And of the songes

that the Muses songe;

To smal is both thy pen, and eke thy tonge.

For to descriven of his mariage,

Whan tendre Youth hath wedded stouping Age.

MAIUS that sit with so benigne a chere

Hire to behold it semed faerie 2:

Quene Hester loked never with swiche an eye
On Assuere, so meke a loke hath she:
I may you not devise al hire beautee,
But thus moch of hire beautee tel I may
That she was like the brighte morwe of May,
Fulfilled of all beautee and plesance.
This JANUARY is ravished in a trance
At every time he loketh in hire face,

But in his herte he gan hire to manace, &c.b

Dryden and Pope have modernised the two last-mentioned poems. Dryden the tale of the NONNES PRIEST, and Pope that of JANUARY and MAY: intending perhaps to give patterns of the best of Chaucer's Tales in the comic species. But I am of opinion that the MILLER'S TALE has more true humour than either. Not that I mean to palliate the levity of the story, which was most probably chosen by Chaucer in compliance with the prevailing manners of an unpolished age, and agreeable to ideas of festivity not always the most delicate and refined. Chaucer abounds in liberties of this kind, and this must be his apology. So does Boccacio, and perhaps much more, but from a different cause. The licentiousness of Boccacio's tales, which he composed per cacciar le malincolia delle femine, to amuse the ladies, is to be vindicated, at least accounted for, on other principles: it was not so much the consequence of popular incivility, as it was owing to a particular event of the writer's age. Just before Boccacio wrote, the plague at Florence had totally changed the customs and manners of the people. Only a few of the women had survived this fatal malady;

a A phantasy, enchantment.

b

v. 1225. Urr.

who having lost their husbands, parents, or friends, gradually grew regardless of those constraints and customary formalities which before of course influenced their behaviour. For want of female attendants, they were obliged often to take men only into their service: and this circumstance greatly contributed to destroy their habits of delicacy, and gave an opening to various freedoms and indecencies unsuitable to the sex, and frequently productive of very serious consequences. As to the monasteries, it is not surprising that Boccacio should have made them the scenes of his most libertine stories. The plague had thrown open their gates. The monks and nuns wandered abroad, and partaking of the common liberties of life, and the levities of the world, forgot the rigour of their institutions, and the severity of their ecclesiastical characters. At the ceasing of the plague, when the religious were compelled to return to their cloisters, they could not forsake their attachment to these secular indulgences; they continued to practise the same free course of life, and would not submit to the disagreeable and unsocial injunctions of their respective orders. Cotemporary historians give a shocking representation of the unbounded debaucheries of the Florentines on this occasion: and ecclesiastical writers mention this period as the grand epoch of the relaxation of monastic discipline. Boccacio did not escape the censure of the Church for these compositions. His conversion was a point much laboured; and in expiation of his follies, he was almost persuaded to renounce poetry and the heathen authors, and to turn Carthusian. But, to say the truth, Boccacio's life was almost as loose as his writings; till he was in great measure reclaimed by the powerful remonstrances of his master Petrarch, who talked much more to the purpose than his confessor. This Boccacio himself acknowledges in the fifth of his eclogues, which like those of Petrarch are enigmatical and obscure, entitled PHILOSOTROPHOS.

But to return to the MILLER'S TALE. The character of the Clerke of Oxford, who studied astrology, a science then in high repute, but under the specious appearance of decorum, and the

mask of the serious philosopher, carried on intrigues, is painted with these lively circumstances.

This clerk was cleped hendy Nicholas,
Of derned love he coude and of solas:
And therto he was slie, and ful prive,
And like a maiden meke for to se.
A chambre had he in that hostelrie
Alone, withouten any compagnie,
Ful fetisly ydight with herbes sote f;
And he himself was swete as is the rote
Of licoris, or any setewale".

His almageste1, and bokes grete and smale,
His astrelabre longing for his art,

His augrim stones' layen faire apart,
On shelves, couched at his beddes hed;
His presseTM ycovered with a falding red:

f sweet.

& root.

h the herb Valerian.

A book of astronomy written by Ptolemy. It was in thirteen books. He wrote also four books of judicial astrology. He was an Egyptian astrologist, and flourished under Marcus Antoninus. He is mentioned in the Sompnour's Tale, v. 1025, and the Wife of Bath's Prologue, V. 324.

asterlabore; an astrolabe.

