September 1, 1898.] 



KNOWLEDGE 



207 



Nor was Chaucer alone able to make such a calculation. 

 The host of the Tabard, though " not depe expert in lore," 

 could work out a similar but simpler problem. 



" Our lioste s:iw wel that the briglitp sonnc 

 The ark of liis iirtiiieial* diiv had ronne 

 ■J lie t'ourthe part, and half an hoiire and more ; 

 And thougli he was not depe expert in lore, 

 lie wiste it was the eight* and twenty day 

 Of April, that is messager to May ; 

 And saw wel that the shadow of every tree 

 Was as in lengthe of the same quantitee 

 That was the body erect, that caused it ; 

 And therfore l>y the sliadow ho toke liis wit, 

 That Phebus, which that shone so clere and bright. 

 Degrees was five and fourty clombe on higtit; 

 And for that day, as in that latitude. 

 It was ten of the cIok,+ he gan conclude." 



It is in these two particulars, the apparent progress of 

 the sun along the ecliptic during the year, and his course 

 across the sky during the day, that astronomy enter^ 

 chiefly into men's lives in Chaucer's day. There was as 

 yet no suspicion that the earth was not the fixed centre of 

 the solar system, or that the apparent motion of the sun 

 along the ecliptic was due to the real motion of the earth. 

 Ptolemy was still the master-mind of astronomy. 



" Of alle men y blessed mote he be. 

 The wise astrologien Dan Ptholomee, 

 That saytih this proverbe in his Almagcste : ' 



As with Dante, the planets revolved for Chaucer in 

 successive crystalline spheres, for Europe had still two 

 centuries to wait for Copernicus. 



" And by his eighte speres in his working. 

 He knew fij wel how far Alnath was shove 



Fro the bed of thilke fii Aries above, 

 That in the uinthe spcre considered is.'';!: 



But though he gives us evidence enough that the 

 commonality believed in astrology more or less, he him- 

 self and the better classes had quite broken off from it. 

 The " Chanones Yemanne " tell us — 



■' Sol gold is, and Luna silver we threpe ; 

 Mars iren, Merourie quicksilver we clepe : 

 Saturnus led. and Jupiter is tin, 

 And Venus coper by my fader kin." 



But this is only the trade jargon of a confessed charlatan. 

 The wife of Bath gives astrological reasons why learned 

 men have little estimation for women, but is scarcely more 

 serious in her argument than in her quotations from St. 

 Paul. 



" The children of Mercury and of \'enus, 

 Ben in hir werking ful contrarious. 

 Mercury loveth wisdoiu and science, 

 And Venus loveth riot and dispence, 

 And for hir divers disposition 

 Eche falleth in others exaltation. 

 As thus, God wote, Meicui'v is desolat 

 In Pisces, wher Venus is exaltat. 

 And Venus falleth wher Mercury is reised. 

 Therfore no woman of no clerk is preised." 



But the Frankeleine disposes of astrology or " magike 



* " His artificial day," i.e., his mean day, from six in the morning 

 to six in the evening, as contrasted vrith his natural day, from sunrise 

 to sunset. 



t It woiUd be nearly a quarter to ten, apparent time, corresponding 

 to the " fourth part " of the daily arc, " and half an hour and 

 more." 



X In other words, he knew the distance of the first star in Aries, 

 the actual constellation, from the first point of Aries, the zero point 

 of celestial longitudes. The actual stars sind constellations are con- 

 sidered to be in the eighth sphere ; the equal signs of the zodiac, the 

 divisions of celestial longitude, in the ninth ; the different planets 

 occupying the first seven. 



natnrel " in a very off-hand manner, though he describes 

 the work of an astrologer in much detail. 



" Which book spake moche of operations 

 Touching tlie eight and twenty mansions* 

 That longen to the Mone, and swiche folie. 

 As in our dayes njis not worth a flie. 



• • » » 



" His tables Tolctanest forth he brought 

 Ful wel corrected, that ther lacked nought, 

 Xother his collect, ne his eipans yeres, 

 Xother his rotes, ne his other geres. 

 As ben his centres, and his argumentes. 

 And his proportional convenientcs 

 For his equations in overvthing. 

 « » « ■ « 



•' Whan he had found his firsto mansion. 

 He knew the remenant by proportion; 

 And knew the rising of his mone wel. 

 And in whos face, and terrae and every del : 

 And knew ful wel the mones mansion." 



Such was astronomy in Chaucer's day, very narrow and 

 confined, without a hint of those wonderful revelations 

 which the telescope and the spectroscope have brought to 

 us, without a guess at that majestic order of which 

 Copernicus had the first faint vision, which unfolded 

 itself in three-fold stages to Kepler, and gave itself in the 

 fulness of its completeness to Newton. 



Yet, narrow as it was, hampered as it further was by 

 its connection with the bastard science of astrology, 

 akeady falling into merited contempt, astronomy had a 

 real existence in Chaucer's time ; real because a science 

 of actual observation. Englishmen of that time lived out 

 of doors, they were cooped up in no great cities, the sun 

 himself was their great almanac and clock, and they were 

 obliged to learn how to read him. That which they were 

 able to learn from Nature may not have been much, but, 

 at least, they learned it first hand. 



Exactly the opposite condition of things prevails to-day. 

 Immense volumes of Imowledge have been opened to us of 

 which our forefathers never dreamed ; and the Press 

 secures the ready and wide diffusion of every fresh advance. 

 Y'et there can be no doubt that in some respects a practical 

 personal acquaintance with Nature is less general now than 

 then. We may be quite sure that in Chaucer's day the 

 veriest clodpole knew that the stars rose and set. There are 

 probably millions in England who do not know it to-day ; 

 Sir George .\iry thought it not safe to assume that even 

 Cambridge undergraduates knew it. 



There is a knowledge of science, of a sort, very widely 

 spread to-day, but the utter nonsense which is often calmly 

 printed in newspapers, and far more often inserted in 

 popular stories, proves how thoroughly second hand it is. 

 Such knowledge as that possessed by Tomlinson, of 

 Berkeley Square, 



" This I have read in a book, he said ; 

 And this was told to me ; 

 And this I have thought that another man thought." 



is indeed better than nothing ; but far better still is it to 

 base one's knowledge upon one's own observations, one's 

 own experiments, however crude, and to learn not from 

 books alone, but from the lips of Nature herself. 



Notto ta of B ooltg. 



A Sketch of the Naturnl Hixtoi-i/ [Vertebrates) of tlte Britiah 

 Isl/mds. By F. G. Atlalo, f.r.g.s., f.z.s. Blackwood. 

 Illustrated. 6s. net. The "unambitious" aim of this 

 book is that it shall serve as an "introduction to the many 

 excellent handbooks to county fauna.' For one man to 

 attempt this task seems to us very ambitious, and to 

 endeavour to write such an introduction in the space of 



* Of the lunar zodiac. 



+ . The Alphonsine Tables. 



