FOOTNOTES:

FOOTNOTES:[1]Pope in this particular has not followed Chaucer. The story is told by the merchant, who announces in the prologue, that he has been two months married, and that in this brief space he has endured more misery from the fiendishness of his wife than a bachelor could undergo in an entire lifetime from the enmity of the world. He lays it down for a general maxim, thatWe wedded men live in sorwe and care;Assay it whoso will, and he shall findThat I say sooth, by Saint Thomas of Inde,As for the more part; I say not all;God shielde that it shoulde so befall.The host begs that since the merchant knows so much of the trials of matrimony, he will instruct the company in some of them.Gladly, quoth he, but of mine owne soreFor sorry heart I telle may no more.He accordingly relates the adventures of January and May in illustration of the misfortunes of the wedded state, and commences with the panegyric of January upon its unmixed blessings. The merchant then adds,Thus said this olde knight that was so wise,which is an ironical comment on what the narrator of the tale considers a delusive dream, and a proof of the credulous folly of the speaker. The idea of ascribing genuine sense and wisdom to the knight, notwithstanding that he was weak enough, at the age of sixty, to marry a girl, is confined to the version of Pope, and is not in itself unnatural; but the character, upon the whole, is better preserved in Chaucer, since the entire talk and conduct of January indicate a feeble mind.[2]"Courage" in the original is not used in the modern sense, but signifies a hearty desire.[3]And when that he was passed sixty year,Were it for holiness or for dotage,I cannot say, but such a great courageHadde this knight to be a wedded man,That day and night he doth all that he canTaspye where that he might wedded be;Praying our Lord to grante him that heMight ones knowen of that blissful life,That is betwixt a husband and his wife.[4]In the original,And certainly, as sooth as God is king,To take a wife it is a glorious thing;And namely when a man is old and hoar,Then is a wife the fruit of his tresor.This is another instance that the merchant's remarks are sarcastic; for no rational person would gravely assert that to wed was especially wise in old age, when a man was married for his money alone. The whole purport of the tale was to prove that such an alliance ended in discomfiture. The vein of satire is continued through the subsequent reflections. The merchant represents January as imagining wives to be models of obedience and fidelity, who will cleave to a husband through weal and woe, and will never be weary of loving and serving him, though he is bed-ridden all his days. The example of May, to which the description is a preface, shows that the praises are meant to be interpreted in an adverse sense.[5]In the original the merchant is quoting an invective against wives from the Liber Aureolus of Theophrastus, who had long been dead. Hence the narrator calls down a curse upon hisbonesin the name of the advocates of matrimony:This entent and an hundred sithe worseWriteth this man; there God his bones curse."Sithe" signifies "times." Pope has generalised the imprecation, and extended it to all bards, living or deceased, whereby the fitness of invoking a curse upon their bones is destroyed.[6]Chaucer would have thought it an anomaly for a Christian knight to invoke the heathen deities. The original is,A wife! ah! Sainte Mary,benedicite,How might a man have any adversiteThat hath a wife? certes I cannot say.The requirements of the metre in this and other passages of Chaucer, show thatbenedicitewas sometimes contracted, in the pronunciation, toben'cite.[7]The merchant, in his account of the motives which actuated the knight, dilates more largely in the original, and in more enthusiastic language, upon the felicity of marriage. A wife helps her husband in his work, is the careful guardian of his property, and is perfect in her submission.She saith nought ones nay when he saith ye;Do this, saith he; all ready, sir, saith she.Consequently the married manUpon his bare knees ought all his lifeThanken his God that him hath sent a wife;and if he is not yet possessed of the treasure, he ought to pray without ceasing that it may be vouchsafed him, for then he is established in safety, andMay not be deceived as I guess.From the praise of wives, the merchant, speaking the views of the knight, proceeds to extol the trustworthy advice of women in general, and his first instance is Rebecca, who instructed Jacob how to supplant Esau. The reasoning is purposely rendered inconsistent, and the assertion that a married man was secured against deception is immediately followed by an example in which the husband was deluded by the stratagem of the wife.[8]Lo Judith, as the story telle can,By wise counsel she Goddes people keptAnd slew him Holofernes while he slept.Lo Abigail by good counsel how sheSaved her husband Nabal, when that heShould have been slain.The respite that Abigail obtained for Nabal was very short. He died by a judgment from heaven in about ten days from the time that she went forth to meet David, and with presents and persuasions diverted him from his purpose, as he was advancing to take vengeance on her husband. The striking narrative in the apocryphal book of Judith is undoubtedly fabulous. The pretended Judith was a widow. The deceptions by which she is said to have got the captain of the Assyrian army into her power are abhorrent to our purer morality, but they would have been considered legitimate stratagems of war in the East.[9]Dryden, Juvenal, vi. 640.The rest are summoned on a point so nice.[10]In Chaucer the knight does not ask his friends to choose for him because many heads are wiser than one, but because with several people on the look out there is more likelihood that a suitable wife will be found quickly than if he was unassisted in the search.[11]In the original,But one thing warn I you, my friendes dear,I will none old wife have in no manere.Marriages seem to have taken place in those days at a very early age. The wife of Bath married at twelve, and the knight's notion of an "old wife" it appears, five lines further on, was a woman of twenty. He insists that he will marry nobody that is above sixteen:She shall not passe sixteene year certain.Old fish, and young flesh, that would I have full fain.Bet is, quoth he, a pike than a pikerel,And bet than old beef is the tender veal."Bet" is for "better."[12]Chaucer's knight assigns it as a motive to wedlock that he may haveChildren to thonour of God above,And not only for paramour, and for love.But a little before he had given a more worldly reason for his desire to have a son and heir, and said that he would rather be eaten by dogs than that his inheritance should go to a stranger.[13]The flippancy of this couplet, which departs from the original, is at variance with the tone of the knight, whose speech commenced with the words,Friendes I am hoar and old,And almost, God wot, at my pittes brinkUpon my soule somewhat must I think.I have my body folily dispendedBlessed be God that it shall be amended.In the passage, for which Pope's lines are the substitute, the knight is enumerating the causes why men should marry, and one reason, he says, is that each person ought toHelpen otherIn meschief, as a sister shall the brother,And live in chastity full holily.But, sires, by your leave that am not I,For, God be thankèd, I dare make avaunt,I feel my limbes stark and suffisaunt.The meaning is, that when a husband is "in meschief," or, in other words, in a state of helpless decrepitude, his wife ought to live in holy chastity, and nurse him as a sister would a brother. But, adds the knight, thank God I am not decrepit myself, and feel my limbs to be still stout; which is a very different sentiment from sneering at the saintly life he had just commended.[14]This verse, which has no counterpart in the original, is altered from a line in Dryden's Flower and Leaf:Ev'n when the vital sap retreats below,Ev'n when the hoary head is hid in snow.[15]The infatuation of the knight is more strongly marked in the original. He summons his friends to hear his fixed resolution, and to beg their assistance. He wants no advice, and instead of inviting them to speak their minds with freedom, he concludes his address with the wordsAnd synnes ye have heard all mine intent,I pray you to my wille ye assent.They do, indeed, offer him counsel where he solicited help, which is a true stroke of nature on both sides.[16]Pope gives the real character of Placebo, but sets probability at defiance in making him parade with boastful effrontery his own systematic fawning and flattery. Chaucer has not committed the extravagance. With him Placebo justifies his assentation on the ground that lords are better informed than their inferiors.A full great fool is any counsellorThat serveth any lord of high honour,That dare presume, or once thinken it,That his counsel should pass his lordes wit.Nay lordes be no fooles by my fay.Ye have yourself y-spoken here to-daySo high sentence, so holy, and so well,That I consent, and confirm every doleYour wordes all, and your opinion.[17]The last four lines are interpolated by Pope, and are again inconsistant with the tenor of Chaucer's narrative. The knight had notoriously been a dissolute man, and the coarse reflection would be out of place when the avowed object of his projected marriage was that he might live more soberly than he had hitherto done.[18]Seneca.[19]The qualities specified by Chaucer are whether she is wise, sober or given to drink, proud or in any other respect unamiable, a scold or wasteful, rich or poor. "And all this," says Justinus, "asketh leisure to enquire," which he urges in reply to the announcement of January that he was determined not to wait.[20]In Chaucer Justinus does not pronounce decisively against marriage, but recommends January to consider well before he enters upon it, and especially before he marries "a young wife and a fair."[21]This couplet is an addition by Pope. The manly Justinus says nothing in the original about "offending his noble lord."[22]Chaucer is more particular in his description:He portrayed in his heart, and in his thoughtHer fresche beauty, and her age tender,Her middle small, her armes long and slender,Her wise governance, her gentilnesseHer womanly bearing, and her sadnesse.—Bowles.[23]For when that he himself concluded had,He thought each other mannes wit so bad,That impossible it were to replieAgainst his choice; this was his fantasie.[24]In seeking a wife for him.[25]Placebo came, and eke his friendes soon,And althirfirst he bad them all a boon,That none of them no argumentes makeAgainst the purpose which that he had take;Which purpose was pleasaunt to God said he,And very ground of his prosperite.[26]"And may serve my turn" is one of Dryden's familiar colloquial terms, happily used. Dryden among other excellencies of a varied style was happy in the use of such terms.—Warton.The phrase fails to convey the conception of Chaucer, that the knight too much smitten by the charms of May to consider anything else of the slightest importance.All were it so she were of small degree,Sufficeth him her youth and her beaute.