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His body was bolled,1 for wrath he bit his lips, Wroth-like he wrung his fist; he thought him to wreak

2

With works or with words when he seeth his time....
And then came Covetise; can I him nought descrive,
So hungrily and hollow Sir Hervy him looked;
He was beetle-browed and babber-lipt also,
With two bleared een as a blind hag,

And as a leathern purse lolled his cheeks,

Well syder3 than his chin, they shrivelled for eld.

And as a bondman of his bacon his beard was be-
dravelled.4

With an hood on his head, a lousy hat above,
And in a tawny tabard of twelve winter age,
Al to-torn and baudy, and full of lice creeping;
But if that a louse could have loupen the better,
She should nought have walked on the welt, it was
so threadbare.

Mercy and Truth.

Out of the west, as it were, a wench, as methought,
Came walking in the way, to helle-ward she looked;
Mercy hight that maid, a mild thing withal,
A full benign burd," and buxom of speech.
Her sister, as it seemed, came softly walking
Even out of the east, and westward she looked,
A full comely creature, Truth she hight,
For the virtue that her followed afeard was she never.
When these maidens metten, Mercy and Truth,
Either axed of other of this great wonder,
Of the din and of the darkness.

These are vivid pictures, and there are many such in Langland-strong repulsive delineations of vice, misery, and corruption. He was an earnest moral teacher, not an imaginative poet. He had none of the chivalrous sentiment or gay fancy of his great contemporary Chaucer.

Langland thus closes his vision of Piers the Plowman, Passus vii. (language modernised) :

Now hath the Pope power pardon to grant the
people,

Withouten any penance, to passen into heaven?
This is our belief, as lettered men us teacheth

And have indulgences double-fold; but if Do-well
you help

I set your patents and your pardons at one pie's heel!1
Forthwith I counsel all Christians to cry God mercy,
And Mary his mother be our mene2 between,
That God give us grace here ere we go hence,
Such works to work while we ben here,
That after our death-day, Do-well rehearse
At the day of doom, we did as he hight.3

GEOFFREY CHAUCER.

Although our mixed language had now risen into importance, and a period of literary activity had commenced, it required a genius like that of Chaucer-who was familiar with continental as well as classic literature, and with various modes of life at home and abroad, besides enjoying the special favour of the court-to give consistency and permanence to the language and poetry of England. Henceforward, his native style, which Spenser terms' the pure well of English undefiled,' formed a standard of composition.

GEOFFREY CHAUCER Could not boast of any high lineage-his father and grandfather were London vintners.* The date of his birth is uncertain. He died in 1400, and there is an old tradition that he was then seventy-two years of age; consequently, born in 1328. The poet's own testimony, however, seems at variance with this statement. In the famous controversy in 1386 between Richard, Lord Scrope, and Sir Robert Grosvenor, concerning their coat of arms, Chaucer was examined as a witness, and in the deposition he is stated to be 'of the age of forty years and upward, and to have borne arms twenty-seven years.' This would place his birth about 1345, instead of 1328. The earliest notice of the poet occurs in some fragments of the Household Book of the Lady Elizabeth, wife of Prince Lionel, son of Edward III., of the date of 1357. From these it appears that payments were made for articles of dress and 'necessaries' to Chaucer

(Quodcumque ligaueris super terram, erit ligatum et in a suit of clothes and shoes, 7s., with a donation

celis, &c.),

And so I leave it verily (Lord forbid else!)
That pardon and penance and prayers don save
Souls that have sinned seven sins deadly.

But to trust to these triennales, truly me thinketh
Is nought so sicker for the soul, certes, as Do-well.
Forthwith I rede you, renkes," that rich ben on this
earth,

Upon trust of your treasure triennales to have,
Be ye never the balder to break the ten behests,
And namely the masters, mayors, and judges
That have the wealth of this world, and for wise men
ben holden,

To purchase you pardon and the Pope's bulls.
At the dreadful doom when dead shallen rise,
And comen all before Christ accounts to yield,
How thou leddest thy life here and his laws kept'st,
And how thou didest day by day, the doom will
rehearse ;

A poke full of pardons there, ne provinciales letters,
Though they be found in the fraternity of all the four
orders,10

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7 Masses said for three years.

