256 CHAUCER. 



the cat. We know without need of more words that he has 

 chosen the snuggest corner. In some of his early poems he 

 sometimes, it is true, falls into the catalogue style of his 

 contemporaries ; but after he had found his genius he never 

 particularises too much a process as deadly to all effect as 

 an explanation to a pun. The first stanza of the &quot; Clerk s 

 Tale &quot; gives us a landscape whose stately choice of objects 

 shows a skill in composition worthy of Claude, the last artist 

 who painted nature epically : 



&quot; There is at the west ende of Itaile, 



Down at the foot of Vesulus the cold, 



A lusty plain abundant of vitaile, 



Where many a tower and town thou may st behold 



That founded were in time of fathers old, 



And many another delitable sight ; 

 And Skluces this noble country hight&quot; 



The Pre-Raphaelite style of landscape entangles the eye 

 among the obtrusive weeds and grass-blades of the foreground 

 which, in looking at a real bit of scenery, we overlook ; but 

 what a sweep of vision is here ! and what happy generalisa 

 tion in the sixth verse as the poet turns away to the business 

 of his story ! The whole is full of open air. 



But it is in his characters, especially, that his manner is 

 large and free ; for he is painting history, though with the 

 fidelity of portrait. He brings out strongly the essential 

 traits, characteristic of the genus rather than of the indi 

 vidual. The Merchant who keeps so steady a countenance 

 that 



&quot; There wist no wight that he was e er in debt,&quot; 



the Sergeant at Law, &quot; who seemed busier than he was,&quot; 

 the Doctor of Medicine, whose &quot; study was but little on 

 the Bible,&quot; in all these cases it is the type and not the 

 personage that fixes his attention. William Blake says 

 truly, though he expresses his meaning somewhat clumsily, 

 &quot; the characters of Chaucer s Pilgrims are the characters 

 which compose all ages and nations. Some of the names 

 and titles are altered by time, but the characters remain for 

 ever unaltered, and consequently they are the physiognomies 