I stones for computation. Augrim is Algorithm, the sum of the principal rules of common arithmetic. Chaucer was himself an adept in this sort of knowledge. The learned Selden is of opinion, that his Astrolabe was compiled from the Arabian astronomers and mathematicians. See his pref. to Notes on Drayt. Polyolb. p. 4. where the word Dulcarnon (Troil. Cr. iii. 933, 935.) is explained to be an Arabic term for a root in calculation. His CHANON YEMAN'S TALE proves his intimate acquaintance with the Hermetic philosophy, then much

in vogue.
There is a statute of Henry
the Fifth, against the transmutation of
metals, in Statut. an. 4. Hen. V. cap.
iv. viz. A.D. 1416. Chaucer, in the
Astrolabe, refers to two famous mathe-
maticians and astronomers of his time,
John Some, and Nicholas Lynne, both
Carmelite friars of Oxford, and perhaps
his friends, whom he calls "reverent
clerkes." Astrolabe, p. 440. col. i. Urr.
They both wrote calendars, which, like
Chaucer's Astrolabe, were constructed
for the meridian of Oxford. Chaucer
mentions Alcabucius, an astronomer,
that is, Abdilazi Alchabitius, whose Isa-
goge in astrologiam was printed at Ve-
nice, 1485, 4to. Ib. fol. 440. col. ii.
Compare Herbelot. Bibl. Oriental.
p. 963. b. V. KETAB. Alasthorlab. p. 141.
a. Nicholas Lynne above mentioned is
said to have made several voyages to the
most northerly parts of the world, charts
of which he presented to Edward the
Third. Perhaps to Iceland, and the
coasts of Norway, for astronomical ob-
servations. These charts are lost. Hak-
luyt apud Anderson. Hist. Com. i.
p. 191. sub ann. 1360. (See Hakl.
Voy. i. 121. seq. ed. 1598.)

And all above there lay a gay sautrie",
On which he made on nightes melodie
So swetely that al the chambre rong,
And Angelus ad Virginem he song°.

In the description of the young wife of our philosopher's host, there is great elegance with a mixture of burlesque allusions. Not to mention the curiosity of a female portrait, drawn with so much exactness at such a distance of time.

Fayre was this yongè wife, and therwithal
As any wesel hire body gent and smal.

A seint she wered, barred all of silk',

A barmecloths eke, as white as morwe milk,
Upon hire lendes, ful of many a gore'.
White was hire smok, and brouded all before",
And eke behind, on hire colere aboute,

Of coleblak silk, within, and eke withoute.

W

The tapes of hire whitè volipere *

Were of the samè suit of hire colere y.
Hire fillet brode of silk, and set full hye,
And sikerly she had a likerous eye.

a

Ful smal ypulled were hire browes two,

с

And thy were bent and black as any slo.

And she was wel more blisful on to see

Than is the newè perienet tree;

And softer than the wolle is of a wether:

And by hire girdle heng a purse of lether,

Tasseled with silk, and perlide with latouna.
In all this world to seken up and doun,

There nis no man so wise that coudè thenche
So gay a popelote or swiche a wenche.
Full brighter was the shining of hire hewe
Than in the Tour the noblef yforged newe.
But of hire song, it was as loud and yernes,
As any swalow sitting on a berne.
Therto she coude skip, and make a game,
As any kid or calf folowing his dame.
Hire mouth was swete as braketh or the meth,
Or hord of appels laid in hay or heth.
Winsing she was as is a joly colt,
Long as a mast, and upright as a bolti.
A broche she bare upon hire low colere

As brode as is the bosse of a bokelere1.

Hire shoon were laced on hire legges hie, &c.m

Nicholas, as we may suppose, was not proof against the charms of his blooming hostess. He has frequent opportunities of conversing with her; for her husband is the carpenter of Oseney Abbey near Oxford, and often absent in the woods belonging to the monastery". His rival is Absalom, a parishclerk, the gaiest of his calling, who being amorously inclined,

b tasseled; fringed.

I would read purfild. [I believe ornamented with latoun in the shape of pearls.-T. An expression used by Francis Thynne in his letter to Speght will explain this term: Orfrayes being compounded of the French or and frays, (or fryse English,) is that which to this daye (being now made all of one stuffe or substance) is called frised or perled cloth of gold.-EDIT.]

d latoun, or chekelaton, is cloth of gold.

"so pretty a puppet." [This may

either be considered as a diminutive from

poupée a puppet, or as a corruption of
papillot, a young butterfly.-T.]
f a piece of money.