9 Men; Anglo-Saxon rinc, a warrior (SKEAT).

10 The four orders of Friars.

of 3s. 6d. He was then probably a page to the Lady Elizabeth. In 1359 he accompanied the royal army to France, doubtless in the retinue of Prince Lionel. If we take the 'forty years and upwards' to signify forty-three or forty-four, he was then sixteen or seventeen-an age not two early for a youth in the royal household to enter military service. There is no evidence as to the education of the poet, though he is said to have studied both at Cambridge and Oxford. Having joined Edward III.'s army which invaded France in 1359, he was taken prisoner, but was soon set free, the king giving, in March 1360, £16 towards his ransom. A blank of six years occurs, but when the name of Chaucer reappears in the public records, he is found attached to the court and

1 Pie's heel, magpie's heel, a curious expression. But the Cambridge manuscript has pese hule, that is, a pea's hull, a pea-shell, husk of a pea.-SKEAT. The Cambridge manuscript is surely the correct reading.

2 Mene, medium, Mediator. 3 Hight, commanded. *This point has been settled by the researches of Mr F. J. Furnival, editor-in-chief of the Chaucer Society. Richard Chaucer, vintner of London, in April 1349, bequeathed his tenement_and tavern to the Church of St Mary, Aldermary. His son, John Chaucer, 'citizen and vintner,' Thames Street, in July 1349 executed a deed relating to some lands. The poet, by deed, in 1380 released all right in his father's house in Thames Street to Henry Herbury, vintner. This pedigree confirms Fuller's joke, that some wits had made Chaucer's arms (argent and gules) the dashing of white and red wine, as nicking his father's profession' (FULLER'S Church History, Book iv.).

December 1386, Chaucer was superseded in his
office of comptroller of customs, and is found
raising money on his two pensions of twenty
marks each. His wife died in 1387 (after June of
this year there is no mention of the pension of
ten marks given yearly to Philippa Chaucer), but
King Richard having dismissed his council, and
restored the Lancastrian party to power, the old
poet regained, for a brief space, a share of the
royal favour. In July 1389 he was appointed
clerk of the king's works at Westminster, the
Tower of London, and Windsor.* His salary
was two shillings a day, with power to appoint a
deputy. He held these appointments for little
more than a year, and is believed to have been
afterwards in straitened circumstances. He still,
however, enjoyed his pension of £10, with his
allowance of forty shillings yearly for robes as one
of the king's esquires. In 1394 he obtained from
the king a grant of £20 a year for life, on which,
being apparently in want, he received advances
from the exchequer. In his Complaint to his
Purse, Chaucer refers to this period:

To you, my purse, and to none other wight,
Complain I, for ye be my lady dear,

I am so sorry now that ye be light;
For certes, but if ye make me heavy cheer,
Me were as lief be laid upon my bier,
For which unto your mercy thus I cry,
Be heavy again, or else might I die!