[27]The humour is brought out by Chaucer with increased force from his dwelling with greater detail on the fond conviction of January that the only risk he runs in marriage is from the excess of the felicity. He says he stands aghast when he contemplates passing his life in that perfect peace, and blessedness,As alle wedded men do with their wives,and trembles to think that he shall have his heaven upon earth.This is my dread, and ye my brethren tweyAssoileth me this question I you pray.[28]And when they saw that it must needis be,They wroughten so by sleight and wise treate,That she, this maiden, which that Maybus hight,As hastily as ever that she might,Shall wedded be unto this January.[29]Dryden's Palamon and Arcite:For women to the brave an easy prey,Still follow fortune where she leads the way.[30]Dryden's Palamon and Arcite:I pass their warlike pomp, their proud array.[31]This line has no warrant from Chaucer.[32]Here followed a bad couplet, which Pope afterwards omitted:Expensive dainties load the plenteous boards,The best luxurious Italy affords.[33]Joab, the leader of the Israelites in battle, blew the trumpet, as is recorded in the Bible, to gather them together. Theodomas is thought by Tyrwhitt to be a character in some fictitious history which was popular in the days of Chaucer.[34]Chaucer says that the bed was blessed by the priest, and the form used on these occasions may be seen in the old Latin service books.[35]Dryden's Sigismonda and Guiscardo:What thoughts he had beseems me not to say.[36]A circumstance is added by Chaucer which brings vividly before the reader the advanced age of the knight:The slacke skin about his necke shakethWhile that he sung.[37]Chaucer had previously mentioned that it was the usage for newly married wives to keep their chambers till the fourth day, and he repeats the fact here:As custom is unto these nobles all,A bride shall not eaten in the hall,Till dayes four, or three days atte leastI-passed be; then let her go to the feast.The fourthe day complete from noon to noon,When that the highe masse was i-doon,In halle sit this January and May,As fresh as is the brighte summer's day.[38]In the original January passes a warm panegyric upon the excellent qualities of Damian, which is meant to display in broader contrast the treachery and infamy of the squire. The merchant in his own person denounces the villany of Damian's conduct, and prays that all persons may be protected from the machinations of those deceitful vipers, who, when fostered in a family, employ their opportunities to injure their benefactors. Pope has omitted every allusion of the kind, and has treated the baseness of the squire as if he regarded it in the light of a joke.[39]It was at first "speaking sigh," which was distinctive. "Heaving" is the accompaniment of all sighs, and, as the sigh of Damian was soft, did not mark his in an especial degree.[40]There is not a word, as may be supposed, in Chaucer of the squire asking for divine assistance in his wicked schemes.[41]May, on her return from the visit which, at her husband's desire, she paid to Damian in his chamber, that she might cheer him in his illness, read the billet that he had given her covertly, and the result is thus told by Chaucer in a passage which has not been versified by Pope:This gentle May fulfillèd of pite,Right of her hand a letter makèd she;In which she granteth him her very grace;There lacked nought but only day and place.And when she saw her time upon a dayTo visite this Damian goeth May,And subtilely this letter down she thrustUnder his pillow; read it if him lust.She taketh him by the hand, and hard him twistSo secretly, that no wight of it wist,And bade him be all whole; and forth she wentTo January, when that he for her sent.Up riseth Damian the nexte morrow;All passed was his sickness and his sorrow.[42]The Epicurean philosophers.[43]Addison's Letter from Italy:My humbler verse demands a softer theme,A painted meadow, or a purling stream.[44]Pope has here shown his judgment in adopting the lighter fairy race of Shakespeare and Milton. Chaucer has king Pluto and his queen Proserpina.—Bowles.There was not much judgment required. They are fairies in Chaucer, but, as was not unusual in his day, he called them by names taken from the heathen mythology. Pope merely dropped the classical appellations, which would have been an incongruity when he wrote. In the details of his description he did not copy Shakespeare or Milton, but Dryden's version of Chaucer's Wife of Bath:The king of elfs, and little fairy queenGambolled on heaths, and danced on ev'ry green.[45]Another couplet preceded this in the first edition:Thus many a day with ease and plenty blessedOur gen'rous knight his gentle dame possessed.[46]Dryden's Palamon and Arcite:Nor art, nor nature's band can ease my grief,Nothing but death, the wretch's last relief.[47]There is a natural trait in the original which is not preserved by Pope. The knight weeps piteously at his sudden calamity:But atte last, after a month or tweye,His sorrow gan assuage sooth to say;For when he wist it may not other beHe patiently took his adversitie.This is one of the deeper and more solemn touches which Pope systematically rejected. Although the old man gets reconciled to the loss of his sight, his jealousy remains unabated.[48]Oh! January, what might it thee availIf thou might see as far as shippes sail?For as good is blind deceivèd be,As to be deceivèd when a man may see.[49]Chaucer only says that they whispered through the crevice they discovered in the wall which divided the houses of their parents. All their kisses were bestowed upon the wall itself, or as Sandys puts it in his translation of Ovid,Their kisses greetThe senseless stones, with lips that could not meet.[50]This couplet, which is not in the original, is in the style of the pastorals which were common in Pope's youth.[51]Thou art the creature that I best love;For by the Lord that sit in heaven above,Lever I had to dyen on a knife.Than thee offende, deare, trewe wife.[52]By the injudicious interpolation of this parenthesis Pope makes the knight express his belief to May that she is more likely to be kept faithful by her love of money than by her sense of honour and religion. It is undeniable that covetousness would be the predominant motive with a depraved woman, such as was poor old January's wife, but this is not his settled conviction, and he would have shrunk from openly admitting the idea.[53]The knight's promise was to be performed the next morning. His doubt was whether May, on her side, would fulfil the pledge of perpetual fidelity. The ceremony is, therefore, reversed in the original, and January asksherto kisshimin token of her adhesion to the covenant.[54]In the original the knight avows the jealousy, which in Pope's version he denies, and excuses his misgivings on the ground of May's beauty, and his own age. Having disclaimed all jealousy, there is no longer any meaning in representing him as pleading the inequality of his years to justify his conduct.[55]May in the original is the same wicked, shameless woman that she is described by Pope, but Chaucer is content to put into her mouth the wish that she may die a foul death if she breaks her marriage vows. There is not a hint of the more frightful imprecation she invokes on herself in expressing the hope that she may descend alive into hell when she commits the crime she is meditating at the moment.[56]"Infidelity in women is a subject of the severest crimination among the Turks. When any of these miserable girls are apprehended, for the first time they are put to hard labor, &c.; but for the second, they are recommitted, and many at a time tied up in sacks, and taken in a boat to the Seraglio-Point, where they are thrown into the tide." Dallaway's Constantinople.—Bowles.[57]The squire kneeling to worship May as she passed by is an exaggerated trait supplied by Pope.[58]At the conclusion of the hypocritical rejoinder of May, in which she speaks the language of indignant innocence, the narrative goes on thus in the original:And with that word she saw where DamyanSat in the bush, and coughing, she began;And with her fingers signes made she,That Damyan should climb upon a tree,That chargèd was with fruit, and up he went,For verily he knew all her intent;For in a letter she had told him allOf this mattier, how he worke shall.[59]These lines, which have no counterpart in Chaucer, owe their beauty to Dryden's Wife of Bath's Tale:He saw a choir of ladies in a round,That featly footing seemed to skim the ground:Thus dancing hand in hand, so light they were,He knew not where they trod, on earth or air.[60]The author of the apocryphal book of Ecclesiasticus. Chaucer says that he seldom speaks of women with reverence, which is correct. The statement of Pope that the son of Sirach asserted, like Solomon, that there was no such thing as a good woman, is in direct contradiction to various passages among his precepts.[61]There is no specification of "these ladies" in Chaucer.[62]Now by my mother Ceres' soul, I swearThat I shall give her suffisaunt answere,And alle women after for her sake;That though they be in any guilt i-take,With face bold they shall themselves excuse,And bear them down that woulde them accuse.For lack of answer none of them shall dyen.All had ye seen a thing with both your eyen,Yet shall we women visage it hardily,And weep, and swear, and chide subtilely.[63]I wot well that this Jew, this Solomon,Found of us women fooles many one;But though he be founde no good woman,Yet hath there founde many another manWomen full true, full good, and vertuous;Witness on them that dwell in Christes house;With martyrdom they proved their constaunce.[64]Pluto and Proserpine each select that portion of the meaning which is convenient. Both senses are included in the words of Solomon, who at once asserts the general wickedness of mankind, and the comparative worthlessness of women.[65]The queen has just been boasting that she will endow the sex with the art of ingenious lying to cover the violation of their most solemn vows, and now she tauntingly tells her husband that it is not in woman to break her word. This contradiction is imported into the story by Pope. The original is as follows:—Dame, quoth this Pluto, be no longer wroth,I give it up; but since I swore mine oath,That I will grante him his sight again,My word shall stand, I warne you certain;I am a king it sit me not to lie.And I, quoth she, am queen of faierie.Her answer shall she have I undertake,Let us no more wordes hereof make.[66]The allusion is to the common longing of pregnant women for particular articles of diet. May cries out that she shall expire unless she has some of the "small green pears" to eat, and then exclaims anew,I tell you well, a woman in my plightMay have to fruit so great an appetite,That she may dyen, but she it have.[67]The moral is Pope's own, and is in the dissolute spirit which had descended from the reign of Charles II. The comment on the story, in Chaucer, is put into the mouth of the host, who begs that he may be preserved from such a wife, and inveighs against the craft and misdoings of women.

