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

"Be such as never wereTo love untrewe in word, thoghte, ne dede."

They wear the Leaf, because the beauty of the Leaf lasts. But the followers of the Flower are "those that loved idlenesse and not delite of no besinesse, but for to hunte and hawke and pley in medes, and many other such idle dedes." They wear the perishable Flower accordingly. The informant ends with enquiring of her auditress, whether she will, for the years to come, serve the Leaf or the Flower; who in answer vows her observance to the Leaf. The deep implication of the ancient mythology in the reviving poetry, here again discovers itself. It appears the lady of the Leaf is the goddess Diana; the lady of the Flower, Flora in person.

The invention is remarkably well purposed, and well carried through. The division of the world into those who follow virtue and those who pursue their own delight, is a good general poetico-ethical view, and the delicate emblems happily chosen for expressing the contrast. The heat and the tempest which overwhelm the dainty voluptuaries, and are harmless to the deed-worthy, express the true wisdom of virtue, even for this world, which moves not at our will; and the gentle healing kindness of the wiser to the less wise, whom they equalize with themselves, might almost seem profoundly to signify the recovery to the better wisdom of those who had set out with choosing amiss – a gracious hidden Christian lesson of charity and penitence. The contact of the simply human spectatress with beings brought from the world of imagination, is boldly designed. Here is no Dream. She walks down from her own house into the wood, and the vision comes and goes, in all the strength of true flesh and blood. The solitariness of her stealing out from a sleepless bed, "about the springing of the day, long or the brighte sonne uprisen was" – therefore, whilst common mankind lie buried in sleep – is all the saving partition that the poet has deigned betwixt the coarse and harsh Real and the splendid Unreal. As for the poetical working-out – the descriptive narrative – it is elaborate and full of beauty. The natural scene is painted with exquisite sensibility to the influences of nature, and with such determinate strokes as show a conversant eye. For example, the mixed and illuminated spring-foliage, the

– "levis newThat sprongin out agen the sonne shene:Some very rede, and some a glad light grene,"

would seem fresh and vivid from the hand of Coleridge or Tennyson – and the

– "path of litil brede,– that gretly had not usid be,For it forgrowin was with gras and wede,"

– which beguiles the foot of the vision-favoured away from the usual beat of men, leading her into the unvisited sequestration due to the haunting of an embodied Allegory – might, in its old simplicity, pass for well invented by whichsoever Priest of Imagination in our day can the best read, in the Sensible, the symbolized Spiritual and Invisible.

You wonder withal, if Chaucer was the poet, how the spectator was turned into a spectatress; and you are somewhat concerned at finding an unwilling word of the judicious Tyrwhitt's, which owns to a doubt on the authorship of the most beautiful minor poem, admitted into the volume of Chaucer.

Dryden felt the effusion of beauty, and has rendered and enhanced it. One may question the fitness of a material alteration which he has ventured upon. The allegory of the old Poem is pure. Dryden has changed the Knights and Ladies, collectively, into Fairies; for any thing that appears, indeed, of good human stature. The thought came to him apparently as making the beauty more beautiful, and possibly as obtaining, to an otherwise indefinite sort of imaginary beings, a known character and a recognized hold upon poetical – succeeding to popular – belief. A contradiction is – that the company of the Leaf have, in emphatic and chosen terms, been described as INNUMERABLE. The laurel is of such enormous diffusion, that A HUNDRED persons might repose under it. Yet IT SHELTERS THEM ALL FROM THE STORM.

It is also singular to us, that the Margarete or Daisy should suffer any slight from Chaucer, seeing the reverence with which he elsewhere regards it. It is here, too, no doubt raised into reverence by the observance of the Flower party; but then it suffers disparagement inasmuch as they are disparaged.

Truly does the amiable Godwin say – "In a word, the Poem of Dryden, regarded merely as the exhibition of a soothing and delicious luxuriance of fancy, may be classed with the most successful productions of human genius. No man can read it without astonishment, perhaps not without envy, at the cheerful, well-harmonized, and vigorous state of mind in which the author must have been at the time he wrote it."

