(I have a "Shandean" reason for speaking of him under that title) is Rabelais, reborn at a riper period of the world, and gifted with sentiment. To accuse him of cant and sentimentality, is itself a cant or an ignorance; or at least, if neither of these, it is but to misjudge him from an excess of manner here and there. The matter always contains the solidest substance of truth and duty. It is a thousand pities he retained something of the coarseness of Rabelais, because it prevents his book from being put into everybody's hands; though upon his own principle of turning evil to good, perhaps even this blemish has served to draw attention to it. Among passages which are supposed to be connected with that coarseness, but really are not so, are some which are yet destined to be of important service to mankind; and if I were requested to name the book of all others, which combined Wit and Humour under their highest appearance of levity with the profoundest wisdom, it would be Tristram Shandy.

CHAUCER,

BORN, 1324?-DIED, 1400?

THE graver portion of the genius of this great poet will be more fitly noticed in the volume to be entitled Action and Passion. He is here only in his gayer mood.

I retain the old spelling for three reasons;-first, because it is pleasant to know the actual words of such a writer, as far as they can be ascertained ; second, because the antiquity is part of the costume; and third, because I have added a modern prose version, which removes all difficulty in the perusal. I should rather say I have added the version for the purpose of retaining the immortal man's own words, besides being able to show perhaps how strongly every word of a great poet tells in the most modern prose version, provided his ideas are not absolutely misrepresented. At all events, the reader may go uninterruptedly, if he pleases, through the version, and then turn to the original

E

for the finer traits, and for a music equally correct and beautiful.

I wish I could have given more than one comic story out of Chaucer; but the change of manners renders it difficult at any time, and impossible in a book like the present. The subjects with which the court and gentry of the times of the Henrys and Edwards could be entertained, are sometimes not only indecorous but revolting. It is a thousand pities that the unbounded sympathy of the poet with everything that interested his fellow-creatures did. not know, in this instance, where to stop. Yet we must be cautious how we take,upon ourselves to blame him. Even Shakspeare did not quite escape the infection of indecency in a much later and highly refined age; and it may startle us to suspect, that what is readable in the gravest and even the most scrupulous circles in our own day, may not be altogether so a hundred years hence. Allusions and phrases which are thought harmless now, and that from habit really are so, may then appear in as different a light as those which we are astonished to think our ancestors could endure. Nay, opinions and daily practices exist, and are treated with respect, which may be regarded by our posterity as the grossest and cruellest barbarisms. We may, therefore, cease to wonder at the apparently unaccountable spectacle presented by such writers as Chaucer, who combine a licence the most

indelicate with the utmost refinements of thought

and feeling.

When Chaucer is free from this taint of his age, his humour is of a description the most thoroughly délightful; for it is at once entertaining, profound, and good-natured. If this last quality be thought a drawback by some, as wanting the relish of personality, they may supply even that (as some have supplied it), by supposing that he drew his characters from individuals, and that the individuals were very uncomfortable accordingly. I confess I see no ground for the supposition beyond what the nature of the case demands. Classes must of course be drawn, more or less, from the individuals composing them; but the unprofessional particulars added by Chaucer to his characters (such as the Merchant's uneasy marriage, and the Franklin's prodigal son) are only such as render the portraits more true, by including them in the general category of human kind. The gangrene which the Cook had on his shin, and which has been considered as a remarkable instance of the gratuitous, is, on the contrary (besides its masterly intimation of the perils of luxury in general), painfully in character with a man accustomed to breathe an unhealthy atmosphere, and to be encouraging bad humours with tasting sauces and syrups. Besides, the Cook turns out to be a drunkard.

Chaucer's comic genius is so perfect, that it may

be said to include prophetic intimations of all that followed it. The liberal-thinking joviality of Rabelais is there; the portraiture of Cervantes, moral and external; the poetry of Shakspeare; the learning of Ben Jonson; the manners of the wits of Charles the Second; the bonhomie of Sterne; and the insidiousness, without the malice, of Voltaire. One of its characteristics is a certain tranquil detection of particulars, expressive of generals; as in the instance just mentioned of the secret infirmity of the Cook. Thus the Prioress speaks French; but it is "after the school of Stratford at Bow." Her education was altogether more showy than substantial. The Lawyer was the busiest man in the world, and yet he "seemed busier than he was." He made something out of nothing, even in appearances.

Another characteristic is his fondness for seeing the spiritual in the material; the mind in the man's aspect. He is as studious of physiognomy as Lavater, and far truer. Observe, too, the poetry that accompanies it, the imaginative sympathy in the matter of fact. His Yeoman, who is a forester, has a head "like a nut." His Miller is as brisk and healthy as the air of the hill on which he lives, and as hardy and as coarse-grained as his conscience. We know, as well as if we had ridden with them, his oily-faced Monk; his lisping Friar (who was to make confession easy to the ladies); his carbuncled