[1]Pope in this particular has not followed Chaucer. The story is told by the merchant, who announces in the prologue, that he has been two months married, and that in this brief space he has endured more misery from the fiendishness of his wife than a bachelor could undergo in an entire lifetime from the enmity of the world. He lays it down for a general maxim, thatWe wedded men live in sorwe and care;Assay it whoso will, and he shall findThat I say sooth, by Saint Thomas of Inde,As for the more part; I say not all;God shielde that it shoulde so befall.The host begs that since the merchant knows so much of the trials of matrimony, he will instruct the company in some of them.Gladly, quoth he, but of mine owne soreFor sorry heart I telle may no more.He accordingly relates the adventures of January and May in illustration of the misfortunes of the wedded state, and commences with the panegyric of January upon its unmixed blessings. The merchant then adds,Thus said this olde knight that was so wise,which is an ironical comment on what the narrator of the tale considers a delusive dream, and a proof of the credulous folly of the speaker. The idea of ascribing genuine sense and wisdom to the knight, notwithstanding that he was weak enough, at the age of sixty, to marry a girl, is confined to the version of Pope, and is not in itself unnatural; but the character, upon the whole, is better preserved in Chaucer, since the entire talk and conduct of January indicate a feeble mind.

We wedded men live in sorwe and care;Assay it whoso will, and he shall findThat I say sooth, by Saint Thomas of Inde,As for the more part; I say not all;God shielde that it shoulde so befall.

The host begs that since the merchant knows so much of the trials of matrimony, he will instruct the company in some of them.

Gladly, quoth he, but of mine owne soreFor sorry heart I telle may no more.

He accordingly relates the adventures of January and May in illustration of the misfortunes of the wedded state, and commences with the panegyric of January upon its unmixed blessings. The merchant then adds,

Thus said this olde knight that was so wise,

which is an ironical comment on what the narrator of the tale considers a delusive dream, and a proof of the credulous folly of the speaker. The idea of ascribing genuine sense and wisdom to the knight, notwithstanding that he was weak enough, at the age of sixty, to marry a girl, is confined to the version of Pope, and is not in itself unnatural; but the character, upon the whole, is better preserved in Chaucer, since the entire talk and conduct of January indicate a feeble mind.

[2]"Courage" in the original is not used in the modern sense, but signifies a hearty desire.

[3]And when that he was passed sixty year,Were it for holiness or for dotage,I cannot say, but such a great courageHadde this knight to be a wedded man,That day and night he doth all that he canTaspye where that he might wedded be;Praying our Lord to grante him that heMight ones knowen of that blissful life,That is betwixt a husband and his wife.

[3]

And when that he was passed sixty year,Were it for holiness or for dotage,I cannot say, but such a great courageHadde this knight to be a wedded man,That day and night he doth all that he canTaspye where that he might wedded be;Praying our Lord to grante him that heMight ones knowen of that blissful life,That is betwixt a husband and his wife.

