‘THE MEDLAR. 
Mes'pilus germaniica 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 writer 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 floures sweete,” 
We have, however, a mention of the fruit in Alfric’s 
vocabulary of the tenth century; and another Chau- 
cerian reference, in thé 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 which 
may have been in Shakespeare's mind when writing 
As You Like It : 
“ Till we be roten, 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 
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