Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 355, May 1845

Bold of his speche, and wise and wel ytaught,
And of manhood him lacked righte nought."

Moreover, even that chief of poetical Taverns, the Tabard, is designated as

"This gentil hostelrie."

No wonder! since

"The chambres and the stables weren wide,
And wel we weren esed ATTE BESTE."

The Tales are, in some respect, like an extension of the Prologue. They carry out the characters, or the spirit of the characters, there drawn. Thus, if the chivalry of the time is impersonated, in respect of its valour, honour, and courteous demeanour, in the Knight, in his Tale it mounts into poetical aspiration, and shines out in regal splendour. The contrast, due to the different years of the father and the son, is in part disappointed by the cross destiny which has

– "left half-told
The story of Cambuscan bold."

The youthful fancy, dipped or drenched in romance, of the twenty-year old Squire, shows itself, indeed, in the two sections which we have of his chivalrous narrative. The Sword, which, with its edge, hews through all armour, and with its "plat" heals the else incurable wounds of its own inflicting – the Mirror, which discloses the plotting of the kingdom's enemies, the truth or disloyalty of a distant lover – the Ring, which enables its wearer to understand the "leden" of all birds, and to answer them in the same – and the marvellous Horse of Brass, which, with turning of a pin, and with a whisper in the ear, carries his rider whither he would through the air, vanishes and comes with a wish, and, farthermore, behaves and comports himself wholly after the best fashion of a horse; – these four gifts from the King of Arabie and Inde to the Tartar king and his daughter, transport us, as with a flight of the magical courser himself, into the deep, wild, and mystical heart of that region, unplaced by geographers, explored by the host of dreamers, Romance. So, the love-story of the forsaken Bird, with whom the Ring brings the Princess acquainted, is Eastern, is amorous, is high-fantastical, fit for the 'lover and lusty bacheler,' who

– "Coude songes make, and well indite,
Juste and eke dance" —

and stands off in complete distinction from the love-debate, with argumentation and with arms, of Palamon and Arcite. What is it, then, that we would have more? Truly, we fear, that for once we are half unreasonable. The Tale, with beginning, middle, and end, to satisfy the heart of Aristotle, in the Knight's mouth – and the finely-begun fragment in the Squire's – are, by their temper, allied and opposed, quite up to the dramatic propriety of the two speakers. What would we have more? Simply this, that Chaucer, by carrying to an end the unfinished fiction in the tone in which he has begun it, should have demonstrated himself the master of his art, which, by his project, he seems to be. The Knight's is a love-tale, as well; but there is, in the love-story, an involving of political interests, which, together with the known historical names, or such as are so reputed, tempers the romantic, confers a gravity, and mixes in a tone of the world's business that suits the sedate reason, and the various observation of the veteran warrior, tried in high services. It would have been a pleasant feat of poetical understanding and skill, especially for that unpractised day, if a second equally gallant recital of love and war – long and complex it would, by the intimations thrown out, have been – could have been pursued throughout its natural evolutions and vicissitudes, as resolutely as thus far it is, upon its own meet self-sustained wing. It would have been! Oh, vex not the shade of the true Maker with saucy doubts and fears! "Call up Him!" Yes – were there evocations of such potency; but "call Him" in the simplicity of your soul, because he has moved in you the lawful desire of hearing – because you long, insatiably, to know what was done, found, suffered, enjoyed, by Cambalo, Algarsif, Canace: which none other segger, disour, maker, harper and carper, that shall ever arise shall have wit to tell you – not because you would fain sit in the chair of criticism, awarding or withholding the palm of dramatic skill, claimed by Dan Geffrey. Ay! "call up Him!" But call up no substitute for Him.