[4]In the original,And certainly, as sooth as God is king,To take a wife it is a glorious thing;And namely when a man is old and hoar,Then is a wife the fruit of his tresor.This is another instance that the merchant's remarks are sarcastic; for no rational person would gravely assert that to wed was especially wise in old age, when a man was married for his money alone. The whole purport of the tale was to prove that such an alliance ended in discomfiture. The vein of satire is continued through the subsequent reflections. The merchant represents January as imagining wives to be models of obedience and fidelity, who will cleave to a husband through weal and woe, and will never be weary of loving and serving him, though he is bed-ridden all his days. The example of May, to which the description is a preface, shows that the praises are meant to be interpreted in an adverse sense.

[4]In the original,

And certainly, as sooth as God is king,To take a wife it is a glorious thing;And namely when a man is old and hoar,Then is a wife the fruit of his tresor.

This is another instance that the merchant's remarks are sarcastic; for no rational person would gravely assert that to wed was especially wise in old age, when a man was married for his money alone. The whole purport of the tale was to prove that such an alliance ended in discomfiture. The vein of satire is continued through the subsequent reflections. The merchant represents January as imagining wives to be models of obedience and fidelity, who will cleave to a husband through weal and woe, and will never be weary of loving and serving him, though he is bed-ridden all his days. The example of May, to which the description is a preface, shows that the praises are meant to be interpreted in an adverse sense.

[5]In the original the merchant is quoting an invective against wives from the Liber Aureolus of Theophrastus, who had long been dead. Hence the narrator calls down a curse upon hisbonesin the name of the advocates of matrimony:This entent and an hundred sithe worseWriteth this man; there God his bones curse."Sithe" signifies "times." Pope has generalised the imprecation, and extended it to all bards, living or deceased, whereby the fitness of invoking a curse upon their bones is destroyed.

This entent and an hundred sithe worseWriteth this man; there God his bones curse.

"Sithe" signifies "times." Pope has generalised the imprecation, and extended it to all bards, living or deceased, whereby the fitness of invoking a curse upon their bones is destroyed.

[6]Chaucer would have thought it an anomaly for a Christian knight to invoke the heathen deities. The original is,A wife! ah! Sainte Mary,benedicite,How might a man have any adversiteThat hath a wife? certes I cannot say.The requirements of the metre in this and other passages of Chaucer, show thatbenedicitewas sometimes contracted, in the pronunciation, toben'cite.

[6]Chaucer would have thought it an anomaly for a Christian knight to invoke the heathen deities. The original is,

A wife! ah! Sainte Mary,benedicite,How might a man have any adversiteThat hath a wife? certes I cannot say.

The requirements of the metre in this and other passages of Chaucer, show thatbenedicitewas sometimes contracted, in the pronunciation, toben'cite.

[7]The merchant, in his account of the motives which actuated the knight, dilates more largely in the original, and in more enthusiastic language, upon the felicity of marriage. A wife helps her husband in his work, is the careful guardian of his property, and is perfect in her submission.She saith nought ones nay when he saith ye;Do this, saith he; all ready, sir, saith she.Consequently the married manUpon his bare knees ought all his lifeThanken his God that him hath sent a wife;and if he is not yet possessed of the treasure, he ought to pray without ceasing that it may be vouchsafed him, for then he is established in safety, andMay not be deceived as I guess.From the praise of wives, the merchant, speaking the views of the knight, proceeds to extol the trustworthy advice of women in general, and his first instance is Rebecca, who instructed Jacob how to supplant Esau. The reasoning is purposely rendered inconsistent, and the assertion that a married man was secured against deception is immediately followed by an example in which the husband was deluded by the stratagem of the wife.

She saith nought ones nay when he saith ye;Do this, saith he; all ready, sir, saith she.

Consequently the married man

Upon his bare knees ought all his lifeThanken his God that him hath sent a wife;

and if he is not yet possessed of the treasure, he ought to pray without ceasing that it may be vouchsafed him, for then he is established in safety, and

May not be deceived as I guess.

From the praise of wives, the merchant, speaking the views of the knight, proceeds to extol the trustworthy advice of women in general, and his first instance is Rebecca, who instructed Jacob how to supplant Esau. The reasoning is purposely rendered inconsistent, and the assertion that a married man was secured against deception is immediately followed by an example in which the husband was deluded by the stratagem of the wife.

[8]Lo Judith, as the story telle can,By wise counsel she Goddes people keptAnd slew him Holofernes while he slept.Lo Abigail by good counsel how sheSaved her husband Nabal, when that heShould have been slain.The respite that Abigail obtained for Nabal was very short. He died by a judgment from heaven in about ten days from the time that she went forth to meet David, and with presents and persuasions diverted him from his purpose, as he was advancing to take vengeance on her husband. The striking narrative in the apocryphal book of Judith is undoubtedly fabulous. The pretended Judith was a widow. The deceptions by which she is said to have got the captain of the Assyrian army into her power are abhorrent to our purer morality, but they would have been considered legitimate stratagems of war in the East.

[8]

Lo Judith, as the story telle can,By wise counsel she Goddes people keptAnd slew him Holofernes while he slept.Lo Abigail by good counsel how sheSaved her husband Nabal, when that heShould have been slain.

The respite that Abigail obtained for Nabal was very short. He died by a judgment from heaven in about ten days from the time that she went forth to meet David, and with presents and persuasions diverted him from his purpose, as he was advancing to take vengeance on her husband. The striking narrative in the apocryphal book of Judith is undoubtedly fabulous. The pretended Judith was a widow. The deceptions by which she is said to have got the captain of the Assyrian army into her power are abhorrent to our purer morality, but they would have been considered legitimate stratagems of war in the East.

[9]Dryden, Juvenal, vi. 640.The rest are summoned on a point so nice.

[9]Dryden, Juvenal, vi. 640.

The rest are summoned on a point so nice.

[10]In Chaucer the knight does not ask his friends to choose for him because many heads are wiser than one, but because with several people on the look out there is more likelihood that a suitable wife will be found quickly than if he was unassisted in the search.

[11]In the original,But one thing warn I you, my friendes dear,I will none old wife have in no manere.Marriages seem to have taken place in those days at a very early age. The wife of Bath married at twelve, and the knight's notion of an "old wife" it appears, five lines further on, was a woman of twenty. He insists that he will marry nobody that is above sixteen:She shall not passe sixteene year certain.Old fish, and young flesh, that would I have full fain.Bet is, quoth he, a pike than a pikerel,And bet than old beef is the tender veal."Bet" is for "better."

[11]In the original,

But one thing warn I you, my friendes dear,I will none old wife have in no manere.

Marriages seem to have taken place in those days at a very early age. The wife of Bath married at twelve, and the knight's notion of an "old wife" it appears, five lines further on, was a woman of twenty. He insists that he will marry nobody that is above sixteen:

She shall not passe sixteene year certain.Old fish, and young flesh, that would I have full fain.Bet is, quoth he, a pike than a pikerel,And bet than old beef is the tender veal.

"Bet" is for "better."

[12]Chaucer's knight assigns it as a motive to wedlock that he may haveChildren to thonour of God above,And not only for paramour, and for love.But a little before he had given a more worldly reason for his desire to have a son and heir, and said that he would rather be eaten by dogs than that his inheritance should go to a stranger.

[12]Chaucer's knight assigns it as a motive to wedlock that he may have

Children to thonour of God above,And not only for paramour, and for love.

But a little before he had given a more worldly reason for his desire to have a son and heir, and said that he would rather be eaten by dogs than that his inheritance should go to a stranger.

