There is many another book on my shelf on which I might dilate, but this gossiping must be drawn to a close. When I began, the wind was bending the trees, and the rain came against the window in quick, petulant dashes. For hours now, wind and rain have ceased, the trees are motionless, the garden walk is dry. The early light of wintry sunset is falling across my paper, and, as I look up, the white Dante opposite is dipped in tender rose. Less stern he looks, but not less sad, than he did in the morning. The sky is clear, and an arm of bleak pink vapour stretches up into its depths. The air is cold with frost, and the rain which those dark clouds in the east hold will fall during the night in silent, feathery flakes. When I wake to-morrow, the world will be changed, frosty forests will cover my bedroom panes, the tree branches will be furred with snows; and to the crumbs which it is my daily custom to sprinkle on the shrubbery walk will come the lineal descendant of the charitable redbreast that covered up with leaves the sleeping children in the wood.
GEOFFREY CHAUCER
Chaucer is admitted on all hands to be a great poet, but, by the general public at least, he is not frequently read. He is like a cardinal virtue, a good deal talked about, a good deal praised, honoured by a vast amount of distant admiration, but with little practical acquaintance. And for this there are many and obvious reasons. He is an ancient, and the rich old mahogany is neglected for the new and glittering veneer. He is occasionally gross; often tedious and obscure; he frequently leaves a couple of lovers, to cite the opinions of Greek and Roman authors; and practice and patience are required to melt the frost of his orthography, and let his music flow freely. In the conduct of his stories he is garrulous, homely, and slow-paced. He wrote in a leisurely world, when there was plenty of time for writing and reading, long before the advent of the printer's devil or of Mr. Mudie. There is little of the lyrical element in him. He does not dazzle by sentences. He is not quotable. He does not shine in extracts so much as in entire poems. There is a pleasant equality about his writing; he advances through a story at an even pace, glancing round him on everything with curious, humourous eyes, and having his say about everything. He is the prince of story-tellers, and however much he may move others, he is not moved himself. His mood is so kindly that he seems always to have written after dinner, or after hearing good news,—that he had received from the king another grant of wine, for instance,—and he discourses of love and lovers' raptures, and the disappointments of life, half sportively, half sadly, like one who has passed through all, felt the sweetness and the bitterness of it, and been able to strike a balance. He had his share of crosses and misfortune, but his was a nature which time and sorrow could only mellow and sweeten; and for all that had come and gone, he loved his "books clothed in black and red," to sit at good men's feasts; and if silent at table, as the Countess of Pembroke reported, the "stain upon his lip was wine." Chaucer's face is to his writings the best preface and commentary; it is contented-looking, like one familiar with pleasant thoughts, shy and self-contained somewhat, as if he preferred his own company to the noisy and rude companionship of his fellows; and the outlines are bland, fleshy, voluptuous, as of one who had a keen relish for the pleasures that leave no bitter traces. Tears and mental trouble, and the agonies of doubt, you cannot think of in connexion with it; laughter is sheathed in it, the light of a smile is diffused over it. In face and turn of genius he differs in every respect from his successor, Spenser; and in truth, in Chaucer and Spenser we see the fountains of the two main streams of British song: the one flowing through the drama and the humourous narrative, the other through the epic and the didactic poem. Chaucer rooted himself firmly in fact, and looked out upon the world in a half-humourous, half-melancholy mood. Spenser had but little knowledge of men as men; the cardinal virtues were the personages he was acquainted with; in everything he was "high fantastical," and, as a consequence, he exhibits neither humour nor pathos. Chaucer was thoroughly national; his characters, place them where he may,—in Thebes or Tartary,—are natives of one or other of the English shires. Spenser's genius was country-less as Ariel; search ever so diligently, you will not find an English daisy in all his enchanted forests. Chaucer was tolerant of everything, the vices not excepted; morally speaking, an easy-going man, he took the world as it came, and did not fancy himself a whit better than his fellows. Spenser was a Platonist, and fed his grave spirit on high speculations and moralities. Severe and chivalrous, dreaming of things to come, unsuppled by luxury, unenslaved by passion, somewhat scornful and self-sustained, it needed but a tyrannous king, an electrical political atmosphere, and a deeper interest in theology to make a Puritan of him, as these things made a Puritan of Milton. The differences between Chaucer and Spenser are seen at a glance in their portraits. Chaucer's face is round, good-humoured, constitutionally pensive, and thoughtful. You see in it that he has often been amused, and that he may easily be amused again. Spenser's is of sharper and keener feature, disdainful, and breathing that severity which appertains to so many of the Elizabethan men. A fourteenth-century child, with delicate prescience, would have asked Chaucer to assist her in a strait, and would not have been disappointed. A sixteenth-century child in like circumstances would have shrunk from drawing on herself the regards of the sterner-looking man. We can trace the descent of the Chaucerian face and genius in Shakspeare and Scott, of the Spenserian in Milton and Wordsworth. In our day, Mr. Browning takes after Chaucer, Mr. Tennyson takes after Spenser.
