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For him was lever have at his beddes heede Twenty bookes, clad in blak or reede, Of Aristotle and his philosophie, Then robes riche, or fithel,' or gay sawtrie. But al be that he was a philosophre, Yet hadde he but litel gold in cofre; But al that he mighte of his frendes hente, On bookes and on lernyng he it spente, And busily gan for the soules preye Of hem that gaf him wherwith to scoleye,2 Of studie took he most cure and most heede. Not oo word spak he more than was neede, And that was seid in forme and reverence, And schort and quyk, and ful of high sentence. Sownynge in moral vertu was his speche, And gladly wolde he lerne, and gladly teche. A Franklin, or freeholder was in the 'Epicurus' own son,' a great householder:

company,

His breed, his ale, was alway after oon ;3
A bettre envyned' man was nowher noon.
Withoute bake mete was nevere his hous,
Of fleissch and fissch, and that so plenty vous,
It snewede in his hous of mete and drynke,
Of alle deyntees that men cowdé thynke.
After the sondry sesouns of the yeer,
So chaungede he his mete and his soper.
Ful many a fat partrich hadde he in mewe,
And many a brem and many a luce 3 in stewe.
Woo was his cook, but-if his sauce were
Poynaunt and scharp, and redy all his gere.
His table dormant in his halle alway
Stood redy covered al the longe day.

This character is a fine picture of the wealthy rural Englishman, and it shews how much of enjoyment and hospitality was even then associated with this station of life. The Wife of Bath is another lively national portrait; she is shrewd and witty, has abundant means, and is always first with her offering at church.

A good Wif was ther of byside Bathe,

But sche was somdel deef, and that was skathe.
Of cloth-makyng she hadde such an haunt,
Sche passede hem of Ypres and of Gaunt."
In al the parisshe wyf ne was ther noon
That to the offryng byforn hire schulde goon,
And if ther dide certeyn so wroth was sche,
That sche was out of alle charité.

Hire keverchefs ful fyne weren of grounde;
I durste swere they weygheden ten pounde
That on a Sonday were upon hire heed.
Hire hosen weren of fyn scarlett reed,

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Ful streyte y-teyd, and schoos ful moyste and newe.
Bold was hire face, and fair, and reed of hewe.
Sche was a worthy womman al hire lyfe,
Husbondes at chirch dore sche hadde fyfe,
Withouten other companye in youthe;
But therof needeth nought to speke as nouthe.
And thries hadde sche ben at Jerusalem;
Sche hadde passed many a straunge streem;
At Rome sche hadde ben, and at Boloyne,
In Galice at seynt Jame,10 and at Coloyne.
Sche cowde moche of wandryng by the weye.
Gattothed 11 was sche, sothly for to seye.

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Uppon an amblere esily sche sat, Ywymplid wel, and on hire heed an hat As brood as is a bocler or a targe;

A foot-mantel aboute hire hipes large,
And on hire feet a paire of spores scharpe.
In felawschipe wel cowde sche lawghe and carpe.
Of remedyes of love 1 sche knew perchaunce,
For of that art sche couthe the olde daunce.

A Sergeant of Law, 'discreet and of great reverence,' is portrayed :

No where so besy a man as he ther nas,2

And yit he seemed besier than he was.

Chaucer has many satires on the clergy, but he gives one redeeming sketch-that of a poor Parson:

A good man was ther of religioun,
And was a poure Parsoun of a toun;

But riche he was of holy thought and werk.
He was also a lerned man, a clerk
That Cristes gospel trewely wolde preche;
His parischens devoutly wolde he teche.
Benigne he was, and wonder diligent,
And in adversité ful pacient ;