[13]The flippancy of this couplet, which departs from the original, is at variance with the tone of the knight, whose speech commenced with the words,Friendes I am hoar and old,And almost, God wot, at my pittes brinkUpon my soule somewhat must I think.I have my body folily dispendedBlessed be God that it shall be amended.In the passage, for which Pope's lines are the substitute, the knight is enumerating the causes why men should marry, and one reason, he says, is that each person ought toHelpen otherIn meschief, as a sister shall the brother,And live in chastity full holily.But, sires, by your leave that am not I,For, God be thankèd, I dare make avaunt,I feel my limbes stark and suffisaunt.The meaning is, that when a husband is "in meschief," or, in other words, in a state of helpless decrepitude, his wife ought to live in holy chastity, and nurse him as a sister would a brother. But, adds the knight, thank God I am not decrepit myself, and feel my limbs to be still stout; which is a very different sentiment from sneering at the saintly life he had just commended.

[13]The flippancy of this couplet, which departs from the original, is at variance with the tone of the knight, whose speech commenced with the words,

Friendes I am hoar and old,And almost, God wot, at my pittes brinkUpon my soule somewhat must I think.I have my body folily dispendedBlessed be God that it shall be amended.

In the passage, for which Pope's lines are the substitute, the knight is enumerating the causes why men should marry, and one reason, he says, is that each person ought to

Helpen otherIn meschief, as a sister shall the brother,And live in chastity full holily.But, sires, by your leave that am not I,For, God be thankèd, I dare make avaunt,I feel my limbes stark and suffisaunt.

The meaning is, that when a husband is "in meschief," or, in other words, in a state of helpless decrepitude, his wife ought to live in holy chastity, and nurse him as a sister would a brother. But, adds the knight, thank God I am not decrepit myself, and feel my limbs to be still stout; which is a very different sentiment from sneering at the saintly life he had just commended.

[14]This verse, which has no counterpart in the original, is altered from a line in Dryden's Flower and Leaf:Ev'n when the vital sap retreats below,Ev'n when the hoary head is hid in snow.

[14]This verse, which has no counterpart in the original, is altered from a line in Dryden's Flower and Leaf:

Ev'n when the vital sap retreats below,Ev'n when the hoary head is hid in snow.

[15]The infatuation of the knight is more strongly marked in the original. He summons his friends to hear his fixed resolution, and to beg their assistance. He wants no advice, and instead of inviting them to speak their minds with freedom, he concludes his address with the wordsAnd synnes ye have heard all mine intent,I pray you to my wille ye assent.They do, indeed, offer him counsel where he solicited help, which is a true stroke of nature on both sides.

And synnes ye have heard all mine intent,I pray you to my wille ye assent.

They do, indeed, offer him counsel where he solicited help, which is a true stroke of nature on both sides.

[16]Pope gives the real character of Placebo, but sets probability at defiance in making him parade with boastful effrontery his own systematic fawning and flattery. Chaucer has not committed the extravagance. With him Placebo justifies his assentation on the ground that lords are better informed than their inferiors.A full great fool is any counsellorThat serveth any lord of high honour,That dare presume, or once thinken it,That his counsel should pass his lordes wit.Nay lordes be no fooles by my fay.Ye have yourself y-spoken here to-daySo high sentence, so holy, and so well,That I consent, and confirm every doleYour wordes all, and your opinion.

A full great fool is any counsellorThat serveth any lord of high honour,That dare presume, or once thinken it,That his counsel should pass his lordes wit.Nay lordes be no fooles by my fay.Ye have yourself y-spoken here to-daySo high sentence, so holy, and so well,That I consent, and confirm every doleYour wordes all, and your opinion.

[17]The last four lines are interpolated by Pope, and are again inconsistant with the tenor of Chaucer's narrative. The knight had notoriously been a dissolute man, and the coarse reflection would be out of place when the avowed object of his projected marriage was that he might live more soberly than he had hitherto done.

[18]Seneca.

[19]The qualities specified by Chaucer are whether she is wise, sober or given to drink, proud or in any other respect unamiable, a scold or wasteful, rich or poor. "And all this," says Justinus, "asketh leisure to enquire," which he urges in reply to the announcement of January that he was determined not to wait.

[20]In Chaucer Justinus does not pronounce decisively against marriage, but recommends January to consider well before he enters upon it, and especially before he marries "a young wife and a fair."

[21]This couplet is an addition by Pope. The manly Justinus says nothing in the original about "offending his noble lord."

[22]Chaucer is more particular in his description:He portrayed in his heart, and in his thoughtHer fresche beauty, and her age tender,Her middle small, her armes long and slender,Her wise governance, her gentilnesseHer womanly bearing, and her sadnesse.—Bowles.

[22]Chaucer is more particular in his description:

He portrayed in his heart, and in his thoughtHer fresche beauty, and her age tender,Her middle small, her armes long and slender,Her wise governance, her gentilnesseHer womanly bearing, and her sadnesse.—Bowles.

[23]For when that he himself concluded had,He thought each other mannes wit so bad,That impossible it were to replieAgainst his choice; this was his fantasie.

[23]

For when that he himself concluded had,He thought each other mannes wit so bad,That impossible it were to replieAgainst his choice; this was his fantasie.

[24]In seeking a wife for him.

[25]Placebo came, and eke his friendes soon,And althirfirst he bad them all a boon,That none of them no argumentes makeAgainst the purpose which that he had take;Which purpose was pleasaunt to God said he,And very ground of his prosperite.

[25]

Placebo came, and eke his friendes soon,And althirfirst he bad them all a boon,That none of them no argumentes makeAgainst the purpose which that he had take;Which purpose was pleasaunt to God said he,And very ground of his prosperite.

[26]"And may serve my turn" is one of Dryden's familiar colloquial terms, happily used. Dryden among other excellencies of a varied style was happy in the use of such terms.—Warton.The phrase fails to convey the conception of Chaucer, that the knight too much smitten by the charms of May to consider anything else of the slightest importance.All were it so she were of small degree,Sufficeth him her youth and her beaute.

[26]"And may serve my turn" is one of Dryden's familiar colloquial terms, happily used. Dryden among other excellencies of a varied style was happy in the use of such terms.—Warton.

The phrase fails to convey the conception of Chaucer, that the knight too much smitten by the charms of May to consider anything else of the slightest importance.

All were it so she were of small degree,Sufficeth him her youth and her beaute.

[27]The humour is brought out by Chaucer with increased force from his dwelling with greater detail on the fond conviction of January that the only risk he runs in marriage is from the excess of the felicity. He says he stands aghast when he contemplates passing his life in that perfect peace, and blessedness,As alle wedded men do with their wives,and trembles to think that he shall have his heaven upon earth.This is my dread, and ye my brethren tweyAssoileth me this question I you pray.

As alle wedded men do with their wives,

and trembles to think that he shall have his heaven upon earth.

This is my dread, and ye my brethren tweyAssoileth me this question I you pray.

[28]And when they saw that it must needis be,They wroughten so by sleight and wise treate,That she, this maiden, which that Maybus hight,As hastily as ever that she might,Shall wedded be unto this January.

[28]

And when they saw that it must needis be,They wroughten so by sleight and wise treate,That she, this maiden, which that Maybus hight,As hastily as ever that she might,Shall wedded be unto this January.

[29]Dryden's Palamon and Arcite:For women to the brave an easy prey,Still follow fortune where she leads the way.

[29]Dryden's Palamon and Arcite:

For women to the brave an easy prey,Still follow fortune where she leads the way.

[30]Dryden's Palamon and Arcite:I pass their warlike pomp, their proud array.