engaged in diplomatic service. About 1366, he married Philippa, one of the ladies of the chamber to the queen, daughter of Sir Payne Roet, and sister of Katherine Swynford, the mistress, and ultimately the wife of John of Gaunt. In 1367 the king granted Chaucer an annuity of 20 marks by the title of valettus noster, our yeoman, so that he then stood in the intermediate rank between squire and groom. In 1369 he was on a second invasion of France. In 1372 he was appointed envoy, with two others, to Genoa, and he was then styled scutifer, or squire. It is supposed that on this occasion he made a tour of the northern states of Italy, and visited Petrarch, who was at Arqua, near Padua, in 1373. The poet's mission to Italy was to confer with the Duke and merchants of Genoa, for the purpose of choosing some port in England where the Genoese might form a commercial establishment; and he had discharged his duty satisfactorily, for next year, on the celebration of St George's day, 23d April, at Windsor, Chaucer received a grant of a pitcher of wine daily (commuted in 1378 for a yearly payment of 20 marks), and in June was appointed comptroller of the customs and subsidy of wool, skins, &c. in the port of London. The duties of his office he had to perform personally, writing the rolls with his own hand; and in his House of Fame he refers to this period, stating that when his labour was all done, and his 'reckonings' all made, he used to go home to his house, and sit at his books till he appeared dazed or lost in study. The same year (1374) Chaucer received a pension of £10 from the Duke of Lancaster, and the city authorities of London granted him for life a lease of the dwelling-house above the gate of Aldgate. Next year he was appointed guardian of a certain Edmond Staplegate of Kent, and received for wardship and marriage fee a sum of £104. In 1377 we find him joint-envoy on a secret mission to Flanders, and afterwards sent to France to treat of peace with Charles V., and to negotiate a secret treaty for the marriage of Richard, Prince of Wales, with Mary, daughter of the king of France. Richard succeeded to the throne by the death of Edward III., June 21, 1377, and Chaucer was reappointed one of the king's esquires. In May 1378 he was sent with Sir Edward Berkeley to Lombardy on a mission 'touching the king's expedition of war.' The prosperous poet was now allowed to discharge his duties as comptroller of customs by deputy, and he thus had greater leisure to devote himself to the composition of his Canterbury Tales. Shortly after his return from Italy, Chaucer appears in a questionable light. By a deed, dated 1st of May 1379, enrolled on the Close Roll of 3 Richard II., Cecilia Chaumpaigne, daughter of the then late William Chaumpaigne and Agnes his wife, released to Geoffrey Chaucer all her rights of action against him for his abduction of her, 'de raptu meo.' The poet may have carried off the young lady, as Mr Furnival suggests, to marry her to one of his friends, or the charge may have been dismissed as unfounded. In 1386 Chaucer sat in parliament as one of the knights of the shire for Kent. But the Duke of Gloucester succeeding to the government in place As clerk of the royal works, riding about with money to pay of the Duke of Lancaster, then abroad, and with wages, &c., Chaucer was exposed to danger. On September 3, whom he was at enmity, the poet, as friend and 1390, he was robbed at the Foul Oak' of £20, his horse, and protégé of the latter, may have shared in the ill-movables. The king forgave him the £20, and the robber, who had appealed by wager of battle against his accomplice, was will of the duke. It is certain that, on the 4th of hanged.

In May 1398 Chaucer got letters of protection to
secure him from arrest on any plea except it were
connected with land,' for a term of two years. In
October King Richard granted him a tun of wine
yearly for life. The son of his friend John of
Gaunt, the triumphant Henry Bolingbroke, now
supplanted Richard on the throne; and, October
3, 1399, we find Henry IV. granting Chaucer 40
marks yearly in addition to his former £20 from
Richard II. On 24th December the poet cove-
nanted for the lease of a tenement in the garden of
St Mary's Chapel, Westminster (the site of Henry
VII.'s chapel), for the long term of 53 years, but
he lived only till the following autumn, dying
October 25, 1400. He was buried in Westminster
Abbey, the first of the illustrious file of poets
whose ashes rest in that great national sanctuary.
Chaucer is said to have left two sons-Lewis,
who
died early, and Thomas, who rose to
great wealth and position, was Speaker of the
House of Commons, and father of an only
daughter, Alice Chaucer, who married John De
la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, declared by Richard III.
heir-apparent to the throne. There are doubts,
however, in spite of the attestations of heralds,
whether this rich and great Sir Thomas Chaucer
was really the son of the author of the Canterbury
Tales.

The personal appearance of the poet is partly

described by himself in the Prologue to Sir Thopas.
He was stout, but 'small and fair of face:'

Thou lookest as thou wouldst find an hare,
For ever upon the ground I see thee stare. . . .
He seemeth elvish by his countenance,
For unto no wight doth he dalliance.

His character may be seen in his works. He was the counterpart of Shakspeare in cheerfulness and benignity of disposition-no enemy to mirth and joviality, yet delighting in his books, and studious in the midst of an active life. He was opposed to all superstition and priestly abuse, but playful in his satire, with a keen sense of the ludicrous, and the richest vein of comic narrative and delineation of character. He retained through life a strong love of the country, and of its inspiring and invigorating influences. No poet has dwelt more fondly on the charms of a spring or summer morning :

The busy lark, the messenger of day,
Saluteth in her song the morrow gray,
And fiery Phoebus riseth up so bright
That all the orient laugheth of the sight!
And with his streams dryeth in the greves
The silver drops, hanging on the leaves.
And Arcite that is in the Court Royal,
With Theseus his squire principal,
Is risen, and looketh on the merry day,
And for to don his observance to May.
The Knight's Tale.