Hazlitt, writing of the four great English poets, tells us, Chaucer's characteristic is intensity, Spenser's remoteness, Milton's sublimity, and Shakspeare's everything. The sentence is epigrammatic and memorable enough; but so far as Chaucer is concerned, it requires a little explanation. He is not intense, for instance, as Byron is intense, or as Wordsworth is intense. He does not see man like the one, nor nature like the other. He would not have cared much for either of these poets. And yet, so far as straightforwardness in dealing with a subject, and complete though quiet realisation of it goes to make up intensity of poetic mood, Chaucer amply justifies his critic. There is no wastefulness or explosiveness about the old writer. He does his work silently, and with no appearance of effort. His poetry shines upon us like a May morning; but the streak over the eastern hill, the dew on the grass, the wind that bathes the brows of the wayfarer, are not there by haphazard: they are the results of occult forces, a whole solar system has had a hand in their production. From the apparent ease with which an artist works, one does not readily give him credit for the mental force he is continuously putting forth. To many people, a chaotic "Festus" is more wonderful than a rounded, melodious "Princess." The load which a strong man bears gracefully does not seem so heavy as the load which the weaker man staggers under. Incompletion is force fighting; completion is force quiescent, its work done. Nature's forces are patent enough in some scarred volcanic moon in which no creature can breathe; only the sage, in some soft green earth, can discover the same forces reft of fierceness and terror, and translated into sunshine, and falling dew, and the rainbow gleaming on the shower. It is somewhat in this way that the propriety of Hazlitt's criticism is to be vindicated. Chaucer is the most simple, natural, and homely of our poets, and whatever he attempts he does thoroughly. The Wife of Bath is so distinctly limned that she could sit for her portrait. You can count the embroidered sprigs in the jerkin of the squire. You hear the pilgrims laugh as they ride to Canterbury. The whole thing is admirably life-like and seems easy, and in the seeming easiness we are apt to forget the imaginative sympathy which bodies forth the characters, and the joy and sorrow from which that sympathy has drawn nurture. Unseen by us, the ore has been dug, and smelted in secret furnaces, and when it is poured into perfect moulds, we are apt to forget by what potency the whole thing has been brought about.