The Sergeant of Laws' Tale, and the Clerke of Oxenford's, have an affinity. Each describes a tried wife, an exemplar for all her sex, two perfectly pure-souled women. And nothing is more honourable to Chaucer than the love with which he has dwelt upon the story of both. Both suffer to extremity; but Custance, the Sergeant's heroine, under the hand of Providence, who proves her with strange calamities, and when she has well-endured the ordeal, restores her to deserved happiness. For the loving wife, whom the Clerke of Oxenford praises, a loving husband is pleased to devise a course of sharp assaying, which might have been conveniently spared. The manner of telling in the two stories is marked with a difference. In both it is somewhat of the copious kind; and it may be observed, generally, that the style of the narrative, in the seven-lined stanza, or "rime roiall," is more diffuse than in the couplets. There is a difference between the two which appears to belong to the characters of the speakers. The Man of Law has not a few passages of exclamatory and apostrophical moral and sentimental rhetoric. They compel you to recollect his portrait —

"Discret he was, and of gret reverence
He seemed swiche, his wordes were so wise."

The Clerk has nothing of the kind. The largeness in his manner of relating, is rather an explicit and lucid fulness in representing an interesting subject, than what is properly called diffuseness. Chaucer has said of him —

"Not a word spake he more than was nede;"

and you will see accordingly, that although he details his narrative, every word, in its place, is pertinent and serviceable. He ends with a freak, which carries him, you are disposed to think, out of his character. He has related, after Petrarch, the story of patient Griseldis, with beautiful earnestness and simplicity. He has conducted her through all the trials which the high-born lord thought good to lay upon the low-born wife, has displayed and rewarded her inimitable "wifly pacience," and then confesses, that not being imitable, neither is it intended that it should be imitated. In short, he "stints of ernestful matere;" and to "gladen" his audience, ends with "saying them a song," in six quaintly-rhymed stanzas, in which he counsels the wives to stand upon the defensive against their husbands, and take all natural care of themselves —

"Be ay of chere as light as lefe on linde,
And let him care, and wepe, and wringe, and wail."

The ironical counsel does not belie the moral of the story; but it comes unexpectedly from him whom the Hoste has called upon for his tale, with remarking, that he "rides as still and coy as a maid newly espoused sits at her bord."

The Franklin has at home a graceless cub and heir of his own. If good living were one and the same thing with holy living, this should the less easily have happened. The Franklin is wonderfully captivated with our young Squire's breeding, grace, and eloquence. The contrast brings his own "burdane" painfully into his mind, and wrings from him a mortified exclamation. The old man, with his sanguine complexion, and his beard

"White as is the dayesie,"

has – notwithstanding the sharp censorship which he exercises over his cook – a heart in his bosom. The pleasure with which he has heard the Squire, vouches as much; and more decisively so does the story, which he himself tells from the old Breton lays; another story of a virtuous wife, strangely tried, of all the three the most strangely. Her husband, a knight, is on a voyage, and she takes a horror of the perilous rocks that edge their own shore. Meanwhile, a youthful squire pursues her with love. One day, in a mockery, she promises to grant him his suit if he will remove all the rocks in a morning. After some perplexity of thought he resorts to an able magician at Orleans; who, for the consideration of a thousand pounds, undertakes, and accomplished the feat. Who is now hard bestead, but the lady? She, in her strait, consults her husband, who has returned; and the honourable husband says – you must keep your word. The squire comes for his guerdon. "My husband says that I must keep my word." "Indeed! – and shall a squire not know how to do a 'gentil dede,' as well as a knight? I release you your promise." – He carries £500 – all of the agreed sum that he can muster to the conjurer, and prays of him time for the rest. "Have I performed my undertaking?" "Yes!" – "And the lady hers?" – The squire is obliged to relate the sequence of events. – "And is a clerk," exclaims the master, "less able to do a gentil dede, than squire and knight? Keep thy money, Sir Squire!"

That is a creditable tale for a country gentleman —

"Whose table dormant in the halle alway
Stood redy covered alle the longe day."

There is much feeling in the detail of the story, and the magical shows, by which the enchanter, before striking his bargain, demonstrates his competency, and by which he afterwards executes his engagement, are dressed out with vivid imagination.

