The, plan of Chaucer's pilg-rim& waa that each ehoulcl 

 tell two tales going out and two coming back. But that 

 plan was altered, as there wore nearly thirty of the com- 

 pany, and we have but twenty-four authentic tales, pre- 

 ceded by a general prologue. The scheme of his tales ie 

 excellent. Neither Boccaccio nor Margaret of Navarro 

 set their famous stories in so admirable a frame. The tales 

 are chosen from every branch of fable literature. Legends, 

 i"omanccs, fabliaux, travelers' taies and humorous naiTa- 

 tives all pay tribute. But the charm oi the work h the 

 story-tellers tliemselves, and their prologues. All classes 

 of EngliGh society are represented — knight, yeoman, church- 

 man and members of the religious orders of various gradee ; 

 the lawyer, doctor, a clerk of Oxford, merchants, trades- 

 nien of sundry callings, a wife of Bath, a shipman and a 

 cook. Altogether Chaucer gives a panoram-a of English 

 life. ShS it w^as in the year of grace 1386, such as no previous 

 writer had ventured to produce. Other story-tellers, have 

 cleverly made known the ideals of an epoch ; but in addi- 

 tion toi ideals, Chaucer in the Canterbury Tales shows us 

 the aotual life of his times, presenting the pictm-e with a 

 vividnesis, truthfulness and wealth of illustration, to which 

 other chronicles of that age are but as a child '& picture^ 

 book to Hogarth's pictures of social life. Boc-caceio told 

 his stories in prose; but Chaucer, after studying French 

 and Italian models, told his in English verse; and in the 

 opinion of a high authority — the late A. C. S-v^inburne — 

 told them "not only with more vigor, but with more eweet- 

 nesG than the tongues of his teachers." 



While a story in its simple foi-m has never been better 

 told than by Boccaecioi and Chaucer, stoi-y-telling runs no 

 risk of becoming a lost art. The modern Htoi^-teller has 

 amplified the stoi-y told, and given, to. it plot and detaife. 

 Of this Browning's Eing and the Book is a nota.ble instance. 

 The dry facts of that story took but a few words to t-ell. 

 Yet the author expanded them intO' twelve books, filling 

 four volumes, running through half a score versions. And 



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