May-day, the great English rural festival and Robin Hood anniversary, seems always to have been a carnival in the poet's heart. It enticed him from his studies-'farewell, my book!'-and he is profuse in descriptions of the new green of spring, the 'soft sweet grass,' and' flowers white and red.' In his youth he paid homage to the luxuriant beauty of the rose, but at a later period joined the French poets in adopting the mythology of the daisy.

The daisy, or else the eye of day,

The Empress and flower of flowers all,

A re

Perhaps alluding metaphorically, as Nicolas sug-
gests, to some fair lady named Marguerite, as the
word means either a daisy, a pearl, or a woman.
Chaucer's minor poems are numerous.
cent critic-Professor Bernard Ten Brink-divides
them into three periods, though no such classifi-
cation can be considered certain. (1) The A.B.C.,
the Romance of the Rose, and Book of the Duchess,
all written before the poet set out on his Italian
missions in 1372. (2) The House of Fame, the
Life of St Cecil (Second Nun's Tale), the Parlia-
ment of Birds, Troilus and Cressida, and The
Knight's Tale-this period ending in 1384. (3)
The Legend of Good Women, the Canterbury
Tales, and other lesser poems. Some of the
most admired minor poems are rejected by Ten
Brink, Mr Bradshaw, and Mr Furnival. The Court
of Love, the Flower and the Leaf, Chaucer's Dream,
and the Romance of the Rose, are considered spuri-
ous, as contravening the laws of rhyme observed
by the poet in his genuine works. For instance,
if in Chaucer's undoubted works you find that
mal-a-dy-e, or cur-tei-si-e, is four syllables, and
rhymes only with other nouns in y-e or i-e, proved
by derivation to be a two-syllable termination, and
with infinitives in y-e, then if you find in the
Romaunt,

Sich joie anon thereof hadde I
That I forgat my maladie,

you get a rhyme that is not Chaucer's.'* We cannot think this test infallible. The poet may not

have been always consistent in his rhymes, or copyists may have made alterations; and we know of no other poet of that day who was capable (none has claimed or been mentioned) of writing the rejected poems. Poetical readers will not readily surrender Chaucer's right to the Romaunt of the Rose, the Court of Love, or the Flower and the Leaf-all fresh with the dew of youth and brilliant fancy. He

The versification of Chaucer is various. probably began with the octo-syllabic measure common with the French poets, as he translated the Roman de la Rose, or rather adapted it, from the work of William de Loris and John de Meun : of the 22,000 verses Chaucer translated 7700. The House of Fame, an allegorical version, is in the same measure, and contains some bold imagery and the romantic machinery of Gothic fable. A more important work, Troilus and Cressida, is in seven-line stanzas. This poem, taken from the Filostrato of Boccaccio, has, from its pathos and beauty, always been popular. Sir Philip Sidney admired it. Warton and every subsequent critic have quoted, with just admiration, the passage in which Cressida makes an avowal of her love : And as the new abashed nightingale, That stinteth first, when she beginneth sing, When that she heareth any herdis tale, Or in the hedges any wight stirring; And, after, siker [sure] doth her voice outring: Right so Cresside, when her dread stent, Opened her heart, and told him her intent.

The Canterbury Tales are chiefly in the heroic couplet, containing five accents, and generally ten syllables, but in this respect Chaucer adopted the poetic license of lengthening or shortening the lines. The opening of the poem, with the accents marked, is as follows:

Whan that Aprillé, with his schowrés swoote,1
The drought of Marche hath percéd to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licóur,2
Of which vertue engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek, with his sweté breeth
Enspired hath in every holte3 and heeth
The tender croppés, and the yongé sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfé cours i-ronne,
And smalé fowlés maken melodie,
That slepen al the night with open yhe,
So priketh hem natúre in here coráges;
Thanne longen folk to gon on pilgrimages,
And palmers for to seeken straunge strondes
To ferné halwés" kouthes in sondry londes ;
And specially, from every schirés ende
Of Engelond, to Canturbury they wende,
The holy blisful martir9 for to seeke,
That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke.