But now it is really high time that you should hear Dryden on Chaucer. For is not this Number IV. of our Specimens of the British Critics?

"With Ovid ended the golden age of the Roman tongue; from Chaucer the purity of the English tongue began. The manners of the poets were not unlike: both of them were well bred, well natured, amorous, and libertine, at least in their writings; it may be also in their lives. Their studies were the same – philosophy and philology. Both of them were knowing in astronomy; of which Ovid's Books of the Roman Feasts, and Chaucer's Treatise of the Astrolabe, are sufficient witnesses. But Chaucer was likewise an astrologer, as were Virgil, Horace, Persius, and Manilius. Both writ with wonderful facility and clearness; neither were great inventors; for Ovid only copied the Grecian fables, and most of Chaucer's stories were taken from his Italian contemporaries, or their predecessors – Boccace his 'Decameron' was first published; and from thence our Englishman has borrowed many of his 'Canterbury Tales.' Yet that of Palamon and Arcite was written, in all probability, by some Italian wit, in a former age, as I shall prove hereafter. The tale of Grisilde was the invention of Petrarch; by him sent to Boccace, from whom it came to Chaucer. Troilus and Cressida was also written by a Lombard author, but much amplified by our English translator, as well as beautified; the genius of our countrymen, in general, being rather to improve an invention than to invent themselves, as is evident not only in our poetry but in many of our manufactures. I find I have anticipated already, and taken up from Boccace before I come to him; but there is so much less behind; and I am of the temper of most kings, who love to be in debt, are all for present money, no matter how they pay it afterwards; besides, the nature of a preface is rambling, never wholly out of the way, nor in it. This I have learned from the practice of honest Montaigne, and return at my pleasure to Ovid and Chaucer, of whom I have little more to say. Both of them built on the inventions of other men; yet since Chaucer had something of his own, as The Wife of Bath's Tale, The Cock and the Fox, which I have translated, and some others, I may justly give our countryman the precedence in that part; since I can remember nothing of Ovid which was wholly his. Both of them understood the manners; under which name I comprehend the passions, and in a larger sense the descriptions of persons, and their very habits. For an example, I see Baucis and Philemon as perfectly before me as if some ancient painter had drawn them; and all the pilgrims in the Canterbury Tales, their humours, their features, and their very dress, as distinctly as if I had supped with them at the Tabard, in Southwark. Yet even there, too, the figures of Chaucer are much more lively, and set in a better light; which, though I have not time to prove, yet I appeal to the reader, and am sure he will clear me from partiality. The thoughts and words remain to be considered in the comparison of the two poets, and I have saved myself one-half of that labour by owning that Ovid lived when the Roman tongue was in its meridian; Chaucer, in the dawning of our language; therefore, that part of the comparison stands not on an equal foot, any more than the diction of Ennius and Ovid, or of Chaucer and our present English. The words are given up, as a post not to be defended in our poet, because he wanted the modern art of fortifying. The thoughts remain to be considered; and they are to be measured only by their propriety; that is, as they flow more or less naturally from the persons described on such and such occasions. The vulgar judges, which are nine parts in ten of all nations, who call conceits and jingles wit, who see Ovid full of them, and Chaucer altogether without them, will think me little less than mad, for preferring the Englishman to the Roman. Yet, with their leave, I must presume to say, that the things they admire are only glittering trifles, and so far from being witty, that in a serious poem they are nauseous, because they are unnatural. Would any man who is ready to die for love, describe his passions like Narcissus; would he think of inopem me copia fecit, and a dozen more of such expressions, poured on the neck of one another, and signifying all the same thing? This is just John Littlewit, in 'Bartholomew Fair,' who had a conceit (as he tells you) left him in his misery; a miserable conceit. On these occasions, the poet should endeavour to raise pity; but, instead of this, Ovid is tickling you to laugh. Virgil never made use of such machines when he was moving you to commiserate the death of Dido; he would not destroy what he was building. Chaucer makes Arcite violent in his love, and unjust in the pursuit of it; yet when he came to die, he made him think more reasonably: he repents not of his love, for that had altered his character; but acknowledges the injustice of his proceedings, and resigns Emilia to Palamon. What would Ovid have done on this occasion? He would certainly have made Arcite witty on his deathbed; – he had complained he was farther off from possession by being so near, and a thousand such boyisms, which Chaucer rejected as below the dignity of the subject. They who think otherwise, would by the same reason prefer Lucan and Ovid to Homer and Virgil, and Martial to all four of them. As for the turn of words, in which Ovid particularly excels all poets, they are sometimes a fault, and sometimes a beauty, as they are used properly or improperly; but in strong passions always to be shunned, because passions are serious, and will admit no playing. The French have a high value for them; and I confess they are often what they call delicate, when they are introduced with judgment; but Chaucer writ with more simplicity, and followed nature more closely, than to use them. I have thus far, to the best of my knowledge, been an upright judge betwixt the parties in competition, not meddling with the design nor the disposition of it; because the design was not their own; and in the disposing of it they were equal. It remains that I say something of Chaucer in particular.