[30]Dryden's Palamon and Arcite:

I pass their warlike pomp, their proud array.

[31]This line has no warrant from Chaucer.

[32]Here followed a bad couplet, which Pope afterwards omitted:Expensive dainties load the plenteous boards,The best luxurious Italy affords.

[32]Here followed a bad couplet, which Pope afterwards omitted:

Expensive dainties load the plenteous boards,The best luxurious Italy affords.

[33]Joab, the leader of the Israelites in battle, blew the trumpet, as is recorded in the Bible, to gather them together. Theodomas is thought by Tyrwhitt to be a character in some fictitious history which was popular in the days of Chaucer.

[34]Chaucer says that the bed was blessed by the priest, and the form used on these occasions may be seen in the old Latin service books.

[35]Dryden's Sigismonda and Guiscardo:What thoughts he had beseems me not to say.

[35]Dryden's Sigismonda and Guiscardo:

What thoughts he had beseems me not to say.

[36]A circumstance is added by Chaucer which brings vividly before the reader the advanced age of the knight:The slacke skin about his necke shakethWhile that he sung.

[36]A circumstance is added by Chaucer which brings vividly before the reader the advanced age of the knight:

The slacke skin about his necke shakethWhile that he sung.

[37]Chaucer had previously mentioned that it was the usage for newly married wives to keep their chambers till the fourth day, and he repeats the fact here:As custom is unto these nobles all,A bride shall not eaten in the hall,Till dayes four, or three days atte leastI-passed be; then let her go to the feast.The fourthe day complete from noon to noon,When that the highe masse was i-doon,In halle sit this January and May,As fresh as is the brighte summer's day.

[37]Chaucer had previously mentioned that it was the usage for newly married wives to keep their chambers till the fourth day, and he repeats the fact here:

As custom is unto these nobles all,A bride shall not eaten in the hall,Till dayes four, or three days atte leastI-passed be; then let her go to the feast.The fourthe day complete from noon to noon,When that the highe masse was i-doon,In halle sit this January and May,As fresh as is the brighte summer's day.

[38]In the original January passes a warm panegyric upon the excellent qualities of Damian, which is meant to display in broader contrast the treachery and infamy of the squire. The merchant in his own person denounces the villany of Damian's conduct, and prays that all persons may be protected from the machinations of those deceitful vipers, who, when fostered in a family, employ their opportunities to injure their benefactors. Pope has omitted every allusion of the kind, and has treated the baseness of the squire as if he regarded it in the light of a joke.

[39]It was at first "speaking sigh," which was distinctive. "Heaving" is the accompaniment of all sighs, and, as the sigh of Damian was soft, did not mark his in an especial degree.

[40]There is not a word, as may be supposed, in Chaucer of the squire asking for divine assistance in his wicked schemes.

[41]May, on her return from the visit which, at her husband's desire, she paid to Damian in his chamber, that she might cheer him in his illness, read the billet that he had given her covertly, and the result is thus told by Chaucer in a passage which has not been versified by Pope:This gentle May fulfillèd of pite,Right of her hand a letter makèd she;In which she granteth him her very grace;There lacked nought but only day and place.And when she saw her time upon a dayTo visite this Damian goeth May,And subtilely this letter down she thrustUnder his pillow; read it if him lust.She taketh him by the hand, and hard him twistSo secretly, that no wight of it wist,And bade him be all whole; and forth she wentTo January, when that he for her sent.Up riseth Damian the nexte morrow;All passed was his sickness and his sorrow.

This gentle May fulfillèd of pite,Right of her hand a letter makèd she;In which she granteth him her very grace;There lacked nought but only day and place.And when she saw her time upon a dayTo visite this Damian goeth May,And subtilely this letter down she thrustUnder his pillow; read it if him lust.She taketh him by the hand, and hard him twistSo secretly, that no wight of it wist,And bade him be all whole; and forth she wentTo January, when that he for her sent.Up riseth Damian the nexte morrow;All passed was his sickness and his sorrow.

[42]The Epicurean philosophers.

[43]Addison's Letter from Italy:My humbler verse demands a softer theme,A painted meadow, or a purling stream.

[43]Addison's Letter from Italy:

My humbler verse demands a softer theme,A painted meadow, or a purling stream.

[44]Pope has here shown his judgment in adopting the lighter fairy race of Shakespeare and Milton. Chaucer has king Pluto and his queen Proserpina.—Bowles.There was not much judgment required. They are fairies in Chaucer, but, as was not unusual in his day, he called them by names taken from the heathen mythology. Pope merely dropped the classical appellations, which would have been an incongruity when he wrote. In the details of his description he did not copy Shakespeare or Milton, but Dryden's version of Chaucer's Wife of Bath:The king of elfs, and little fairy queenGambolled on heaths, and danced on ev'ry green.

[44]Pope has here shown his judgment in adopting the lighter fairy race of Shakespeare and Milton. Chaucer has king Pluto and his queen Proserpina.—Bowles.

There was not much judgment required. They are fairies in Chaucer, but, as was not unusual in his day, he called them by names taken from the heathen mythology. Pope merely dropped the classical appellations, which would have been an incongruity when he wrote. In the details of his description he did not copy Shakespeare or Milton, but Dryden's version of Chaucer's Wife of Bath:

The king of elfs, and little fairy queenGambolled on heaths, and danced on ev'ry green.

[45]Another couplet preceded this in the first edition:Thus many a day with ease and plenty blessedOur gen'rous knight his gentle dame possessed.

[45]Another couplet preceded this in the first edition:

Thus many a day with ease and plenty blessedOur gen'rous knight his gentle dame possessed.

[46]Dryden's Palamon and Arcite:Nor art, nor nature's band can ease my grief,Nothing but death, the wretch's last relief.

[46]Dryden's Palamon and Arcite:

Nor art, nor nature's band can ease my grief,Nothing but death, the wretch's last relief.

[47]There is a natural trait in the original which is not preserved by Pope. The knight weeps piteously at his sudden calamity:But atte last, after a month or tweye,His sorrow gan assuage sooth to say;For when he wist it may not other beHe patiently took his adversitie.This is one of the deeper and more solemn touches which Pope systematically rejected. Although the old man gets reconciled to the loss of his sight, his jealousy remains unabated.

[47]There is a natural trait in the original which is not preserved by Pope. The knight weeps piteously at his sudden calamity:

But atte last, after a month or tweye,His sorrow gan assuage sooth to say;For when he wist it may not other beHe patiently took his adversitie.

This is one of the deeper and more solemn touches which Pope systematically rejected. Although the old man gets reconciled to the loss of his sight, his jealousy remains unabated.

[48]Oh! January, what might it thee availIf thou might see as far as shippes sail?For as good is blind deceivèd be,As to be deceivèd when a man may see.

[48]

Oh! January, what might it thee availIf thou might see as far as shippes sail?For as good is blind deceivèd be,As to be deceivèd when a man may see.

[49]Chaucer only says that they whispered through the crevice they discovered in the wall which divided the houses of their parents. All their kisses were bestowed upon the wall itself, or as Sandys puts it in his translation of Ovid,Their kisses greetThe senseless stones, with lips that could not meet.

Their kisses greetThe senseless stones, with lips that could not meet.

[50]This couplet, which is not in the original, is in the style of the pastorals which were common in Pope's youth.

[51]Thou art the creature that I best love;For by the Lord that sit in heaven above,Lever I had to dyen on a knife.Than thee offende, deare, trewe wife.

