C H A 



762 



CHE 



and-twenty travellers, it would have been unnatural 

 ' and improbable if some disagreeable humour had not 

 broken out. The introduction of two quarrelling 

 characters, the Sompnour and the Frere, two descrip- 

 tions of the priesthood which in those days were at 

 deadly enmity, affords both a spirited and amusing 

 break in the lounging sociality of the other pilgrims, 

 and an occasion for the poet to indulge his satire on 

 all parts of the church, by employing its members to 

 ridicule each other. The Frere, intolerant, coarse, 

 and abusive, takes an opportunity of hinting, like a 

 modern methodist, that the soul of his antagonist is 

 doomed to hell. The Sompnour indignantly, but with 

 far more successful wit and humour, tells a story of 

 a canting hypocritical friar, and exposes the mendi- 

 cant fraternity to derision. The story is low even to 

 grossness, but is very laughable. Of all the charac- 

 ters, the Wife of Bath is perhaps drawn in the strong- 

 est and broadest lines of the poet's humour; and if 

 we could venture to censure Pope for any failure in his 

 imitation of the old bard, it would be in having missed 

 the proper aspect of this incomparable dame. 



Chaucer's merits as a poet are great and various, 

 but they are all inferior to his power of delineating 

 living character. His landscapes are pleasant, his feasts 

 and tournaments are picturesque ; but his men and 

 women are not inferior even to Shakespeare's in co- 

 mic spirit and resemblance to nature. He is some- 

 times pathetic, and Warton gives an instance of his 

 sublimity, but the passage is chiefly borrowed from 

 Statius, and is mixed with much incongruous matter. 

 After such terrific images as 



" The slayer of himself yet saw I there, 

 His hcartis blood ybathcd had his hair.;" 



after " Woodnesse laughing in her rage,;" after ex- 

 hibiting the burning of ships, and the desolation of 

 cities, he introduces the " cooke scalded for all his 

 longe ladle." But Chaucer lived when taste was in 

 its childhood. 



He was the great architect of our versification. 

 He understood the genius of his native language, and 

 adapted it to those structures of rhyme which some 

 whimsical projectors in the age of Queen Elisabeth 

 would have demolished, in order to substitute a Latin 

 form, but which Spenser in his better judgment fol- 

 lowed and improved. * A groundless objection was 

 made to his style by an old critic, that he introduced 

 cartloads of French words into our language. It is 

 a satisfactory answer to this, that the language of 

 England in his time was deeply intermixed with 

 French. In the reign of Edward the Third, French 

 and English were taught together at schools ; and it 

 was usual to make the scholars construe their Latin 

 into French. A Norman-Saxon dialect must have 

 been in fact the accustomed language of the upper 

 classes, and it was to them that Chaucer wrote. 

 Spenser thought differently of his style from the 

 critic to whom we have alluded, when he pronounced 

 it the " Well of English utidefiled." The fluctuation 

 of language easily accounts for this being less strictly 

 true at present than 200 years ago. In general his 

 words in a single sentence clearly reach the meaning 



to which they point, and he is only fatiguing because Check, 

 he multiplies sentences, and spins out descriptions. s - > -y 

 This, however, like the coarse part of his humour, 

 was more the fault of his age than of himself. While 

 the beauties of style in more refined classics meet and 

 surprise us at every turn, those of Chaucer may be 

 compared to flowers which we collect in a long jour- 

 ney, numerous in the sum, but collected widely asun- 

 der. This expression may appear irreverend to those 

 who are enamoured of old English and obsolete spel- 

 ling, merely because it is old and obsolete ; but the 

 rea'der who sits down to Chaucer, expecting wonders 

 in every page, will find, that though there is much to 

 reward his patience, there is also something to exer- 

 cise it. (jj) 



CHECK, or CHEQUE, in the manufacture of cloth, 

 a very extensive variety of fanciful goods, made from 

 all the different substances used in the manufacture, 

 sometimes separately, and sometimes combined in the 

 same fabric. Checks are made by forming stripes in 

 the warp, either of yarn of different fineness, or of 

 different colours. In the cotton manufacture, hand- 

 kerchiefs checked of various colours form a very ex- 

 tensive branch of the business, and are distinguished 

 by the general name of pullicate, from the Indian ar- 

 ticle of which they are imitations. Those which 

 combine the most extensive variety of colours, for 

 the same reason are called Madras pullicates or hand- 

 kerchiefs. The ground of the Madras handkerchiefs 

 is a pale buff colour, very like that of the plain cot- 

 ton cloth known by the name of nankeen, or nanquin ; 

 and in the real Indian manufacture, the buff ground is 

 not the effect of any chemical process of dyeing or 

 tinging, but the natural colour of the cotton. In the 

 British imitations, the ground of the cloth is woven 

 white, and afterwards tinged before finishing. The 

 most extensive branch of check manufacture, how- 

 ever, is of that coarse kind which is used for shirts 

 by seamen, and exported in very great quantities to 

 the West Indian colonies, for various articles of ne- 

 gro clothing. 



From the very great quantities of these coarse 

 stuffs which are annually consumed, it forms a very 

 prominent branch both of the linen and cotton ma- 

 nufacture. The English cotton checks are chiefly 

 manufactured at Blackburn, and other villages in 

 Lancashire ; and the principal seat of the check ma- 

 nufactory, especially the coarser kinds, in Scotland, 

 is at the town of Kirkaldy in Fifeshire. The exten- 

 sive demand for this article, and the coarseness of the 

 fabric, renders it peculiarly an object for those eco- 

 nomical improvements by which a reduction of price 

 may be obtained, without preventing those employed 

 in it from obtaining by their labour fair and compe- 

 tent means of subsistence. It seems, for this reason, 

 to be one of the most inviting objects for the applica- 

 tion of the recently introduced operations of weaving 

 by power, although, as far as we know or have rea- 

 son to believe, this has not hitherto been attempted. 

 For this reason, we shall here explain the principles 

 of an invention made some time ago by the author of 

 this article, at the request of a friend who was en- 

 gaged to a considerable extent in the power weaving 



* Spenser seems at one period to have been a convert to the plan, of naturalizing the Latin hexameter in our poetry, bui 

 he certainly changed his mind* 



