64 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. 



by Thomas Cooper in his " Captain Cobbler," which did not 

 take place till 1536, the time of Henry VIII. Other similar 

 pieces rec[uire no iconoclastic spirit to drive them from the esti- 

 mable company into which they have been thrnst ; their own 

 crude lineaments bespeak them to be of other workmanship 

 than the master's hand. With some pieces, the task of adjudg- 

 ing is more difficult; and a few of the minor poems are still 

 S2(b jiidice. The scrupulous examination to which everything 

 doubtful claiming to be of Chaucerian origin has been subjected, 

 has greatly reduced the list formerlv accepted. Besides the 

 usual tests applied to works of doubtful authenticity, every- 

 thing- bearing- Chaucer's name has had to undergo tests of 

 grammar, dialect, rhvme, and rhetorick of the utmost minute- 

 ness, and almost without end. The council of criticism which 

 has confirmed the accepted Chaucer canon decided more than 

 half the seventy-seven pieces under judgment to be apocryphal. 

 Onlv twenty-two poetical pieces, comprising thirt3--five thou- 

 sand lines, are sent forth from the ordeal bearing an indubitable 

 stamp of genuineness. There are also four prose pieces held 

 to be genuine : the Boethius ; Astrolabe ; Parson's sermon ; 

 and the tale of Melibeus. There remain five short pieces of 

 poetrv considered to be doubtful ; and doubt still attaches to 

 parts of the Romance of the Rose. 



Of I'ejected pieces, the Pilgrim's Tale and the Plough- 

 man's Tale have provoked more discussion than the rest. The 

 Pilgrim's Tale was lost for inany years, but was rediscovered 

 and printed by the Chaucer Societv in 1875. Thynne the 

 vounger says, when his father proposed to Henry ^'III to 

 include this stor^' in his edition of Chaucer, the King- said : " I 

 suspect the Bishops will call thee in question for it." But 

 when Thvnne further asked the roval sanction to include it, and 

 for protection, the King- said : " Go thy wa}- and fear not." 

 Still, for all that, he says at Cardinal Wolsey's instance it had 

 to be thrown aside when printed, and was not allowed to 

 appear in that edition. The Pilgrim's Tale is now admitted on 

 all hands to be spurious ; and though Thynne's gossip may in 

 the main be trustworthv, the dates show some mistake in his 