And such he was i-proved ofte sithes.3
Ful loth were him to curse for his tythes,
But rather wolde he geven out of dowte,
Unto his poure parisschens aboute,
Of his offrynge, and eek of his substaunce.
He cowde in litel thing han suffisaunce.
Wyd was his parisch, and houses fer asonder,
But he ne lafte not for reyne ne thonder,
In siknesse nor in meschief to visite
The ferreste in his parissche, moche and lite,
Uppon his feet, and in his hond a staf.
This noble ensample to his scheep he gaf,
That first he wroughte, and after that he taughte,
Out of the gospel he tho wordes caughte,
And this figure he addede eek therto,
That if gold ruste, what schal yren do?
For if a prest be foul, on whom we truste,
No wonder is a lewed man to ruste; . . .
He sette not his benefice to hyre,
And leet his scheep encombred in the myre,
And ran to Londone, unto seynte Poules,
To seeken him a chaunterie for soules,
Or with a bretherhede to ben withholde;
But dwelte at hoom, and kepte wel his folde,
So that the wolf ne made it not myscarye.
He was a schepherde and no mercenarie;
And though he holy were, and vertuous,
He was to sinful man nought dispitous,
Ne of his speche daungerous ne digne,7
But in his teching discret and benigne.
To drawe folk to heven by fairnesse,
By good ensample, this was his busynesse :
But it were eny persone obstinat,
What so he were, of high or lowe estat,
Him wolde he snybbe scharply for the nones.
A bettre preest I trowe ther nowher non is.
He waytede after no pompe and reverence,
Ne makede him a spiced conscience,
But Cristes lore, and his apostles twelve,
He taughte, and first he folwede it himselve.

We have a pardoner from Rome, with some sacred relics-as part of the Virgin Mary's veil, and part of the sail of St Peter's ship-and who is

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also 'brimful of pardons come from Rome all hot.' Among the humbler characters are, a 'stout carl' of a miller, a reve or bailiff, and a sompnour or church apparitor, who summoned offenders before the archdeacon's court, but whose fire-red face and licentious habits contrast curiously with the nature of his duties. A shipman, cook, haberdasher, &c. make up the goodly company-the whole forming such a genuine Hogarthian picture, that we may exclaim, in the eloquent language of Campbell: What an intimate scene of English life in the fourteenth century do we enjoy in these tales, beyond what history displays by glimpses through the stormy atmosphere of her scenes, or the antiquary can discover by the cold light of his researches ! Chaucer's contemporaries and their successors were justly proud of this national work. Many copies existed in manuscript (a six-text edition is now in progress); and when the art of printing came to England, one of the primary duties of Caxton's press was to issue an impression of those inimitable creations.

All the pilgrims in the Canterbury Tales do not relate stories. Chaucer had not, like Boccaccio, finished his design; for he intended, as we have said, to have given a second series on the return of the company from Canterbury, as well as an account of the transactions in the city when they reached the sacred shrine. The concluding supper at the Tabard, when the successful competitor was to be declared, would have afforded a rich display for the poet's peculiar humour. The parties who do not relate tales-as the poem has reached us-are the yeoman, the ploughman, and the five city mechanics. Like Shakspeare, Chaucer was content to borrow most of the outlines of his plots or stories. The Knight's

Tale-the most chivalrous and romantic of the series-is founded on the Theseida of Boccaccio. The Clerk's Tale, so touching in its simplicity and pathos, has also an Italian origin. The Clerk says:

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her to quit his house to make room for a new wife! But even this Griselde could endure:

'And of your new wife God of his grace
So grant you weal and prosperité;
For I will gledly yielden her my place,
In which that I was blissful wont to be.
For sith it liketh you, my lord,' quod she,
'That whilom were all mine herte's rest,
That I shall gon, I will go whan you list.
'But thereas ye profre me such dowayre
As I first brought, it is well in my mind
It were my wretched clothes, no thing fair,
The which to me were hard now for to find.
O good God! how gentle and how kind
Ye seemed by your speech and your visage
The day that makèd was our marriage !'

her father's house. But at length the marquis, Griselde, the 'flower of wifely patience,' goes to her husband, sends for her, declares that he has been merely playing an assumed part, that he will have no other wife, nor ever had, and she is

introduced to her two children whom she believed dead :

When she this heard, aswoone down she falleth
For piteous joy; and after her swooning
She both her young children to her calleth,
And in her armés piteously weeping,
Embraceth them, and tenderly kissing
Full like a mother, with her salte tears
She bathed both her visage and her hairs.