"Now turning from the wintry signs, the sunHis course exalted through the Ram had runAnd whirling up the skies, his chariot droveThrough Taurus, and the lightsome realms of love,Where Venus from her orb descends in showersTo glad the ground, and paint the fields with flowers;When first the tender blades of grass appear,And buds, that yet the blast of Eurus fear,Stand at the door of life, and doubt to clothe the year;Till gentle heat, and soft repeated rains,Make the green blood to dance within their veins:Then, at their call, embolden'd, out they comeAnd swell the gems, and burst the narrow room;Broader and broader yet their blooms display,Salute the welcome sun, and entertain the day.Then from their breathing souls the sweets repairTo scent the skies, and purge the unwholesome air.Joy spreads the heart, and with a general song,Spring issues out, and leads the jolly months along."In that sweet season, as in bed I lay,And sought in sleep to pass the night away,I turn'd my weary side, but still in vain,Though full of youthful health, and void of pain.Cares I had none to keep me from my rest,For love had never enter'd in my breast;I wanted nothing fortune could supply,Nor did she slumber till that hour deny.I wonder'd then, but after found it true,Much joy had dried away the balmy dew:Seas would be pools, without the brushing airTo curl the waves, and sure some little careShould weary nature so, to make her want repair."When Chanticleer the second watch had sung,Scorning the scorner sleep, from bed I sprung;And dressing by the moon, in loose array,Pass'd out in open air, preventing day,And sought a goodly grove, as fancy led my way.Straight as a line in beauteous order stoodOf oaks unshorn, a venerable wood;Fresh was the grass beneath, and every tree,At distance planted in a due degree,Their branching arms in air with equal spaceStretch'd to their neighbours with a long embrace;And the new leaves on every bough were seen,Some ruddy-colour'd, some of lighter green.The painted birds, companions of the spring,Hopping from spray to spray, were heard to sing.Both eyes and ears received a like delight,Enchanting music, and a charming sight.On Philomel I fix'd my whole desire,And listen'd for the queen of all the quire;Fain would I hear her heavenly voice to sing,And wanted yet an omen to the spring."Attending long in vain, I took the way,Which through a path, but scarcely printed, lay;In narrow mazes oft it seem'd to meet,And look'd as lightly press'd by fairy feet.Wand'ring I walk'd alone, for still methoughtTo some strange end so strange a path was wrought;At last it led me where an arbour stood,The sacred receptacle of the wood;This place unmark'd, though oft I walk'd the green,In all my progress I had never seen;And seized at once with wonder and delight,Gazed all around me, new to the transporting sight.'Twas bench'd with turf, and goodly to be seen,The thick young grass arose in fresher green:The mound was newly made, no sight could passBetwixt the nice partitions of the grass;The well-united sods so closely lay,And all around the shades defended it from day;For sycamores with eglantine were spread,A hedge about the sides, a covering over head.And so the fragrant briar was wove between,The sycamore and flowers were mix'd with green,That nature seem'd to vary the delight,And satisfied at once the smell and sight.The master workman of the bower was knownThrough fairylands, and built for Oberon;Who twining leaves with such proportion drew,They rose by measure, and by rule they grew;No mortal tongue can half the beauty tell,For none but hands divine could work so well.Both roof and sides were like a parlour made,A soft recess, and a cool summer shade.The hedge was set so thick, no foreign eyeThe persons placed within it could espy;But all that pass'd without with ease was seen,As if nor fence nor tree was placed between.'Twas border'd with a field; and some was plainWith grass, and some was sow'd with rising grain,That (now the dew with spangles deck'd the ground)A sweeter spot of earth was never found.I look'd, and look'd, and still with new delight,Such joy my soul, such pleasures fill'd my sight;And the fresh eglantine exhaled a breath,Whose odours were of power to raise from death.Nor sullen discontent, nor anxious care,Even though brought thither, could inhabit there;But thence they fled as from their mortal foe;For this sweet place could only pleasure know.Thus as I mused, I cast aside my eye,And saw a medlar-tree was planted nigh.The spreading branches made a goodly show,And full of opening blooms was every bough:A goldfinch there I saw with gaudy prideOf painted plumes, that hopp'd from side to side,Still pecking as she pass'd; and still she drewThe sweets from every flower, and suck'd the dew.Sufficed at length, she warbled in her throat,And tuned her voice to many a merry note,But indistinct, and neither sweet nor clear,Yet such as sooth'd my soul and pleased my ear."Her short performance was no sooner tried,When she I sought, the nightingale, replied;So sweet, so shrill, so variously she sung,That the grove echo'd and the valleys rung;And I so ravish'd with her heavenly note —I stood entranced, and had no room for thought,But all o'erpower'd with ecstasy of bliss,Was in a pleasing dream of Paradise;At length I waked, and looking round the bower,Search'd every tree, and pry'd on every flower,If any where by chance I might espyThe rural poet of the melody;For still methought she sung not far away:At last I found her on a laurel spray,Close by my side she sate, and fair in sight,Full in a line against her opposite;Where stood with eglantine the laurel twined,And both their native sweets were well conjoin'd."On the green bank I sat, and listen'd long;(Sitting was more convenient for the song:)Nor till her lay was ended could I move,But wish'd to dwell for ever in the grove.Only methought the time too swiftly pass'd,And every note I fear'd would be the last.My sight, and smell, and hearing were employ'd,And all three senses in full gust enjoy'd.And what alone did all the rest surpass,The sweet possession of the fairy place;Single, and conscious to myself alone,Of pleasures to the excluded world unknown;Pleasures which nowhere else were to be found,And all Elysium in a spot of ground."

