Again, there was a Friar—a wanton and a merry one—rollicksome, and loving rich houses only,
——who lispéd for his wantonnesse,
To make his Englissch swete upon his tunge;
His eyen twinkled in his hed aright
As do the starrës in the frosty night.
And among them all goes, with mincing step, the middle-aged, vulgar, well-preserved, coquettish, shrewish Wife of Bath:
Hir hosen weren of fyn scarlet reed,
Ful streyte y-tied, and schoos ful moiste and newe,
Bold was her face, and faire and reed of hewe.
And so—on, and yet on—for the twenty or more; all touched with those little, life-like strokes which only genius can command, and which keep the breath in those old Pilgrims to Canterbury, as if they travelled there, between the blooming hedge rows, on every sunshiny day of every succeeding spring.