O such a piteous thing it was to see

Her swooning and her humble voice to hear!
'Grand mercy, lord! God thank it you,' quoth she,
"That ye have saved me my children dear:
Now reck I never to be dead right here
Since I stand in your love and in your grace,
No force of death, nor when my spirit pace.

'O tender, dear, young children mine!
Your woful mother weened steadfastly,
That cruel houndes or some foul vermin
Had eaten you; but God of his mercy,
And your benign father tenderly
Hath done you keep ;' and in that same stound
All suddenly she swapped down to ground.

And in her swoon so sadly holdeth she
Her children two, when she gan them embrace,
That with great sleight and great difficulty
The children from her arm they gan arrace.1
O many a tear or many a piteous face
Down ran of them that stooden her beside;
Unnethe 2 abouten her might they abide.

The happy ending of the story, and the husband's declaration :

The tale thus learned is the pathetic story of Patient Griselde, which was written by Boccaccio, and only translated into Latin by Petrarch. It appears that Petrarch did not translate this tale from Boccaccio's Decameron until the end of September 1373, and Chaucer was in England on the 22d of November following, as is proved by his having that day received his pension in person. I have done this deed But whether or not the two poets ever met, the For no malice, ne for no cruelty, Italian journey of Chaucer, and the fame and But for t' assay thee in thy womanhoodworks of Petrarch, must have fired the ambition of the accomplished Englishman, and greatly refined will not reconcile the reader to his marital experiand elevated his literary taste. As a model or ment; but such tales appear to have been more example of wifely obedience and implicit faith, suited to the ideas of the spinsters and knitters this story of Griselde long kept up its celebrity, in the sun' in the old age.' The Squire's Tale, both in prose and verse. The husband of Gris-'the story of Cambuscan bold,' by which Milton elde certainly carried his trial of his wife's sub-characterises Chaucer, has not been traced to any mission to the last extremity-worse even than the trial of the Nut-Brown Maid-when he ordered

Much has been done to elucidate the works of the Father of English Poetry by Mr R. Morris, the Rev. Mr Skeat, Mr Ellis, Mr Furnival, and the Chaucer Society. They may be said to have given quite a revival to the old poet.

other source. For two of his stories-the Man of Law's Tale, and the Wife of Bath's Tale, Chaucer was indebted to the Confessio Amantis of his contemporary Gower. Boccaccio was laid under contribution for other outlines, but the influence of * Scarcely.

1 Tear away by force.

French literature was perhaps more predominant with the poet than that of Italy. The Prioress's Tale, the scene of which is laid in Asia, is supposed to be taken from some legend of the miracles of the Virgin, 'one of the oldest of the many stories, which have been propagated at different times, to excite or justify several merciless persecutions of the Jews upon the charge of murdering Christian children. The Nun's Priest's Tale (containing the fable of the cock and the fox) and the Merchant's Tale (modernised by Pope) have some minute painting of natural objects and scenery in Chaucer's clear and simple style. The tales of the Miller and Reve are coarse, but richly humorous.

The following extracts are slightly modernised:

The Poor Country Widow.-From the Nun's Priest's
Tale.