The Lake poets – Heaven bless them! – have one and all – Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey – loudly and angrily denied to Dryden a poetical eye for nature, quoting in proof some inflated passage or another from his rhyming plays. Pope, too, according to them, was blind, and had never seen the moon and stars. Where, we ask, in all the poetry of the Lakes and Tarns, is there such a strain – so rich and so sustained – as that yet ringing in your ears? And "the ancient woman seated on Helmcrag" answers – "where?" True, the imagery is all in Chaucer. But had not Dryden's heart 'rejoiced in nature's joy,' not thus could he have caught the spirit of his master. Ay – the spirit; for there it is, in spite of the difference of manner – transfused without evaporation or other loss, from the 'rhime roial' in which Chaucer rejoiced, into the couplet in which Dryden, in his old age, moved like a giant refreshed with gulps of the dewy morn. Again: —

"The ladies left their measures at the sight,To meet the chiefs returning from the fight,And each with open arms embraced her chosen knight.Amid the plain a spreading laurel stood,The grace and ornament of all the wood;That pleasing shade they sought, a soft retreatFrom sudden April showers, a shelter from the heat.Her leafy arms with such extent were spread,So near the clouds was her aspiring head,That hosts of birds, that wing the liquid air,Perch'd in the boughs, had nightly lodging there:And flocks of sheep beneath the shade from farMight hear the rattling hail, and wintry war;From heaven's inclemency here found retreat,Enjoy'd the cool, and shunn'd the scorching heat;A hundred knights might there at ease abide,And every knight a lady by his side:The trunk itself such odours did bequeathThat a Moluccan breeze to these was common breath.The lords and ladies here, approaching, paidTheir homage, with a low obeisance made,And seem'd to venerate the sacred shade.These rites perform'd, their pleasures they pursue,With songs of love, and mix with measures new:Around the holy tree their dance they frame,And ev'ry champion leads his chosen dame."I cast my sight upon the farther field,And a fresh object of delight beheld.For from the region of the west I heardNew music sound, and a new troop apppear'd,Of knights and ladies mix'd, a jolly band,But all on foot they march'd, and hand in hand"The ladies dressed in rich symars were seen,Of Florence satin, flower'd with white and green,And for a shade betwixt the bloomy gridelin.The borders of their petticoats belowWere guarded thick with rubies in a row;And every damsel wore upon her headOf flowers a garland blended white and red.Attired in mantles all the knights were seen,That gratified the view with cheerful green:Their chaplets of their ladies' colours were,Composed of white and red, to shade their shining hair.Before the merry troop the minstrels play'd,All in their masters' liveries were array'd,And clad in green, and on their temples woreThe chaplets white and red their ladies bore.Their instruments were various in their kind,Some for the boy, and some for breathing wind;The sawtry, pipe, and hautboy's noisy band,And the soft lute trembling beneath the touching hand.A tuft of daisies on a flowery leaThey saw, and thitherward they bent their way;To this both knights and dames their homage made,And due obeisance to the daisy paid.And then the band of flutes began to play,To which a lady sang a virelay;And still at every close she would repeatThe burden of the song, The daisy is so sweet.The daisy is so sweet, when she begunThe troop of knights and dames continued on.The concert and the voice so charm'd my ear,And sooth'd my soul, that it was heaven to hear."

