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the most successful of English satirists. The satire most genial to the gentle spirit of Chaucer is that in which the serious is blended with the playful. He was a kindlytempered humourist, better pleased to touch with a tender hand the weaknesses of men than to task their follies and their crimes. There is in his chiding more of the placid smile of Horace than the fierce indignation of Juvenal. The various portraits in the prologue owe their effect in a high degree to the delicacy of the satirist's strokes. We see the shipman, sunburnt and managing his steed with a sailor's usual style; the prioress, with the precision of a nun, finding herself in a somewhat mixed and secular society, and with her amiable affectation of both in the pronunciation of her French and the fashions at the table, and yet withal a natural placidity shining through her assumed stateliness. In the descriptions of the sergeant-at-law and the doctor of physic, Chaucer's skill in bringing out a characteristic trait in a very few words is especially conspicuous. Of the lawyer, it is said,—

"Discreet he was, and of great reverence;
He seemed such, his wordes were so wise."

With a memory stored with judicial decisions and the statutes of the realm, he is portrayed as the busiest of mortals; and then it is added, with that quiet humour which is forever jetting out of Chaucer's pages,

"And yet he seeméd busier than he was."

The doctor of physic is described as deep-versed in surgery, and in the natural magic and astrology which made so large a part of the medical practice of the Middle Ages:—

"Anon he gave to the sick men his (help ;)
Full ready had he his apothecaries,

To send him drugges and his lettuaries.
For, eche of them made other for to winne,

Their friendship was not newé to beginne."

The satire stops not with this allusion to the doctor and apothecary playing into each other's hands; for, after an imposing list of his medical authorities, one expressive line informs us that

"His study was but little on the Bible,"

a reproach on the medical profession the justice of which I shall not assume to discuss. Sufficient is it for my purpose, in commenting on Chaucer's powers of satire, to remark that it is a reproach at one time so current that it called forth a vindication in that curious treatise, the Religio Medici of Sir Thomas Brown. The same subject, with a suggestion of the cause, is also alluded to by one of the dramatic poets of a subsequent age;

"I have heard,-how true

I know not, most physicians, as they grow
Greater in skill, grow less in their religion,—
Attributing so much to natural causes

That they have little faith in that they cannot
Deliver reason for."

The most exquisitely-drawn character-most pleasing in its simplicity and grace-is that of the clergyman. I can quote no better specimen of Chaucer's descriptive style, prefacing it with a remark which may give additional interest to the passage,—that it has been conjectured

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that the poet had the original of the portrait in his friend, the pious rector of Lutterworth, the first of the great Reformers, John Wiclif. It has also been supposed that Dryden applied his imitation of the passage to the pious Bishop Ken; and one of the commentators suggests that Goldsmith cast his eye on Chaucer's engaging description, and accordingly transferred a trait or two of the clerical character in its brighter view to the preacher in his "Deserted Village."

"A good man there was of religioun,

That was a poore parson of the town;
But rich he was of holy thought and work;
He was also a learnéd man, a clerk,

That Christe's gospel truly wouldé preach;
His parishens devoutly would he teach:

Wide was his parish and houses far asunder,
But he ne left nought for no rain nor thunder,
In sickness and in mischief, to visit

The farthest in his parish.

He sette not his benefice to hire,

And left his sheep, accumbred in the mire,
And ran into London, unto Saint Paule's,
To seeken him a chantry for souls,
Or with a brotherhood to be withold,
But dwelt at home and kepte well his fold;
So that the wolf ne made it not miscarry.
He was a shepherd, and no mercenary;
And, tho' he holy were, and virtuous,
He was to sinful men not dispitous;
Ne of his speeché dangerous, ne digne,
But in his teaching discreet and benign.
To drawen folk to heaven with fairness,
By good ensample, was his business.

But, if were any person obstinate,
What so he were of high or low estate,
Him would he snibben sharply for the nonés:
A better priest I trow that nowhere none is."

Among the pilgrims going to Canterbury, and thus chance-collected at the inn at Southwark, it is agreed, at the suggestion of their host, that, for mutual amusement, each one shall tell at least one tale in going and another on their return from Canterbury. This is the fable of the poem, in the execution of which it was contemplated by the author to connect the narratives by appropriate introductions and by episodes prompted by the incidents of the pilgrimage. It would carry me beyond my limits to enter upon any thing like a critical analysis of this series of twenty-three narrative poems, which are finely introduced by the "Knight's Tale," the tragic story of Palamon and Arcite. The framework of the tales is, in most if not in every instance, borrowed from older poets, especially those of Italy; but this was a process which, as with Shakspeare, still left ample scope for originality. The mention of the great dramatic poet reminds me of another important resemblance between the constitution of his mind and Chaucer's. I mean that possession, in equal congeniality, of tragic and comic powers, which is one of the signs of the highest order of human genius. The most intelligent editor of the "Canterbury Tales," Mr. Tyrwhitt, has noticed, as a great difference, that in the serious pieces Chaucer often follows the author he borrows from with the servility of a mere translator; whereas, in the comic, he is generally satisfied with borrowing a slight hint of his subject, which he varies, enlarges, and embellishes at pleasure, and gives the whole

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the air and colour of an original,—a sign that his genius rather led him to compositions of the latter kind. It appears to me, however, that the admirable pathos which is so often to be met with on his pages may well impair somewhat the confidence of this opinion; and I cannot but feel that it is difficult, if not impossible, to pronounce whether the natural bent of his genius was to tragedy or comedy. Whichever opinion may be adopted, it would, indeed, be a wrong, because a partial, judgment; for there is an order of imaginations, to which Chaucer's belongs, which is comprehensive of the whole range of human emotions, having at command alike both tears and smiles. How vain, for instance, and how shallow, would be the criticism which would seek to decide whether the characteristic power of the mind which created Hamlet and which created Falstaff was either tragic or comic, instead of a larger energy inclusive of them both! It is indeed true that there pervades the writings of Chaucer a hearty and manly cheerfulness so easy and unaffected that it suggests the thought rather of a joyous temperament than the meditative cast of mind for which he was distinguished. It is impossible to read his poetry without being impressed with a sense of his deep insight into human nature, and, besides that, his strong and well-disciplined judgment and good, plain, practical common sense. And here let me take occasion to say that I hold that habit of plain philosophy-the power of looking at things aright-to be a trait of true genius. In the course of these lectures I shall be able—I know that I shall be able to show you that the freaks and caprices of the intellect, perverse notions, and morbid, distempered feelings, belong to the