A poor widow, somedeal stoop'n in age,
Was whilom dwelling in a narwé cottage
Beside a grove standing in a dale.
This widow, which I tell you of my tale,
Since thilke day that she was last a wife,
In patience led a full simple life,
For little was her cattle and her rent;
By husbandry of such as God her sent,
She found herself and eke her daughters two.
Three large sowés had she, and no mo,
Three kine, and eke a sheep that hight Mall:
Full sooty was her bower and eke her hall,
In which she ate full many a slender meal;
Of poignant sauce her needed never a deal;
No dainty morsel passed through her throat;
Her diet was accordant to her coat :
Repletion ne made her never sick;
Attemper diet was all her physic,
And exercise, and heartés suffisance :
The goute let1 her nothing for to dance,

Ne apoplexy shente not her head;

No wine ne drank she neither white nor red;
Her board was served most with white and black,
Milk and brown bread, in which she found no lack,
Seinde bacon, and sometime an egg or tway,
For she was as it were a manner dey.*
A yard she had, enclosed all about
With sticks, and a dry ditch without,
In which she had a cock hight Chanticleer,
In all the land, of crowing n'as his peer.
His voice was merrier than the merry organ,
On massé-days that in the churché gon;
Well sickerer was his crowing in his lodge,
Than is a clock, or an abbey horologe,
By nature knew he each ascension
Of equinoctial in that town:

For when degrees fifteen were ascended,
Then crew he that it might not be amended.
His comb was redder than the fine coral,
And 'battled as it were a castle wall;
His bill was black, and as the jet it shone ;
Like azure were his legs and his ton ;"
His nails whiter than the lily flower,
And like the burnished gold was his coloúr.

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Came riding like the god of arms, Mars.
His coat-armour was of cloth of Tars,
Couched with pearls white, and round, and great;
His saddle was of brent gold new i-beat;
A mantelet upon his shoulders hanging
Bret-ful of rubies red, as fire sparkling.
His crisp hair like rings was i-run
And that was yellow and glittered in the sun.
His nose was high, his eyen bright citron,
His lippes round, his colour was sanguine.
A few freckles in his face i-sprent.
Betwixt yellow and somedel black i-ment,
And as a lion he his looking cast.

Of five and twenty year his age I cast.
His beard was well beginnen for to spring;
His voice was as a trump thundering.
Upon his heed he weared of laurel green
A garland fresh and lusty for to sene,
Upon his hand he bare for his delight,
An eagle tame, as any lily white.
An hundred lords had he with him there,
All armed safe, their heads in their gear,
Full richly in all manner things
For trusteth well that dukes, earls, kings
Were gathered in this noble company,
For love, and for increase of chivalry.
About this king there ran on every part
Full many a tame lion and leopart.

Emily. From the Knight's Tale.
Thus passeth year by year, and day by day,
Till it fell once on a morrow of May,
That Emily, that fairer was to seen
Than is the lily upon her stalk green,
And fresher than the May with floures new-
For with the rose colour strove her hue,

I n'ot which was the fairer of them two-
Ere it was day, as it was her wont to do,
She was arisen, and all ready dight-
For May will have no sluggardie a-night.
The season pricketh every gentle heart,
And maketh him out of his sleepé start,
And saith: 'Arise, and do thine observance !'
This maketh Emily have remembrance
To do honour to May, and for to rise,
Yclothed was she fresh for to devise.
Her yellow hair was braided in a tress,
Behind her back, a yardé long, I guess ;
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And in her garden, as the sun uprist,
She walked up and down, and as her list,
She gathereth floures, party white and red,
To make a sotil1 garland for her head;
And as an angel heavenly she sung!

The Death of Arcite.-From the same. Swelleth the breast of Arcite, and the sore Encreaseth at his hearte more and more. . . . All is to-bursten thilke region; Nature hath now no domination : And certainly where nature will not werche,? Farewell physic; go bear the man to church. This is all and some, that Arcite muste die ; For which he sendeth after Emily, And Palamon, that was his cousin dear; Then said he thus, as ye shall after hear: 'Nought may the woful spirit in mine heart Declare one point of all my sorrows' smart To you, my lady, that I love most. But I bequeath the service of my ghost To you aboven every creature, Since that my life ne may no longer dure. 'Alas the woe! alas the paines strong, That I for you have suffered, and so long!