O bardlings of Young England! withhold, we beseech you, from winsome Maga, your verse-offerings, while thus the sons of song, evoked from the visionary land, coming and going like shadows, smile to let drop at her feet the scrolls of their inspiration. Poetry indeed! "You lisp in numbers, for the numbers come." But in big boobies a lisp is only less loathsome than a burr. Some of you have both, and therefore deserve to die. Readers beloved! prefer you not such sweet, strong strains as these sounded by Dryden, when he had nearly counted threescore and ten? "Yet was not his natural force abated" – while his sense of beauty, instructed and refined by meditations that deepen amongst life's evening shades, became holier within sight of the grave. You will thank us for another quotation; for much do we fear, O lady fair! that thou hast no copy of Dryden in thy boudoir, and yet life is fast flowing on with thee, for thou art – nay, there's no denying – yea, thou art – in thy twentieth year – and if you continue to refuse our advice– will soon be an old woman.

"The Lady of the Leaf ordain'd a feast,And made the Lady of the Flower her guest:When lo! a bower ascended on the plain,With sudden seats adorn'd, and large for either train.This bower was near my pleasant arbour placed,That I could hear and see whatever pass'd:The ladies sat with each a knight between,Distinguish'd by their colours, white and green;The vanquish'd party with the victors join'd,Nor wanted sweet discourse, the banquet of the mind.Meantime the minstrels play'd on either side,Vain of their art, and for the mastery vied.The sweet contention lasted for an hour,And reach'd my secret arbour from the bower.The sun was set; and Vesper, to supplyHis absent beams, had lighted up the sky:When Philomel, officious all the dayTo sing the service of th' ensuing May,Fled from her laurel shade, and wing'd her flightDirectly to the queen array'd in white;And hopping, sat familiar on her hand,A new musician, and increased the band."The goldfinch, who, to shun the scalding heat,Had changed the medlar for a safer seat,And hid in bushes 'scaped the bitter shower,Now perch'd upon the Lady of the Flower;And either songster holding out their throats,And folding up their wings, renew'd their notes;As if all day, preluding to the fight,They only had rehearsed, to sing by night.The banquet ended, and the battle done,They danced by starlight and the friendly moon:And when they were to part, the laureat queenSupplied with steeds the lady of the green,Her and her train conducting on the way,The moon to follow, and avoid the day."

Whatsoever merit of thought or of poetry may be found in the poems of which we have spoken, the world has rightly considered the Canterbury Tales as the work by which Chaucer is to be judged. In truth, common renown forgets all the rest; and it is by the Canterbury Tales only that he can properly be said to be known to his countrymen. Here it is that he appears as possessing the versatility of poetical power which ranges from the sublime, through the romantic and the pathetic, to the rudest mirth – choosing subjects the most various, and treating all alike adequately. Here he discovers himself as the shrewd and curious observer, and close painter of manners. Here he writes as one surveying the world of man with enlarged and philosophical intuition, weighing good and evil in even scale. Here, more than in any other, he is master of his matter, disposing it at his discretion, and not carried away with or mastered by it. Here he is master, too, of his English, thriftily culling the fit word, not effusing a too exuberant stream of description. Here he has acquired his own art and his own style of versification, which is here to be studied accordingly. Well therefore, and wisely, did Tyrwhitt judge, when undertaking to rescue the "mirrour of Rethoures alle" from the dust and rust of injurious time, he laid out his long and hard, but not uncheerful labour upon the Canterbury Tales alone.

Every soul alive knows something of them – but not very many more than Stothard, in his celebrated Picture, has informed their eye withal. Their plan ranks them among works which are numerous, early and late, but which rather belong to early literature. East and West such are to be found, but they belong rather to the Oriental genius. A slender narrative, the container of weightier ones – a technical contrivance, which gave to a number of slighter compositions, collectively taken, the importance of a greater work – which prolonged to the tale-teller who had once gained the ear of his auditory his right of audience – and which, in a world where the tongue was more active in the diffusion of literature than the quill, afforded to each involved tale a memorial niche that might save it from dropping entirely away into oblivion.

To Chaucer, the scheme serves a higher purpose of art, which of itself allies him to the higher poets. By it he is enabled to comprehend, as if in one picture, a more diversified and complete representation of humanity. The thought is genial and sprightly. A troop of riders, who have been stirred severally from their firesides by the searching spirit of spring, have casually fallen into company, and who pace along, breathing an air which "sweet showers" have embalmed – exhilarated by the brightening radiance of "the young sun," and made loquacious by the very power which pours out the song of the glad birds from the newly-leaved boughs by the long wayside.

