216 CHAUCER. 



man of seventy odd could have put such a spirit of youth 

 into those matchless prologues will not, however, surprise 

 those who remember Dryden s second spring-time. It is 

 plain that the notion of giving unity to a number of discon 

 nected stories by the device which Chaucer adopted was an 

 afterthought. These stories had been written, and some of 

 them even published, at periods far asunder, and without 

 any reference to connection among themselves. The pro 

 logues, and those parts which internal evidence justifies us 

 in taking them to have been written after the thread of 

 plan to string them on was conceived, are in every way 

 more mature in knowledge of the world, in easy mastery 

 of verse and language, and in the overpoise of sentiment 

 by judgment. They may with as much probability be 

 referred to a green old age as to the middle-life of a man 

 who, upon any theory of the dates, was certainly slow in 

 ripening. 



The formation of a Chaucer Society, now four centuries 

 and a-half after the poet s death, gives suitable occasion for 

 taking a new observation of him, as of a fixed star, not only 

 in our own, but in the European literary heavens, &quot; whose 

 worth s unknown although his height be taken.&quot; The 

 admirable work now doing by this Society, whose establish 

 ment was mainly due to the pious zeal of Mr. Furnivall, 

 deserves recognition from all who know how to value the 

 too rare union of accurate scholarship with minute exact 

 ness in reproducing the text. The six-text edition of the 

 &quot; Canterbury Tales,&quot; giving what is practically equivalent 

 to six manuscript copies, is particularly deserving of grati 

 tude from this side the water, as it for the first time affords 

 to Americans the opportunity of independent critical study 

 and comparison. This beautiful work is fittingly inscribed 

 to our countryman, Professor Child, of Harvard, a lover of 

 Chaucer, &quot;so proved by his wordes and his werke,&quot; who 

 lias done more for the great poet s memory than any man 

 since Tyrwhitt. We earnestly hope that the Society may 

 find enough support to print all the remaining manuscript 