The Canterbury Tales form the best and most durable monument of Chaucer's genius. Boccaccio, in his Decameron, supposes ten persons to have retired from Florence during the plague of 1348,

1 Sweet, sometimes written sote and swete. 2 Such liquor or moisture.

3 Holt, a wooded hill. 4 Croppés, twigs, boughs, the tops of branches. I-ronne, sometimes yronne, for the i and y were used indiscriminately to denote the past participle. Thus Spenser has yclad, ydrad, &c.

6 Hem and her were in Chaucer's time, and previously, the same as them and their.

7 Ferné halwés, distant saints or shrines (ferné, from fer or far: halwes, as in All-Hallows, &c.).

Kouthe, or couthe, known, renowned: we still have uncouth. The famous martyr, Thomas à Becket, slain in Canterbury

Chaucer's Works, Aldine Edition, edited by Morris, vol. i. 267. Cathedral in 1170.

and there, in a sequestered villa, amused themselves by relating tales after dinner. Ten days formed the period of their sojourn; and we have thus a hundred stories, lively, humorous, or tender, and full of characteristic painting in choice Italian. Chaucer seems to have copied this design, as well as part of the Florentine's freedom and licentiousness of detail; but he greatly improved upon the plan. There is something repulsive and unnatural in a party of ladies and gentlemen meeting to tell tales, many of them of a loose kind, while the plague is desolating the country around them. The tales of Chaucer have a more pleasing origin. A company of pilgrims, consisting of twenty-nine 'sundry folk,' meet together in fellowship at the Tabard Inn, Southwark, all being bent on a pilgrimage to the shrine of Thomas à Becket at Canterbury. These pilgrimages were scenes of much enjoyment, and even mirth; for, satisfied with thwarting the Evil One by the object of their mission, the devotees did not consider it necessary to preserve any religious strictness or restraint by the way. The poet himself is one of the party at the Tabard. They all sup together in the large room of the hostelry; and after great cheer, the landlord proposes that they shall travel together to Canterbury; and, to shorten their way, that each shall tell two tales, both in going and returning, and whoever told the best, should have a supper at the expense of the rest. The company assent, and mine host, ‘Harry Bailly'-who was both 'bold of his speech, and wise and well taught' -is appointed to be judge and reporter of the stories. The characters composing this social party are inimitably drawn and discriminated. First we have the chivalrous Knight:

A Knight there was, and that a worthy man,
That from the tyme that he first bigan
To ryden out, he lovede chyvalrye,
Trouthe and honour, fredom and curtesie.
Ful worthi was he in his lordes werre,

And thereto hadde he riden, noman ferre,1
As wel in Cristendom as in hethenesse.
And evere honoured for his worthinesse.
At Alisandre he was whan it was wonne,
Ful ofte tyme he hadde the bord bygonne
Aboven alle naciouns in Pruce.

In Lettowe hadde he reysed and in Ruce,3
No cristen man so ofte of his degre.
In Gernade atte siege hadde he he
Of Algesir, and riden in Belmarie.
At Lieys was he, and at Satalie,*

Whan they were wonne; and in the Greete see
At many a noble arive hadde he be.

At mortal batailles hadde he ben fiftene,
And foughten for oure feith at Tramassene 5
In lystes thries, and ay slayn his foo.
This ilke worthi knight hadde ben also
Sometyme with the lord of Palatye,
Ageyn another hethene in Turkye:

And everemore he hadde a sovereyn prys.

1 No man further.

Alexandria. 'Why Chaucer should have chosen to bring his knight from Alexandria and Lettowe rather than from Cressy and Poitiers, is a problem difficult to resolve, except by supposing that the slightest services against infidels were in those days more honourable than the most splendid victories over Christians.' -TYRWHITT.

