baalim and hence was derived the belief in those mysterious beings, who, like the gods of Greece and Rome, personified the powers of nature and the passions of the human heart; who peopled every grove and stream and rode upon the eddying whirlwind: who were neither absolutely good nor utterly evil, but ruled the middle air;' and who were therefore regarded with a mixture of fear and good-will by the ancient Britons at the period when the Roman traditions had not yet had time to die away. Then it was that the land was fulfilled of fayrie,' that is, with the lingering worship of the deities of ancient Rome, which was afterwards mingled with the Gothic mythology.

The Queen of Fairy, who represented Proserpine in the old mytho. logy See Marchaundes Tale.

Daunced ful oft in many a grene mede.
This was the old oppynyoun, as I rede;
I speke of many hundrid yer ago;

But now can no man see noon elves mo.
For now the grete charite and prayeres
Of lymytours and other holy freres,
That sechen every lond and every streem,
As thik as motis in the sonne-beem,
Blessyng halles, chambres, kichenes, and boures
Citees and burghes, castels hihe and toures,
Thropes and bernes, shepnes and dayeries,'
That makith that ther ben no fayeries.
For ther as wont was to walken an elf,
Ther walkith noon but the lymytour himself,
In undermeles and in morwenyuges,
And saith his matyns and his holy thinges
As he goth in his lymytatioun.'

Wommen may now go saufly up and doun;
In every bussch, and under every tre,
Ther is non other incubus but he,

1 In the old rituals are forms of invoking a blessing upon everything dedicated to the service of man. There is a Benedictio domorum, loci, domus novæ, thalami, novæ navis (a great deal better than our profane form of christening' a vessel) novorum fructuum, &c. Of these forms our custom of 'saying grace' or blessing the meat,' as the Scots say, is a remnant.

2 All religious persons were bound, if possible, to recite the divine office, here called 'his matyns and his holy thinges,' at the proper hour, in the choir; but secular priests, not living in common, and friars, being by their rule obliged to walk about within their limitation to beg their maintenance, were allowed to say it privately at undermeles,' after dinner, as they walked. Of this there is a vestige in the order prefixed to our Book of Common Prayer, which directs that all priests and descons shall say the matins and evensong, either publicly or privately not being hindered by sickness. See Schipmannes Tale.

3 This is an example of Chaucer's light and well-bred satire ;-be eays just enough to raise a smile at the person satirised, and passes on without effort or ill-humour to the main subject. Of the propensities of the incubus, whose place the friar is supposed to have taken, we may judge from the exquisite ballad of Tamlane, given in Scott's Border Minstrelsy, vol. ii. :—

'O, I forbid ye maidens a',

That wear gowd in your hair,
To come or gae by Carterhaugh,
For young Tamlane is there.

And he ne wol doon hem no dishonour.'

And so bifel it, that this king Arthour
Had in his hous a lusty bacheler,
That on a day com rydyng fro ryver;'
And happed, al alone as sche was born,
He saugh a mayde walkyng him byforn,
Of which mayden anoon, maugre hir heed,
By verray fors byraft hir maydenhed.
For which oppressioun was such clamour,
And such pursuyte unto kyng Arthour,
That dampned was the knight and schuld be ded
By cours of lawe, and schuld have lost his heed,
(Paraventure such was the statut tho,)
But that the queen and other ladys mo
So longe preyeden they the kyng of grace,
Til he his lif hath graunted in the place,

There's nane that gaes by Carterhaugh.

But mann give him a wad,

Either gowd rings or green mantles,

Or else their maidenhead.'

The fair Janet, however, despises the warning, and when questioned by her father, says,

If my love were an earthly wight,
As he's an elfin gray,' &c.

The incubus, in fact, corresponds with the Jupiters, Apollos, and Plutos of the old mythology, and from them inherited his love for mortal beauties. This proved often a convenient belief; and Scott relates a story of a lady who accounted to her lord on his return from the Crusade for the presence of a boy, whose age could not be made to correspond with the time of his departure, by declaring that the river Tweed had insisted on becoming the father of her son, who was afterwards the ancestor of the well-known family of Tweeddie. Thus, in Dunbar's Golden Targe,—

'Thair was Pluto, that elritch incubus,
In cloke of greene.'

The allusion appears to be to the Rape of Proserpine. See also
Mercutio's description of Queen Mab, Romeo and Juliet, Act i. sc. 4.

The Harl. MS, reads this line, evidently incorrectly, And ne trol but doon hem dishonour. In the previous line the same marascript reads erroneously incumbent, instead of incubus.-W.

It means from hawking at water-fowl. Froissart, vol. i. c. 1. 140, says: Le comte de Flandres estoit toujours en riviere-un jour advint qu'il alla voler en la riviere-et getta son fauconier un faucon aprese heron. Sire Thopas is described as following this knightly eport.