[51]

Thou art the creature that I best love;For by the Lord that sit in heaven above,Lever I had to dyen on a knife.Than thee offende, deare, trewe wife.

[52]By the injudicious interpolation of this parenthesis Pope makes the knight express his belief to May that she is more likely to be kept faithful by her love of money than by her sense of honour and religion. It is undeniable that covetousness would be the predominant motive with a depraved woman, such as was poor old January's wife, but this is not his settled conviction, and he would have shrunk from openly admitting the idea.

[53]The knight's promise was to be performed the next morning. His doubt was whether May, on her side, would fulfil the pledge of perpetual fidelity. The ceremony is, therefore, reversed in the original, and January asksherto kisshimin token of her adhesion to the covenant.

[54]In the original the knight avows the jealousy, which in Pope's version he denies, and excuses his misgivings on the ground of May's beauty, and his own age. Having disclaimed all jealousy, there is no longer any meaning in representing him as pleading the inequality of his years to justify his conduct.

[55]May in the original is the same wicked, shameless woman that she is described by Pope, but Chaucer is content to put into her mouth the wish that she may die a foul death if she breaks her marriage vows. There is not a hint of the more frightful imprecation she invokes on herself in expressing the hope that she may descend alive into hell when she commits the crime she is meditating at the moment.

[56]"Infidelity in women is a subject of the severest crimination among the Turks. When any of these miserable girls are apprehended, for the first time they are put to hard labor, &c.; but for the second, they are recommitted, and many at a time tied up in sacks, and taken in a boat to the Seraglio-Point, where they are thrown into the tide." Dallaway's Constantinople.—Bowles.

[57]The squire kneeling to worship May as she passed by is an exaggerated trait supplied by Pope.

[58]At the conclusion of the hypocritical rejoinder of May, in which she speaks the language of indignant innocence, the narrative goes on thus in the original:And with that word she saw where DamyanSat in the bush, and coughing, she began;And with her fingers signes made she,That Damyan should climb upon a tree,That chargèd was with fruit, and up he went,For verily he knew all her intent;For in a letter she had told him allOf this mattier, how he worke shall.

[58]At the conclusion of the hypocritical rejoinder of May, in which she speaks the language of indignant innocence, the narrative goes on thus in the original:

And with that word she saw where DamyanSat in the bush, and coughing, she began;And with her fingers signes made she,That Damyan should climb upon a tree,That chargèd was with fruit, and up he went,For verily he knew all her intent;For in a letter she had told him allOf this mattier, how he worke shall.

[59]These lines, which have no counterpart in Chaucer, owe their beauty to Dryden's Wife of Bath's Tale:He saw a choir of ladies in a round,That featly footing seemed to skim the ground:Thus dancing hand in hand, so light they were,He knew not where they trod, on earth or air.

[59]These lines, which have no counterpart in Chaucer, owe their beauty to Dryden's Wife of Bath's Tale:

He saw a choir of ladies in a round,That featly footing seemed to skim the ground:Thus dancing hand in hand, so light they were,He knew not where they trod, on earth or air.

[60]The author of the apocryphal book of Ecclesiasticus. Chaucer says that he seldom speaks of women with reverence, which is correct. The statement of Pope that the son of Sirach asserted, like Solomon, that there was no such thing as a good woman, is in direct contradiction to various passages among his precepts.

[61]There is no specification of "these ladies" in Chaucer.

[62]Now by my mother Ceres' soul, I swearThat I shall give her suffisaunt answere,And alle women after for her sake;That though they be in any guilt i-take,With face bold they shall themselves excuse,And bear them down that woulde them accuse.For lack of answer none of them shall dyen.All had ye seen a thing with both your eyen,Yet shall we women visage it hardily,And weep, and swear, and chide subtilely.

[62]

Now by my mother Ceres' soul, I swearThat I shall give her suffisaunt answere,And alle women after for her sake;That though they be in any guilt i-take,With face bold they shall themselves excuse,And bear them down that woulde them accuse.For lack of answer none of them shall dyen.All had ye seen a thing with both your eyen,Yet shall we women visage it hardily,And weep, and swear, and chide subtilely.

[63]I wot well that this Jew, this Solomon,Found of us women fooles many one;But though he be founde no good woman,Yet hath there founde many another manWomen full true, full good, and vertuous;Witness on them that dwell in Christes house;With martyrdom they proved their constaunce.

[63]

I wot well that this Jew, this Solomon,Found of us women fooles many one;But though he be founde no good woman,Yet hath there founde many another manWomen full true, full good, and vertuous;Witness on them that dwell in Christes house;With martyrdom they proved their constaunce.

[64]Pluto and Proserpine each select that portion of the meaning which is convenient. Both senses are included in the words of Solomon, who at once asserts the general wickedness of mankind, and the comparative worthlessness of women.

[65]The queen has just been boasting that she will endow the sex with the art of ingenious lying to cover the violation of their most solemn vows, and now she tauntingly tells her husband that it is not in woman to break her word. This contradiction is imported into the story by Pope. The original is as follows:—Dame, quoth this Pluto, be no longer wroth,I give it up; but since I swore mine oath,That I will grante him his sight again,My word shall stand, I warne you certain;I am a king it sit me not to lie.And I, quoth she, am queen of faierie.Her answer shall she have I undertake,Let us no more wordes hereof make.

Dame, quoth this Pluto, be no longer wroth,I give it up; but since I swore mine oath,That I will grante him his sight again,My word shall stand, I warne you certain;I am a king it sit me not to lie.And I, quoth she, am queen of faierie.Her answer shall she have I undertake,Let us no more wordes hereof make.

[66]The allusion is to the common longing of pregnant women for particular articles of diet. May cries out that she shall expire unless she has some of the "small green pears" to eat, and then exclaims anew,I tell you well, a woman in my plightMay have to fruit so great an appetite,That she may dyen, but she it have.

I tell you well, a woman in my plightMay have to fruit so great an appetite,That she may dyen, but she it have.

[67]The moral is Pope's own, and is in the dissolute spirit which had descended from the reign of Charles II. The comment on the story, in Chaucer, is put into the mouth of the host, who begs that he may be preserved from such a wife, and inveighs against the craft and misdoings of women.