And, with his noticing eyes, into what a brilliant, many tinted world was Chaucer born! In his day life had a certain breadth, colour, and picturesqueness which it does not possess now. It wore a braver dress, and flaunted more in the sun. Five centuries effect a great change on manners. A man may nowadays, and without the slightest suspicion of the fact, brush clothes with half the English peerage on a sunny afternoon in Pall Mall. Then it was quite different. The fourteenth century loved magnificence and show. Great lords kept princely state in the country; and when they came abroad, what a retinue, what waving of plumes, and shaking of banners, and glittering of rich dresses! Religion was picturesque, with dignitaries, and cathedrals, and fuming incense, and the Host carried through the streets. The franklin kept open house, the city merchant feasted kings, the outlaw roasted his venison beneath the greenwood tree. There was a gallant monarch and a gallant court. The eyes of the Countess of Salisbury shed influence; Maid Marian laughed in Sherwood. London is already a considerable place, numbering, perhaps, two hundred thousand inhabitants, the houses clustering close and high along the river banks; and on the beautiful April nights the nightingales are singing round the suburban villages of Strand, Holborn, and Charing. It is rich withal; for after the battle of Poitiers, Harry Picard, wine-merchant and Lord Mayor, entertained in the city four kings,—to wit, Edward, king of England, John, king of France, David, king of Scotland, and the king of Cyprus; and the last-named potentate, slightly heated with Harry's wine, engaged him at dice, and being nearly ruined thereby, the honest wine-merchant returned the poor king his money, which was received with all thankfulness. There is great stir on a summer's morning in that Warwickshire castle,—pawing of horses, tossing of bridles, clanking of spurs. The old lord climbs at last into his saddle and rides off to court, his favourite falcon on his wrist, four squires in immediate attendance carrying his arms; and behind these stretches a merry cavalcade, on which the chestnuts shed their milky blossoms. In the absence of the old peer, young Hopeful spends his time as befits his rank and expectations. He grooms his steed, plays with his hawks, feeds his hounds, and labours diligently to acquire grace and dexterity in the use of arms. At noon the portcullis is lowered, and out shoots a brilliant array of ladies and gentlemen, and falconers with hawks. They bend their course to the river, over which a rainbow is rising from a shower. Yonder young lady is laughing at our stripling squire, who seems half angry, half pleased: they are lovers, depend upon it. A few years, and the merry beauty will have become a noble, gracious woman, and the young fellow, sitting by a watch-fire on the eve of Cressy, will wonder if she is thinking of him. But the river is already reached. Up flies the alarmed heron, his long blue legs trailing behind him; a hawk is let loose; the young lady's laugh has ceased as, with gloved hand shading fair forehead and sweet gray eye, she watches hawk and heron lessening in heaven. The Crusades are now over, but the religious fervour which inspired them lingered behind; so that, even in Chaucer's day, Christian kings, when their consciences were oppressed by a crime more than usually weighty, talked of making an effort before they died to wrest Jerusalem and the sepulchre of Christ from the grasp of the infidel. England had at this time several holy shrines, the most famous being that of Thomas à Becket at Canterbury, which attracted crowds of pilgrims. The devout travelled in large companies: and, in the May mornings, a merry sight it was as, with infinite clatter and merriment, with bells, minstrels, and buffoons, they passed through thorp and village, bound for the tomb of St. Thomas. The pageant of events, which seems enchantment when chronicled by Froissart's splendid pen, was to Chaucer contemporaneous incident; the chivalric richness was the familiar and every-day dress of his time. Into this princely element he was endued, and he saw every side of it,—the frieze as well as the cloth of gold. In the "Canterbury Tales" the fourteenth century murmurs, as the sea murmurs in the pink-mouthed shells upon our mantelpieces.
Of his life we do not know much. In his youth he studied law and disliked it,—a circumstance common enough in the lives of men of letters, from his time to that of Shirley Brooks. How he lived, what he did when he was a student, we are unable to discover. Only for a moment is the curtain lifted, and we behold, in the old quaint peaked and gabled Fleet Street of that day, Chaucer thrashing a Franciscan friar (friar's offence unknown), for which amusement he was next morning fined two shillings. History has preserved this for us, but has forgotten all the rest of his early life, and the chronology of all his poems. What curious flies are sometimes found in the historic amber! On Chaucer's own authority, we know that he served under Edward III. in his French campaign, and that he for some time lay in a French prison. On his return from captivity he married; he was valet in the king's household, he was sent on an embassy to Genoa, and is supposed to have visited Petrarch, then resident at Padua, and to have heard from his lips the story of "Griselda,"—a tradition which one would like to believe. He had his share of the sweets and the bitters of life. He enjoyed offices and gifts of wine, and he felt the pangs of poverty and the sickness of hope deferred. He was comptroller of the customs for wools; from which post he was dismissed,—why, we know not; although one cannot help remembering that Edward made the writing out of the accounts in Chaucer's own hand the condition of his holding office, and having one's surmises. Foreign countries, strange manners, meetings with celebrated men, love of wife and children, and their deaths, freedom and captivity, the light of a king's smile and its withdrawal, furnished ample matter of meditation to his humane and thoughtful spirit. In his youth he wrote allegories full of ladies and knights dwelling in impossible forests and nursing impossible passions; but in his declining years, when fortune had done all it could for him and all it could against him, he discarded these dreams, and betook himself to the actual stuff of human nature. Instead of the "Romance of the Rose," we have the "Canterbury Tales" and the first great English poet. One likes to fancy Chaucer in his declining days living at Woodstock, with his books about him, and where he could watch the daisies opening themselves at sunrise, shutting themselves at sunset, and composing his wonderful stories, in which the fourteenth century lives,—riding to battle in iron gear, hawking in embroidered jerkin and waving plume, sitting in rich and solemn feast, the monarch on the dais.
