14 
MASTERS OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
[Continued from page 1.] 
and the splendor of romance. Hewas 
a scholar and keen student of human 
nature, a man of learning, genius and 
religion. 
Chaucer’s earlier poems, such as 
the ‘‘ Romaunt of the Rose,” a favor- 
ite subject of the Provencal poets ; 
the ‘“ Court of Love”’ and the “Legend 
of Good Women,”’ showed rare genius 
and «taste, and. are sufficient to fix 
Chaucer’s rank as the first of the 
modern versifiers, far in advance of 
Gower and Layamon with their allit- 
erative stanzas. One of the most 
prolific and laborious of poets, a series 
of melodious verses fell from his ready 
pen ; he tried all the resources of the 
language, imported into it riches 
gleaned from foreign fields, and like 
Dante in Italian became the master 
of English numbers. 
A large part of Chaucer’s writings 
consists of translations from other 
languages, but he often incorporates 
so much that is his own that they are 
the most valued of his works. What- 
ever Chaucer borrowed he borrowed 
in no mechanical way ; it was so trans- 
fused in his own mind, it was so 
transformed and ilJuminated by his 
own genius, that it became a part of 
his own mental treasure, and he 
poured it forth as an original gift, as 
it really was, to the world. 
The poetical fame of Chaucer rests 
chiefly on the ‘‘ Canterbury Tales.” 
The plan of this celebrated work was 
no doubt suggested by Boccacio’s 
«¢ Decameron,”’ but in its execution it 
shows great fertility of genius and 
exuberance of imagination, distin- 
guishing it from the work of all 
predecessors. The adaptedness of 
this plan to poetic story-telling com- 
mended it to Longfellow in his “ Tales 
of a Wayside Inn,” and Whittier in 
his “Tent on the Beach,” but in 
neither is the plan worked out with 
anything like the thoroughness or the 
creative skill of the “Canterbury 
Tales.” The limits of this paper for- 
bid any formal description or analysis 
of this great poem ; suffice it to say 
that incomplete as it is as compared 
with the original plan, and marred as 
it is by occasional coarseness, it holds 
the mirror up to English society, life 
and manners in a wonderful way. 
From the familiar reality of the Pro- 
logue, the tone rises in some of the 
Tales to the highest flight of heroic, 
reflective and even religious poetry ; 
and everywhere it gives us a picture 
whose figures have been studied with 
the truest observation, and are out- 
lined with the firmest and yet most 
delicate hand. He draws up the cur- 
tain from a scene of life and manners, 
such as the whole compass of subse- 
NORTH SGHOKE BREEZE 
quent literature has not surpassed. 
Many of the materials had before ap- 
peared in prose or,verse, but transfig- 
ured by the treatment they receive, 
they attest, as a recent critic has 
remarked, “the presence of a masterly 
intellect and an unfailing imagina- 
tion. : 
Chaucer was a great lover of nature, 
as all real poets are; he loved ‘April 
with his shoures,”’ “ Zephirus with his 
sote brethe,”’ the ‘‘ tendre croppes in 
every jolt and hethe,” the nightin- 
gale’s song, the daisy, the rose. Now, 
it is “a laund of white and green, 
ypowdered with daisies,’ nowa field 
that was “‘on every side covered with 
corne and grasse.” Chaucer caught 
up all the delicate traits of his native 
scenery and wove them into a garland 
of perpetual delights. 
Chaucer's characters are drawn 
from the life and represent all varie- 
ties of English society ; there is the 
Knight, “a worthie man,’’ who “loved 
chevalrie, trouthe and honour, fre- 
dom and curtesie,” “a veray parfit, 
gentil knight ;” there is the Squire, 
‘‘a lover and lusty bachelor,” who 
could “‘songes make and well endite, 
juste and eke dance, and well pour- 
traie and write;”’ there is the Clerk, 
or scholar, with “his forty bookes at 
his bed’s hedde ;”’ “of study took he 
most cure and heed; sounding in 
moral virtue was his speche; and gladly 
woulde he learn and gladly teche,” 
and finest of all the Parson, possibly 
one of Wyclif’s ‘poor preachers,” 
whom Chaucer must have often jos- 
tled on the street; ‘rich he was of 
holy thought and work; Christe’s 
gospel truly wouldé preach ; benign 
he was and wonder diligent, and in 
adversitie full patient ; to drawen folk 
to heaven with faireness, by good 
ensample was his business; Christ’s 
love and his apostle’s twelve he 
taughte, but first he folwed it him- 
selve.”’ Other characters, some from 
the middle, some from the lower walks 
of life, give occasion for satire, for 
merriment, for reflection, for grave 
instruction. It has been said that 
Chaucer ‘ saw life thoroughly, and he 
saw it whole.” He was a kindly soul, 
and he ‘set down nought in malice ;”’ 
if some of his scenes are offensive to 
modern taste, we must remember the 
age in which he lived, its want of 
delicacy and refinement, and Chaucer’s 
own excuse that he represented things 
as they were; and no doubt that on 
the whole the Canterbury Tales, in 
the age for which they were written, 
made for a higher standard of moral- 
ity, greater reverence for virtue, and 
greater despite for meanness, brutality 
and vice. This must be said of him, 
that in a time of general looseness 
and depravity among all classes, from 
court to populace, Chaucer stood 
bravely and wrote entrancingly in 
praise of the finer and more noble 
and more humane virtues, and was. 
always true to his own maxim, ‘Truth 
is the highest thing a man may keep.” 
Chaucer has had many commenta- 
tors, and the Canterbury Tales have 
been translated in part into modern 
English by Dryden, Pope, Wordsworth 
and others. His works, however, are 
but little read, owing no doubt chiefly 
to the difficulty of understanding his 
archaic words, and the disadvantage 
of having to stop at every line or two 
to consult a glossary. This troubleis 
met by a recent version of the Canter- 
bury Tales, or rather a selection from 
them in prose, retaining the precise 
language where possible, and making 
only such changes as are necessary to 
intelligibility. The work has been 
done in a scholarly manner by Mr. 
Percy Mackaye, and is an excellent 
and clear interpretation of a great 
English classic. It ought to introduce 
Chaucer to a new generation of read- 
ers. The following rendering of the 
familiar lines which open the Prologue 
will best show how Mr. Mackaye 
adapts his style toa twentieth century 
public: ‘ When April with his sweet 
showers hath pierced to the root the 
drought of March and_ bathed every 
vine in liquid, the virtue of which 
maketh every flower to start, and 
when eke Zephirus, with his sweet 
breath, hath quickened the tender 
shoots in every heath and holt, and 
the young sun hath sped his half 
course in the Ram, and the little birds 
make their melodies and all the night 
sleep with open eye, so nature prick- 
eth them in their hearts, then folk 
long to go on pilgrimages — and palm- 
ers to seek strange shores—to the 
far shrines of saints known in sundry 
lands; and especially from every 
shire’s end of England they journey 
to Canterbury to visit the holy, 
blessed Martyr, that hath helped them 
when they were sick.” This is cer- 
tainly plain enough to modern English 
readers. 
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