THE MEDLAR 



Mes'pilus germcm'ioa L. 



Modern - criticism unfortunately disproves Chaucer's 

 authorship of that dainty little poem, " The Flower 

 and the Leaf," which Professor Skeat attributes to a 

 lady Avriter of the fifteenth century; so that the 

 pretty little verse on a Medlar tree, which occurs in 

 it, cannot now be assigned to the " well of English 

 undefiled." 



" And as I stood and cast aside mine eie 

 I was ware of the fairest Medler tre 

 That ever yet in all my life I sie, 

 As ful of blossomes as it mighte be ; 

 Therein a goldfinch leaping pretile 

 Fro bough to bough ; and, as him list, he eet 

 Of buddes here and there, and flonres sweete." 



We have, however, a mention of the fruit in JElfric's 

 vocabulary of the tenth century ; and another Chau- 

 cerian reference, in the Reeve's Tale, shows that the 

 father of English poetry was acquainted with it and its 

 most striking characteristic, for he makes the elderly 

 reeve compare old men to Medlars in a phrase Avhich 

 may have been in Shakespeare's mind when writing 

 As You Like It : 



" Till we be rofen, can we not be rype." 



In days when there was no foreign import trade 

 in fresh fruit, such references, especially when they 

 cannot be traced to any reminiscences of the Latin 



3C 73 