3 Pruce, Lettowe, Ruce-Prussia, Lithuania, Russia. Gernade, Granada; Algesir, Algesiras in Spain; Belmarie, one of the Moorish kingdoms in Africa; Lieys, in Armenia; Satalie, or Atalia, in Asia Minor. Both the latter were taken from the Turks by Pierre de Lusignan-Lieys about 1367, Atalia about 1352. 6 High praise.

A Moorish kingdom in Africa.

And though that he was worthy, he was wys,
And of his port as meke as is a mayde.
He nevere yit no vilonye ne sayde
In al his lyf, unto no maner wight.
He was a verray perfight gentil knight.
But for to telle you of his array,

His hors was good, but here ne was nought gay.
Of fustyan he werede a gepoun1
Al bysmotered with his habergeoun.
For he was late ycome from his viage,
And wente for to doon his pilgrimage.

The Knight was accompanied by his son, a gay young Squire with curled locks:

A

With him ther was his sone, a yong Squyer, A lovyer, and a lusty bacheler, With lokkes crulle as they were layde in presse. Of twenty yeer of age he was I gesse. Of his stature he was of evene lengthe, And wonderly delyver, and gret of strengthe. And he hadde ben somtyme in chivachie,2 In Flaundres, in Artoys, and Picardie, And born him wel, as in so litel space, In hope to stonden in his lady grace. Embrowdid was he, as it were a mede Al ful of fresshe floures, white and reede. Syngynge he was, or floytynge, al the day; He was as fressh as is the moneth of May. Schort was his goune, with sleeves longe and wyde. Wel cowde he sitte on hors, and faire ryde. He cowde songes wel make and endite, Juste and eek daunce, and wel purtraye and write. So hote he lovede, that by nightertale He sleep nomore than doth a nightyngale. Curteys he was, lowly, and servysable, And carf byforn his fadur at the table.

yeoman was also in attendance, with his bow and sheaf of arrows: 'a nut-head had he, with a brown visage.' And then we have a Nun or Prioress, beautifully drawn in her arch simplicity and coy reserve:

Ther was also a Nonne, a Prioresse, That of hire smylyng was ful symple and coy; Hire gretteste ooth ne was but by seynt Loy;5 And sche was cleped madame Englentyne. Ful wel sche sang the servise divyne, Entuned in hire nose ful semely; And Frensch sche spak ful faire and fetysly, After the scole of Stratford atte Bowe," For Frensch of Parys was to hire unknowe. At mete wel i-taught was sche withalle; Sche leet no morsel from hire lippes falle, Ne wette hire fyngres in hire sauce deepe. Wel cowde sche carie a morsel, and wel keepe, That no drope ne fil uppon hire breste. In curtesie was set ful moche hire leste.7 Hire overlippe wypede sche so clene, That in hire cuppe was no ferthing sene Of greece, whan sche dronken hadde hire draughte. Ful semely after hire mete sche raughte, And sikerly sche was of gret disport, And ful plesant, and amyable of port,

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5 Seynt Loy, a corruption of St Eligius, or perhaps another form of St Louis.

6 Stratford-le-Bow, in Middlesex. Chaucer is supposed, in this allusion to the French of the Prioress, to have sneered at the old Anglo-Norman French taught in England. 7 Hire leste, her pleasure or delight.

8 Ferthing, fourth part, and hence a small portion.

9 Raughte, pret. of reche, reached-stretched out her hand at table.

And peynede hire to countrefete cheere
Of court, and ben estatlich of manere,
And to ben holden digne1 of reverence.
But for to speken of hire conscience,
Sche was so charitable and so pitous,
Sche wolde weepe if that sche sawe a mous
Caught in a trappe, if it were deed or bledde.
Of smale houndes hadde sche, that sche fedde
With rosted fleissh, or mylk and wastel breed."
But sore wept sche if oon of hem were deed,
Or if men smot it with a yerde smerte :
And al was conscience and tendre herte.