"In the first place, as he is the father of English poetry, so I hold him in the same degree of veneration as the Grecians held Homer, or the Romans Virgil. He is a perpetual fountain of good sense; learned in all sciences, and therefore speaks properly on all subjects. As he knew what to say, so he knows also when to leave off, a continence which is practised by few writers, and scarcely by any of the ancients excepting Virgil and Horace. One of our late great poets is sunk in his reputation because he could never forgive any conceit which came in his way, but swept like a drag-net great and small. There was plenty enough, but the dishes were ill sorted; whole pyramids of sweetmeats for boys and women, but little of solid meat for men. All this proceeded, not from any want of knowledge, but of judgment. Neither did he want that in discerning the beauties and faults of other poets, but only indulged himself in the luxury of writing; and perhaps knew it was a fault, but hoped the reader would not find it. For this reason, though he must always be thought a great poet, he is no longer esteemed a good writer; and for ten impressions which his works have had in so many successive years, yet at present a hundred books are scarcely purchased once a twelvemonth; for as my last Lord Rochester said, though somewhat profanely, 'Not being of God, he could not stand.'

"Chaucer followed nature every where, but was never so bold to go beyond her; and there is a great difference of being poeta and nimis poeta, if we may believe Catullus, as much as betwixt a modest behaviour and affectation. * * *

"He must have been a man of most wonderful comprehensive nature, because, as it has been truly observed of him, he has taken into the compass of his Canterbury Tales the various manners and humours (as we may now call them) of the whole English nation, in his age. Not a single character has escaped him. All his pilgrims are severally distinguished from each other; and not only in their inclinations, but in their very physiognomies and persons. Baptista Porta could not have described their natures better, than by the marks which the poet gives them. The matter and manner of their tales, and of their telling, are so suited to their different educations, humours, and callings, that each of them would be improper in any other mouth. Even the grave and serious characters are distinguished by their several sorts of gravity; their discourses are such as belong to their age, their calling, and their breeding; such as are becoming of them, and of them only. Some of his persons are vicious, and some virtuous; some are unlearned, or (as Chaucer calls them) lewd, and some are learned. Even the ribaldry of the low characters is different; the Reeve, the Miller, and the Cook, are several men, and distinguished from each other as much as the mincing Lady Prioress, and the broad-speaking gap-toothed Wife of Bath. But enough of this; there is such a variety of game springing up before me, that I am distracted in my choice, and know not which to follow. It is sufficient to say, according to the proverb, that here is God's plenty. We have our forefathers and great-granddames all before us, as they were in Chaucer's days; their general characters are still remaining in mankind, and even in England, though they are called by other names than those of monks, and friars, and canons, and lady-abbesses, and nuns; for mankind is ever the same, and nothing lost out of nature, though every thing is altered. May I have leave to do myself the justice, (since my enemies will do me none, and are so far from granting me to be a good poet, that they will not allow me so much as to be a Christian, or a moral man,) may I have leave, I say, to inform my reader, that I have confined my choice to such tales of Chaucer as savour nothing of immodesty. If I had desired more to please than to instruct, the Reeve, the Miller, the Shipman, the Merchant, the Sumner, and, above all, the Wife of Bath, in the prologue to her tale, would have procured me as many friends and readers as there are beaux and ladies of pleasure in the town. But I will no more offend against good manners. I am sensible, as I ought to be, of the scandal I have given by my loose writings; and make what reparation I am able, by this public acknowledgment. If any thing of this nature, or of profaneness, be crept into these poems, I am so far from defending it, that I disown it, totum hoc indictum volo. Chaucer makes another manner of apology for his broad speaking and Boccace makes the like; but I will follow neither of them."