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Alas mine hearte's queen! alas my wife! Mine hearte's lady, ender of my life!

What is this world?-what asken men to have?
Now with his love, now in his colde grave—
Alone-withouten any company.
Farewell my sweet-farewell mine Emily!
And softe take me in your armes tway
For love of God, and hearkeneth what I say.
'I have here with my cousin Palamon
Had strife and rancour many a day agone,
For love of you, and for my jealousy;
And Jupiter so wis1 my soule gie,2
To speaken of a servant properly,
With alle circumstances truely;

That is to say, truth, honour, and knighthead,
Wisdom, humbless, estate, and high kindred,
Freedom, and all that 'longeth to that art,
So Jupiter have of my soule part,

As in this world right now ne know I none
So worthy to be loved as Palamon,
That serveth you, and will do all his life;
And if that ever ye shall be a wife,
Forget not Palamon, the gentle man.'

And with that word his speeche fail began ;
For from his feet up to his breast was come
The cold of death that had him overnome ;3
And yet, moreover, in his armes two,
The vital strength is lost and all ago;*
Only the intellect, withouten more,

That dwelled in his hearte sick and sore,
'Gan faillen when the hearte felte death;
Dusked his eyen two, and failed his breath:
But on his lady yet cast he his eye;
His laste word was: 'Mercy, Emily!'

Departure of Custance.—From the Man of Law's Tale.

Custance is banished from her husband, Alla, king of Northumberland, in consequence of the treachery of the king's mother. Her behaviour in embarking at sea, in a rudderless ship, is thus described:

Weepen both young and old in all that place
When that the king this cursed letter sent:
And Custance with a deadly pale face

The fourthe day toward the ship she went ;
But natheless she tak'th in good intent

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The will of Christ, and kneeling on the strond, She saide: 'Lord, aye welcome be thy sond."

'He that me kepte from the false blame, While I was in the land amonges you,

He can me keep from harm and eke from shame
In the salt sea, although I see not how :
As strong as ever he was, he is yet now:
In him trust I, and in his mother dear,
That is to me my sail and eke my steer.'?

Her little child lay weeping in her arm;
And kneeling piteously, to him she said:
'Peace, little son; I will do thee no harm :'
With that her kerchief off her head she braid,8
And over his little eyen she it laid,
And in her arm she lulleth it full fast,
And into th' heaven her eyen up she cast.
'Mother,' quod she, and maiden bright, Mary!
Soth is, that through womannes eggement,"
Mankind was lorn, 10 and damned aye to die,
For which thy child was on a cross yrent :11
Thy blissful eyen saw all his torment;
Then is there no comparison between
Thy woe and any woe man may sustain.

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'Thou saw'st thy child yslain before thine eyen, And yet now liveth my little child, parfay:1 Now, lady bright! to whom all woful crien, Thou glory of womanhood, thou faire May! Thou haven of refute, bright star of day! Rue 3 on my child, that of thy gentleness Ruest on every rueful in distress.

'O little child, alas! what is thy guilt, That never wroughtest sin as yet, pardie? Why will thine harde father have thee spilt ?4 O mercy, deare Constable!' quod she, 'As let my little child dwell here with thee; And if thou dar'st not saven him from blame, So kiss him ones in his father's name.'

Therewith she looketh backward to the land,
And saide: Farewell, husband rutheless!'
And up she rose, and walketh down the strand
Toward the ship; her followeth all the press :
And ever she prayeth her child to hold his peace,
And tak'th her leave, and with a holy' intent
She blesseth her, and into the ship she went.
Victailled was the ship, it is no drede,5
Abundantly for her a full long space;
And other necessaries that should need
She had enow, heried be Goddess grace :

For wind and weather, Almighty God purchase,"
And bring her home, I can no better say,
But in the sea she driveth forth her way.