Chaucer's early poems have music and fancy, they are full of a natural delight in sunshine and the greenness of foliage; but they have little human interest. They are allegories for the most part, more or less satisfactorily wrought out. The allegorical turn of thought, the delight in pageantry, the "clothing upon" of abstractions with human forms, flowered originally out of chivalry and the feudal times. Chaucer imported it from the French, and was proud of it in his early poems, as a young fellow of that day might be proud of his horse furniture, his attire, his waving plume. And the poetic fashion thus set retained its vitality for a long while,—indeed, it was only thoroughly made an end of by the French Revolution, which made an end of so much else. About the last trace of its influence is to be found in Burns' sentimental correspondence with Mrs. M'Lehose, in which the lady is addressed as Clarinda, and the poet signs himself Sylvander. It was at best a mere beautiful gauze screen drawn between the poet and nature; and passion put his foot through it at once. After Chaucer's youth was over, he discarded somewhat scornfully these abstractions and shows of things. The "Flower and the Leaf" is a beautiful-tinted dream; the "Canterbury Tales" are as real as anything in Shakspeare or Burns. The ladies in the earlier poems dwell in forests, and wear coronals on their heads; the people in the "Tales" are engaged in the actual concerns of life, and you can see the splashes of mire upon their clothes. The separate poems which make up the "Canterbury Tales" were probably written at different periods, after youth was gone, and when he had fallen out of love with florid imagery and allegorical conceits; and we can fancy him, perhaps fallen on evil days and in retirement, anxious to gather up these loose efforts into one consummate whole. If of his flowers he would make a bouquet for posterity, it was of course necessary to procure a string to tie them together. These necessities, which ruin other men, are the fortunate chances of great poets. Then it was that the idea arose of a meeting of pilgrims at the Tabard in Southwark, of their riding to Canterbury, and of the different personages relating stories to beguile the tedium of the journey. The notion was a happy one, and the execution is superb. In those days, as we know, pilgrimages were of frequent occurrence; and in the motley group that congregated on such occasions, the painter of character had full scope. All conditions of people are comprised in the noisy band issuing from the courtyard of the Southwark inn on that May morning in the fourteenth century. Let us go nearer, and have a look at them.