A Monk and a Friar are next described:

A Monk ther was, a fair for the maistrie,
An out-rydere, that lovede venerye ;3
A manly man, to ben an abbot able.
Full many a deynté hors hadde he in stable;
And whan he rood, men mighte his bridel heere
Gynglen, in a whistlyng wynd, as cleere,
And eek as lowde as doth the chapel belle.
Ther as this lord was kepere of the selle,
The reule of seynt Maure or of seint Beneyt,
Bycause that it was old and somdel streyt,
This ilke monk leet olde thinges pace,
And held after the newe world the space.
He gaf nat of that text a pulled hen,

That seith, that hunters been noon holy men ;
Ne that a monk, whan he is reccheles

Is likned to a fissch that is waterles;
This is to seyn, a monk out of his cloystre.
But thilke text held he not worth an oystre.
And I seide his opinioun was good.

What schulde he studie, and make himselven wood,
Uppon a book in cloystre alway to powre,
Or swynke with his handes, and laboure,

As Austyn byt?? How schal the world be served?
Lat Austyn have his swynk to him reserved.
Therfore he was a pricasour aright ;

Greyhoundes he hadde as swifte as fowel in flight;
Of prikyng and of huntyng for the hare
Was al his lust, for no cost wolde he spare.
I saugh his sleves purfiled atte honde
With grys, and that the fyneste of a londe.
And for to festne his hood under his chynne
He hadde of gold y-wrought a curious pynne:
A love-knotte in the grettere ende ther was.
His heed was ba'led, and schon as eny glas,
And eek his face as he hadde ben anoynt.
He was a lord ful fat and in good poynt;
His eyen steepe, and rollyng in his heede,
That stemede as a forneys of a leede;
His bootes souple, his hors in gret estate.
Now certeinly he was a fair prelate.

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And eek with worthi wommen of the toun:
For he hadde power of confessioun,
As seyde himself, more than a curat,
For of his ordre he was licentiat.
Ful sweetely herde he confessioun,
And plesaunt was his absolucioun ;
He was an esy man to geve penance
Ther as he wiste han a good pitance;
For unto a poure ordre for to give
Is signe that a man is wel i-schrive.1
For if he gaf, he dorste make avaunt,
He wiste that a man was repentaunt.
For many a man so hard is of his herte,
He may not wepe although him sore smerte.
Therefore in stede of wepyng and preyeres,
Men moot give silver to the poure freres.
His typet was ay farsed ful of knyfes
And pynnes, for to give faire wyfes.
And certaynli he hadde a mery noote;
Wel couthe he synge and pleyen on a rote.
Of yeddynges he bar utterly the prys.
His nekke whit was as the flour-de-lys.
Therto he strong was as a champioun.
He knew the tavernes wel in every toun,
And everych hostiller and tappestere,
Bet than a lazer, or a beggestere,3
For unto such a worthi man as he
Acordede not, as by his faculte,
To han with sike lazars aqueyntaunce.
It is not honest, it may not avaunce,
For to delen with no such poraille,
But al with riche and sellers of vitaille.
And overal, ther as profyt schulde arise,
Curteys he was, and lowely of servyse.
Ther nas no man nowher so vertuous.
He was the beste beggere in his hous,
For though a wide we hadde noght oo schoo,5
So plesaunt was his In principio,

Yet wolde he have a ferthing or he wente.
His purchas was wel better than his rente.
And rage he couthe and pleyen as a whelpe,
In love-dayes' couthe he mochel helpe.
For ther he was not like a cloysterer,
With a thredbare cope as is a poure scoler,
But he was like a maister or a pope.
Of double worstede was his semy-cope,
That rounded as a belle out of the presse.
Somwhat he lipsede, for his wantounesse,
To make his Englissch swete upon his tunge;
And in his harpyng, whan that he hadde sunge,
His eyghen twynkeld in his heed aright,
As don the sterres in the frosty night.
This worthi lymytour was cleped Huberd.

Then follows a merchant 'with a forked beard,' sitting high on his horse, and with a Flanders beaver hat on his head-a worthy man. In contrast to these favourites of fortune is a poor Clerk:

A Clerk ther was of Oxenford also,
That unto logik hadde longe i-go.
As lene was his hors as is a rake,
And he was not right fat, I undertake;
But lokede holwe, and therto soberly.
Ful thredbare was his overeste courtepy,8
For he hadde geten him yit no benefice,
Ne was so worldly for to have office.

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