Love.-From the Franklin's Tale. For one thing, sirs, safely dare I say, That friends ever each other must obey If they will longe holden company: Love will not be constrained by mastery. When mastery cometh, the god of Love anon Beateth his wings and, farewell! he is gone.* Love is a thing as any spirit free. Women of kind desiren liberty, And not to be constrained as a thrall; And so do men if soothly I say shall. Look who that is most patient in love He is at his advantage all above; Patience is a high virtue certain, For it vanquisheth, as these clerks say'n, Things that rigour never should attain ; For every word men should not chide or plain. Learneth to suffren or else, so might I gon Ye shall it learn whether ye will or non.

The Fairies driven out by the Friars.
From the Wife of Bath's Tale.

In oldé dayés of the King Arthur
Of which that Britons speaken great honour,
All was this land fulfilled of Faery;
The elf-queen with her jolly company
Danced full oft in many a green mead :
This was the old opinion as I read ;

I speak of many hundred years ago,
But now can no man see none elves mo;
For now the great charity and prayers
Of limiters and other holy friars,

That searchen every land and every stream,
As thick as motés in the sun-beam,
Blessing halls, chambers, kitchens and bowers,
Cities and boroughs; castles high, and towers,
Thorps, barns, sheepens, and dairies,
That maketh that there be no faéries:
For there as wont was to walken an elf,
There walketh now the limiter himself,

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In undermeales and in morrowings,
And saith his matins and his holy things
As he goeth in his limitation.
Women may now go safely up and down;
In every bush or under every tree,
There is none other incubus but he.

Good Counsel of Chaucer.*

Flee from the press and dwell with soothfastness,
Suffice thee thy good though it be small,
For hoard hath hate, and climbing tickleness;
Press hath envy, and weal is blent o'er all.
Savour no more than thee behoven shall;
Do well thyself that other folk canst read,
And truth thee shall deliver, 'tis no dread.

Pain thee not each crooked to redress
In trust of her that turneth as a ball,
Great rest standeth in little business,
Beware also to spurn an nalle.

Strive not as doth a crock with a wall,
Daunt thyself that dauntest others deed,
And truth thee shall deliver, 'tis no dread.

clepeth Cassiodore, poverty the mother of ruin, that is to sayn, the mother of overthrowing or falling down; and therefore saith Piers Alphonse : One of the greatest adversities of the world is when a free man by kind, or of birth, is constrained by poverty to eaten the alms of his enemy. And the same saith Innocent in one of his books; he saith that sorrowful and mishappy is the condition of a poor beggar, for if he ax not his meat he dieth of hunger, and if he ax he dieth for shame; and algates necessity constraineth him to ax; and therefore saith Solomon: That better it is to die than for to have such poverty; and, as the same Solomon saith: Better it is to die of bitter death, than for to liven in such wise. By these reasons that I have said unto you, and by many other reasons that I could say, I grant you that riches ben good to 'em that well geten 'em, and to him that well usen tho' riches; and therefore wol I shew you how ye shulen behave you in gathering of your riches, and in what manner ye shulen usen 'em. First, ye shuln geten 'em withouten great desire, by good leisure, sokingly, and not over hastily, for a man that is too desiring to get riches abandoneth him first to theft and to all other evils; and therefore saith Solomon: He that hasteth him too busily to wax rich, he shall be non innocent: he saith also, that the riches that hastily cometh to a man soon and lightly goeth and passeth from a man, but that riches that cometh little and little waxeth alway and multiplieth. And, sir, ye shuln get riches by your wit and by your travail, unto your profit, and that withouten wrong or harm doing to any other person; for the law saith: There maketh no man himself rich, if he do harm to another wight; that is to say, that Nature defendeth and forbiddeth by right, that no man make himself rich unto the harm of another person. And Tullius that may fall unto a man, is so muckle agains nature as saith: That no sorrow, ne no dread of death, ne nothing