There is a grave and gentle Knight, who has fought in many wars, and who has many a time hurled his adversary down in tournament before the eyes of all the ladies there, and who has taken the place of honour at many a mighty feast. There, riding beside him, is a blooming Squire, his son, fresh as the month of May, singing day and night from very gladness of heart,—an impetuous young fellow, who is looking forward to the time when he will flesh his maiden sword, and shout his first war-cry in a stricken field. There is an Abbot, mounted on a brown steed. He is middle-aged, his bald crown shines like glass, and his face looks as if it were anointed with oil. He has been a valiant trencher-man at many a well-furnished feast. Above all things, he loves hunting; and when he rides, men can hear his bridle ringing in the whistling wind loud and clear as a chapel bell. There is a thin, ill-conditioned Clerk, perched perilously on a steed as thin and ill-conditioned as himself. He will never be rich, I fear. He is a great student, and would rather have a few books bound in black and red hanging above his bed than be sheriff of the county. There is a Prioress, so gentle and tender-hearted that she weeps if she hears the whimper of a beaten hound, or sees a mouse caught in a trap. There rides the laughing Wife of Bath, bold-faced and fair. She is an adept in love-matters. Five husbands already "she has fried in their own grease" till they were glad to get into their graves to escape the scourge of her tongue. Heaven rest their souls, and swiftly send a sixth! She wears a hat large as a targe or buckler, brings the artillery of her eyes to bear on the young Squire, and jokes him about his sweetheart. Beside her is a worthy Parson, who delivers faithfully the message of his Master. Although he is poor, he gives away the half of his tithes in charity. His parish is waste and wide, yet if sickness or misfortune should befall one of his flock, he rides, in spite of wind, or rain, or thunder, to administer consolation. Among the crowd rides a rich Franklin, who sits in the Guildhall on the dais. He is profuse and hospitable as summer. All day his table stands in the hall covered with meats and drinks, and every one who enters is welcome. There is a Ship-man, whose beard has been shaken by many a tempest, whose cheek knows the kiss of the salt sea spray; a Merchant, with a grave look, clean and neat in his attire, and with plenty of gold in his purse. There is a Doctor of Physic, who has killed more men than the Knight, talking to a Clerk of Laws. There is a merry Friar, a lover of good cheer; and when seated in a tavern among his companions, singing songs it would be scarcely decorous to repeat, you may see his eyes twinkling in his head for joy, like stars on a frosty night. Beside him is a ruby-faced Sompnour, whose breath stinks of garlic and onions, who is ever roaring for wine,—strong wine, wine red as blood; and when drunk, he disdains English,—nothing but Latin will serve his turn. In front of all is a Miller, who has been drinking over-night, and is now but indifferently sober. There is not a door in the country that he cannot break by running at it with his head. The pilgrims are all ready, the host gives the word, and they defile through the arch. The Miller blows his bagpipes as they issue from the town; and away they ride to Canterbury, through the boon sunshine, and between the white hedges of the English May.
Had Chaucer spent his whole life in seeking, he could not have selected a better contemporary circumstance for securing variety of character than a pilgrimage to Canterbury. It comprises, as we see, all kinds and conditions of people. It is the fourteenth-century England in little. In our time, the only thing that could match it in this respect is Epsom down on the great race-day. But then Epsom down is too unwieldy; the crowd is too great, and it does not cohere, save for the few seconds when gay jackets are streaming towards the winning-post. The Prologue to the "Canterbury Tales," in which we make the acquaintance of the pilgrims, is the ripest, most genial and humourous, altogether the most masterly thing which Chaucer has left us. In its own way, and within its own limits, it is the most wonderful thing in the language. The people we read about are as real as the people we brush clothes with in the street,—nay, much more real; for we not only see their faces, and the fashion and texture of their garments, we know also what they think, how they express themselves, and with what eyes they look out on the world. Chaucer's art in this Prologue is simple perfection. He indulges in no irrelevant description, he airs no fine sentiments, he takes no special pains as to style or poetic ornament; but every careless touch tells, every sly line reveals character; the description of each man's horse-furniture and array reads like a memoir. The Nun's pretty oath bewrays her. We see the bold, well-favoured countenance of the Wife of Bath beneath her hat, as "broad as a buckler or a targe"; and the horse of the Clerk, "as lean as is a rake," tells tales of his master's cheer. Our modern dress is worthless as an indication of the character, or even of the social rank, of the wearer; in the olden time it was significant of personal tastes and appetites, of profession, and condition of life generally. See how Chaucer brings out a character by touching merely on a few points of attire and personal appearance:—
"I saw his sleeves were purfiled at the hand
With fur, and that the finest of the land;
And for to fasten his hood under his chin
He had of gold ywrought a curious pin.
A love-knot in the greater end there was;
His head was bald, and shone as any glass,
And eke his face as if it was anoint."