1 kind. It is the beginning of the Flower and the Leaf, where he describes the delight of that young beauty, shrouded in her bower, and listening, in the morning of the year, to the singing of the nightingale; while her joy rises with the rising song, and gushes out afresh at every pause, and is borne along with the full tide of pleasure, and still increases, and repeats, and prolongs itself, and knows no ebb. The coolness of the arbour, its retirement, the early time of the day, the sudden starting up of the birds in the neighbouring bushes, the eager delight with which they devour and rend the opening buds and flowers, are expressed with a truth and feeling, which make the whole appear like the recollection of an actual scene: "Which as me thought was right a pleasing sight, And eke the briddes song for to here, Would haue rejoyced any earthly wight, And I that couth not yet in no manere Heare the nightingale of all the yeare,. Ful busily herkened with herte and with eare, If I her voice perceiue coud any where. And I that all this pleasaunt sight sie, So ouerlaid, but it should soone haue bote, And as I stood and cast aside mine eie, I was ware of the fairest medler tree Fro bough to bough, and as him list he eet And to the herber side was joyning The nightingale with so merry a note I stood astonied, so was I with the song Wherefore I waited about busily On euery side, if I her might see, And at the last I gan full well aspie Where she sat in a fresh grene laurer tree, On the further side euen right by me, Whereof I had so inly great pleasure, Was for to be, and no ferther passe And more pleasaunt to me by manifold, And as I sat the birds harkening thus, Me thought that I heard voices sodainly, That euer any wight I trow truly There is no affected rapture, no flowery sentiment: the whole is an ebullition of natural delight "welling out of the heart," like water from a crystal spring. Nature is the soul of art: there is a strength as well as a simplicity in the imagination that reposes entirely on nature, that nothing else can supply. It was the same trust in nature, and reliance on his subject, which enabled Chaucer to describe the grief and patience of Griselda; the faith of Constance; and the heroic perseverance of the little child, who, going to school through the streets of Jewry, "Oh Alma Redemptoris mater, loudly sung," and who after his death, still triumphed in his song. Chaucer has more of this deep, internal, sustained sentiment, than any other writer, except Boccaccio. In depth of simple pathos, and intensity of conception, never swerving from his subject, I think no other writer comes near him, not even the Greek tragedians. I wish to be allowed to give one or two instances of what I mean. I will take the following from the Knight's Tale. The distress of Arcite, in consequence of his banishment from his love, is thus described : "Whan that Arcite to Thebes comen was, Ful oft a day he swelt and said Alas, And shortly to concluden all his wo, So mochel sorwe hadde never creature, That is or shall be, while the world may dure. And solitary he was, and ever alone, And wailing all the night, making his mone. Than wold he wepe, he might not be stent. And changed so, that no man coude know This picture of the sinking of the heart, of the wasting away of the body and mind, of the gradual failure of all the faculties under the contagion of a rankling sorrow, cannot be surpassed. Of the same kind is his farewel to his mistress, after he has gained her hand and lost his life in the combat: "Alas the wo! alas the peines stronge, That I for you have suffered, and so longe! Alas the deth! alas min Emilie! Alas departing of our compagnie; Alas min hertes quene! alas my wif! Min hertes ladie, ender of my lif! What is this world? what axen men to have? The death of Arcite is the more affecting as it comes after triumph and victory, after the pomp of sacrifice, the solemnities of prayer, the celebration of the gorgeous rites of chivalry. The de |