That thee is sent receive in buxomness, The wrestling of this world asketh a fall; Here is no home, here is but wilderness, Forth, pilgrim, forth! best out of thy stall. Look up on high, and thank God of all; Waive thy lust, and let thy ghost thee lead, And truth shall thee deliver, 'tis no dread. Two of the Canterbury Tales are in prose-the Tale of Melibeus' and the 'Persone's (Parson's) Tale. A long allegorical and meditative work, the Testament of Love, an imitation of Boethius' De Consolatione Philosophie, has been ascribed to Chaucer, but its genuineness is doubted, if not disproved. The poet, however, wrote in prose a translation of Boethius, and a work On the Astro-wise flee idleness; for Solomon saith: That idleness labe, addressed to his son Lewis.

On Gathering and Using Riches.-From the Tale of
Melibeus.

When Prudence had heard her husband avaunt himself of his riches and of his money, dispreising the power of his adversaries, she spake and said in this wise: Certes, dear sir, I grant you that ye ben rich and mighty, and that riches ben good to 'em that han well ygetten 'em, and that well can usen 'em; for, right as the body of a man may not liven withouten soul, no more may it liven withouten temporal goods, and by riches may a man get him great friends; and therefore saith Pamphilus: If a neatherd's daughter be rich, she may chese of a thousand men which she wol take to her husband; for of a thousand men one wol not forsaken her ne refusen her. And this Pamphilus saith also: If thou be right happy, that is to sayn, if thou be right rich, thou shalt find a great number of fellows and friends; and if thy fortune change, that thou wax poor, farewell friendship and fellowship, for thou shalt be all alone withouten any company, but if it be the company of poor folk. And yet saith this Pamphilus, moreover, that they that ben bond and thrall of linage shuln be made worthy and noble by riches. And right so as by riches there comen many goods, right so by poverty come there many harms and evils; and therefore

1 After the meal of dinner and in the mornings. The allusion to the zeal of the friars is evidently ironical. In one of the Cottonian MSS. (among those destroyed by fire), this poem was described as made by Chaucer upon his death-bed in his great anguish.' Tyrwhitt says, the verses are found without that statement in two other manuscripts. The copies differ

considerably.

* Except.

a man to increase his own profit to harm of another man. And though the great men and the mighty men getten riches more lightly than thou, yet shalt thou not ben idle ne slow to do thy profit, for thou shalt in all

teacheth a man to do many evils; and the same Solomon saith That he that travaileth and busieth himself to tillen his lond, shall eat bread, but he that is idle, and casteth him to no business ne occupation, shall fall into poverty, and die for hunger. And he that is idle and slow can never find convenable time for to do his profit; for there is a versifier saith, that the idle man excuseth him in winter because of the great cold, and in summer then by encheson of the heat. For these causes, saith Caton, waketh and inclineth you not over muckle to sleep, for over muckle saith St Jerome: Doeth some good deeds, that the rest nourisheth and causeth many vices; and therefore devil, which is our enemy, ne find you not unoccupied, for the devil he taketh not lightly unto his werking such as he findeth occupied in good werks.

Then thus in getting riches ye musten flee idleness; and afterward ye shuln usen the riches which ye han geten by your wit and by your travail, in such manner, than men hold you not too scarce, ne too sparing, ne fool-large, that is to say, over large a spender; for right as men blamen an avaricious man because of his scarcity and chinchery, in the same wise he is to blame that spendeth over largely; and therefore saith Caton: Use (saith he) the riches that thou hast ygeten in such manner, that men have no matter ne cause to call thee to have a poor heart and a rich purse; he saith also: nother wretch ne chinch, for it is a great shame to a man The goods that thou hast ygeten, use 'em by measure, that is to sayn, spend measureably, for they that folily wasten and despenden the goods that they han, when they han no more proper of 'eir own, that they shapen 'em to take the goods of another man. I say, then, that ye shuln flee avarice, using your riches in such manner, that men sayen not that your riches ben yburied, but that ye have 'em in your might and in your wielding;

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