And who are the riders? And what is the charm that has drawn together a company of thirty to ride on the same road at the same hour of the same day? The suddenly-spun band of a union that will be as hastily dissolved, squares happily with the large purpose of the poet, by unforcedly bringing together persons of both sexes, and of exceedingly diverse conditions, high, low, learned, unlearned, military, civil, religious, from city and from country, land and sea, of unlike occupations, buoyant with youth, grave with years. The momentary tie has poetical vitality, from the fact that it is borrowed from the heart of the time and of England. They are Pilgrims from all quarters to the shrine of England's illustrious and favourite Saint, the martyr of Canterbury. They have gradually mustered into cavalcade in coming up from the shires to the metropolis, one excepted – the Poet. He falls into their party, by the hap of sleeping the night preceding the journey out from the capital at the same inn, in the suburb towards Canterbury – Southwark.

The specific incitement of the Tale-telling is thus invented in a natural spirit, and aptly to the vivacity of the whole conception. Mine host of the Tabard, Henry Bailey, a hearty fellow no doubt, since Chaucer has thought his name worthy of his immortalizing, contrives the proceeding, and this half in good fellowship, and half in the way of his trade. To shorten the tediousness of the road, he proposes that each of them shall tell, on the way to Canterbury, one tale, and on the way back, another – or, for here the poem a little disagrees with itself, two tales going and two returning; and that he or she who tells the best tale shall have, on their return, a supper, for which all the others shall pay, and which of course, he, Henry Bailey, shall provide. Upon these terms he will, without fee, perform the part of their conductor to Canterbury and back again. In assenting, the Pilgrims constitute him the judge of the tales; and thus mine host, with his joyous temper, courtesy, where courtesy needs, worldly sense, rough, sharp, and ready wit, and unappealable dictatorship in all matters of the commonwealth, becomes a dramatic person of the very first consequence, the animating soul of the poetical action; and who, continually stepping in between the finishing of one tale and the beginning of the next, organically links together the otherwise disunited and incomposite Series.

The General Prologue contains, as was unavoidable, besides the scheme of the poem, the description of the several Pilgrims, and constitutes in itself, by the versatile feeling with which the portraits are seized, by the strength, precision, peculiarity, liveliness, rapidity, and number of the strokes with which each is individualized – a masterpiece of poetical painting. One lost generation of Old England moves before us in the warmth and hues of life.

The Knight, his son the Squire, his servant the good Yeoman – a gallant three – the Clerke of Oxenford, the "poure Person of a toun," and his brother the Ploughman, are, each in his estate, of thorough worthiness, and are all, accordingly, drawn in a spirit of full affection. The Prioress and the Franklin are laughed at a little – she for the pains she gives herself to display her imitative high breeding, and for – only think it! – A.D. 1489 – her SENTIMENTALITY! – he for his love of a plenteously-spread board, and for his "poignant sauces!" But the two are good at heart; and the satire of the poet leaves to them undisturbed their place in your good esteem. His other men of some condition – the Monk, the Friar, the "Sergeant of the Lawe," the Merchant, the "Doctour of Physike" – he lashes with a more vigorous wrist. But not like a farce-monger, who, to gain your laugh, must utterly abase his characters, and make them merely ridiculous. The hunting Monk wants nothing but his hood off to be a distinguished country squire. He is "a manly man to be an abbot able!" and, if he keeps greyhounds, they are "as swift as fowl of flight." And look but at his horse's points and condition! The rascal of a "Frere," if, by his perseverance and persuasiveness in begging, he impoverishes the county, is a noble post of his order, and well beloved and familiar with franklins, and with worthy women. The Merchant has an assumed air of importance – magnifies his gains – thinks the protection of the sea betwixt the ports from which his vessels run the first duty of civilized governments – and keeps his wit set upon the main chance. But that is the worst of him – "For sothe he was a worthy man withalle." The Lawyer is at the top of his profession – wise, witty, perfect in statutes and in precedents, high in honours. What are his faults? You can hardly tell. There is a slight ostentation of wisdom. He has got a deal of money together – he is full of business – but he "seems yet busier than he is." The Doctor, too, is an excellent physician. He calls the stars in to his aid. But that may be Chaucer's belief, not his mirth. He knows the disease, and has the remedy at command. To be sure, he and his apothecaries understand one another. He is learned in a thousand books; but not in The Book. Gold is of high esteem in medicine as a cordial. Therefore he loves gold.