An English reader is likely to have held his way through the Palamon and Arcite of Dryden, ere arriving at the knight's Tale of Chaucer. It will not easily happen that he overleaps that Version, so full of the fire and vigorous grace which he delights in, and couched in the very choicest of that English on which his ears habitually feed, to introduce himself all at once to the antique and to him obsolete Original. The pure impression, therefore, with which he would read the Tale in its proper place, if he there first got acquainted with it, is hardly to be obtained. No matter! Forget Dryden, and plunge yourself into Chaucer.

Be surprised, if you can, as you surely will be amused, at encountering the inextricable commixture of manners, usages, tones, thinkings, and speakings, which time and space have done their best at keeping asunder – the chivalry of modern Europe, and of the middle ages, transplanted into the heroic age of old Greece, and to the Court of Theseus, "Duk of Athenes." Be surprised and amused, but do not therefore lay the book out of your hand, or laugh the old master to scorn, or do him other than reverent and honourable justice. Take rather the story to pieces, convince yourself step by step how strangely at every turn the old world and the new, the Christian and the Heathen, are confounded together, and feel at every step how the vitality which the good poet has infused into his work, reconciles and atones discordancies and discrepancies; and in spite of the perplexing physiognomy, how that must needs be one body which is informed and actuated, through all its joints and members, by one spirit.

Take in pieces the story – untwist the intertwined classical and romantic threads. Make sure of the fault, and then hasten to forgive it. The fault! Are you quite sure that it is one? Recollect that it is not Chaucer who relates the Knight's Tale. Chaucer is here a dramatic poet, and his Knight relates his own tale. What! – Shall he, who has "full often time the bord begun," —

"Aboven allé natiouns in Pruce;"

who has "reysed in Lettowe, and in Ruce," has been —

"In Gernade at the siege
Of Algesir, and ridden in Belmarie;"

who was —

"At Leyes and at Satalie,
When they were wonne; and in the Grete See,
At many a noble armee;" —

he who has been at —

"Mortal battailes fiftene,
And foughten for our faith at Tramisene,
In listes thries, and ay slain his fo" —

shall he, upon the qualm of a queasy criticism, not be allowed to transfer something of the

"Chevalrie,
Truth and honor, fredom and courtesie,"

which, "from the time that he first began to riden out," he has loved – across a gap of a few hundred leagues and years? To what end else, it may be asked, has he approved himself, "full worthy in his lordes werre," and "ridden thereto no man ferre," —

"As well in Christendom as in Hethenesse,
And ever honor'd for his worthinesse?"

Why, the Knight would have been no knight at all if he had been Richard Bentley or John Milton, and not, as there is every reason to hope he was, le noble et vaillant Chivaler Matheu de Gourney, whose marble tells us that he had fought at Benamaryn and Algezire, and been at abundance of battles and sieges, named and unnamed, in Christendom and Heathenesse – "en les quex il gaigna noblement graunt los et honour" – and who "died in 1406 at the age of 96." It is therefore Sir Matheu de Gourney who speaks, like a knight, of knighthood – and let him speak —