Right so Cresseide, when that her drede stent,
Opened her herte and told him her entent.
We may remark here the extraordinary fondness for the song of birds exhibited by Chaucer in all his works. There is not one of the English poets, and certainly none of the poets of any other nation, who has shown a more intense enjoyment for this natural music: he seems to omit no opportunity of describing the “doulx ramaige” of these feathered poets, whose accents seem to be echoed in all their delicacy, their purity and fervor, in the fresh strains of “our Father Chaucer:”—
Sound of vernal showers
On the twinkling grass,
Rain-awakened flowers,
All that ever was
Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass!
We have mentioned the anachronism of plan in this poem; it abounds in others no less extraordinary. Among these, he represents Cresseide as reading the Thebaid of Statius (a very favorite book of Chaucer,) which he calls “The Romance of Thebis;” and Pandarus endeavors to comfort Troilus with arguments of predestination taken from Bishop Bradwardine, a theologian nearly contemporary with the poet.
The “House of Fame,” a magnificent allegory, glowing with all the “barbaric pearl and gold” of Gothic imagination, is the next work on which we shall remark. Its origin was probably Provençal, but the poem which Chaucer translated is now lost. We will condense the argument of this poem from Warton:—“The poet, in a vision, sees a temple of glass decorated with an unaccountable number of golden images. On the walls are engraved stories from Virgil’s Eneid and Ovid’s Epistles. Leaving this temple, he sees an eagle with golden wings soaring near the sun. The bird descends, seizes the poet in its talons, and conveys him to the Temple of Fame, which, like that of Ovid, is situated between earth and sea. He is left by the eagle near the house, which is built of materials bright as polished glass, and stands on a rock of ice. All the southern side of this rock is covered with engravings of the names of famous men, which are perpetually melting away by the heat of the sun. The northern side of the rock was alike covered with names; but, being shaded from the warmth of the sun, the characters here remained unmelted and uneffaced. Within the niches formed in the pinnacles stood all round the castle