The Wife of Bath is the other piece of Chaucer which Pope selected to imitate. One cannot but wonder at his choice, which perhaps nothing but his youth could excuse. Dryden, who is known not to be nicely scrupulous, informs us, that he would not versify it on account of its indecency. Pope, however, has omitted or softened the grosser and more offensive passages. Chaucer afforded him many subjects of a more sublime and serious species; and it were to be wished Pope had exercised his pencil on the pathetic story of the patience of Griselda, or Troilus and Cressida, or the complaint of the Black Knight; or, above all, on Cambuscan and Canace. From the accidental circumstance of Dryden and Pope having copied the gay and ludicrous parts of Chaucer, the common notion seems to have arisen, that Chaucer's vein of poetry was chiefly turned to the light and the ridiculous. But they who look into Chaucer will soon be convinced of this prevailing prejudice, and will find his comic vein, like that of Shakespeare, to be only like one of mercury, imperceptibly mingled with a mine of gold. Mr. Hughes withdrew his contributions to a volume of Miscellaneous Poems, published by Steele, because this Prologue was to be inserted in it, which he thought too obscene for the gravity of his character. "The extraordinary length," says Mr. Tyrwhitt, "of the Wife of Bath's Prologue, as well as the vein of pleasantry that runs through it, is very suitable to the character of the speaker. The greatest part must have been of Chaucer's own invention, though one may plainly see that he had been reading the popular invectives against marriage, and women in general, such as the Roman de la Rose, Valerius ad Rufinum de non ducendâ uxore, and particularly Hieronymus contra Jovinianum. The holy Father, by way of recommending celibacy, has exerted all his learning and eloquence, and he certainly was not deficient in either, to collect together and aggravate whatever he could find to the prejudice of the female sex. Among other things he has inserted his own translation (probably) of a long extract from what he calls, Liber Aureolus Theophrasti de Nuptiis. Next to him in order of time was the treatise entitled, Epistola Valerii ad Rufinum de non ducendâ uxore. It has been printed, for the similarity of its sentiments I suppose, among the works of St. Jerome, though it is evidently of a much later date. Tanner, from Wood's MSS. Collection, attributes it to Walter Mapes. I should not believe it to be older; as John of Salisbury, who has treated ofthe same subject in his Polycrat. l. viii. c. xl. does not appear to have seen it. To these two books Jean de Meun has been obliged for some of the severest strokes in his Roman de la Rose; and Chaucer has transfused the quintessence of all the three works upon the subject of matrimony, into his Wife of Bath's Prologue and Merchant's Tale."

The lines of Pope in the piece before us are spirited and easy and have, properly enough, a free colloquial air. The tale, to which this is the prologue, has been versified by Dryden, and is supposed to have been of Chaucer's own invention; as is the exquisite vision of the Flower and the Leaf, which has received a thousand new graces from the spirited and harmonious Dryden. It is to his Fables, (next to his Music Ode,) written when he was above seventy years old, that Dryden will chiefly owe his immortality; and among these, particularly to the well-conducted tale of Palamon and Arcite, the pathetic picture of Sigismunda, the wild and terrible graces of Theodore and Honoria, and the sportive pleasantry of Cymon and Iphigenia. The warmth and melody of these pieces has never been excelled in our language; I mean in rhyme. It is mortifying and surprising to see the cold and contemptuous manner in which Dr. Johnson speaks of these capital pieces, which he says "require little criticism, and seem hardly worth the rejuvenescence, as he affectedly calls it, which Dryden has bestowed upon them." It is remarkable, that in his criticisms he has not even mentioned the Flower and Leaf.

These pieces of Chaucer were not the only ones that were versified by Pope. Mr. Harte assured me, that he was convinced by some circumstances which Fenton, his friend, communicated to him, that Pope wrote the characters, that make the introduction to the Canterbury Tales, published under the name of Betterton.—Warton.

Dr. Warton thinks, "one cannot but wonder at Pope's choice from Chaucer of these stories, when so many more are to be found in him more poetical." His observation on Chaucer's poems is very just, but the fact is, Pope by this very selection showed the bent of his mind,—that it was rather turned to satire and ridicule, than to the more elevated strains of poetry.—Bowles.

The imitations of Chaucer's January and May, and Wife of Bath's Prologue, are executed with a degree of freedom, ease, and spirit, and at the same time with a judgment and delicacy which not only far exceeds what might have been expected from so young a writer, but which leave nothing to be wished for in the mind of the reader. The humour of Chaucer is translated into the lines of Pope, almost without suffering any evaporation.—Roscoe.

Pope's version of the Prologue of the Wife of Bath first appeared in a volume of Poetical Miscellanies, published by Steele, in 1714.The portrait of this repulsive woman is drawn by Chaucer with a vigorous hand. She is a wealthy cloth manufacturer, with a bold countenance, and more than masculine freedom of speech. She dresses ostentatiously, rides with spurs, and, glorying in her shame, openly boasts of the vices which less impudent women would carefully conceal. Her two predominant characteristics are an inordinate self-will which makes her resolve to rule her husbands with an absolute despotism, and an inordinate sensuality which has completely absorbed every finer sentiment. She not only avows her propensities, but exults in the deceit, the tricks, and the violence which she has employed to gratify them as so many testimonies to her cleverness and power. She has no compunctious visitings for the frauds she has practised, and the misery she has inflicted upon her deceased husbands. She speaks of the dead as of the living with brutal insensibility, and would think it a weakness to be swayed by a human feeling. The impersonation of domineering, heartless selfishness, her pride is to prevail by tyranny instead of by the gentle graces of feminine tenderness, and her pleasure is to indulge in worldly gaiety, and the gross gratifications of sense. Even her jovial good humour is hardly a redeeming feature in her character, for it mainly proceeds from her keen relish for physical enjoyments, and turns to temper the instant she is thwarted. It is difficult to conceive that anybody could be injured by reading her confessions, which have nothing alluring, but with Warton, we must condemn the taste which could select the story as a ground-work for the embellishments of modern verse. The character may exist in every generation. The unblushing candour with which it displays itself belonged to more outspoken times than our own. Chaucer painted from the life, and this portrait of a coarse, voluptuous, defiant woman of the citizen class, finds a place in his gallery, because she had a prominent place in the society of the middle ages. There was no rational motive for tricking her out in the newest fashion of a period to which she did not belong, and she might with advantage have been allowed to remain in her primitive place and garb. The indelicacy of the pieces he translated from Chaucer was, however, one of their recommendations to Pope, and they may have had a further attraction for him from the fact, that they held wives up to odium. His deformed and insignificant person was an antidote to love, and the court he paid to women met with a cold return. He retaliated with his pen for the mortification to which they exposed him, and he almost always represented them in a frivolous or degrading light. He may not improbably have had a pleasure in reproducing from Chaucer the caustic sentiments which were congenial to his own, and may have found some satisfaction for his wounded spirit in revenging indifference by satire.

Warton says that Pope has softened the more offensive passages in the Wife of Bath's Prologue, but his version, on the other hand, is often less decorous than the original. He has not justified his choice of the subject by his skill in the treatment of it. The adaptation is much inferior to the companion piece of January and May, and appears to have been thrown off in haste. There are a few, a very few, happy lines and expressions, but the bulk of the versification is not much above mediocrity, and is frequently below it. He has failed in the substance still more than in the form. Roscoe was of opinion that the humour of Chaucer had hardly suffered any evaporation. The admirers of the original have arrived at a different conclusion, and have contended, with almost one voice, that hardly any of the humour has been preserved. The genuine Prologue is alive with manners, passions, idiomatic conversations, and natural incidents. The copy is by comparison a dead, insipid dissertation. The mode in which Pope has abridged the narrative is one of many proofs that he only cared for characters in their broad outline, and had either no perception of the subtler workings of the mind, or no appreciation of them. If ever a reader masters the full sense of an author it must be when he translates him, and yet Pope has overlooked or rejected many of the happiest traits in Chaucer, and has falsified others, to the invariable injury of the story, and sometimes with a total disregard to consistency. Particular deficiencies are of little moment in the midst of general excellence, but in the present instance there is nothing to redeem the blots, and the narrative from first to last is a pale and feeble reflection of the original.

Warton asserts, on the authority of Harte, that Fenton believed that the version of the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, which appeared in Lintot's Miscellany under the name of Betterton, was the work of Pope, and Johnson adds that "Fenton made Pope a gay offer of five pounds if he would show the characters in Betterton's hand." The celebrated actor certainly left some literary papers behind him, if we may assume that a letter from Caryll to Pope, and which was published by the poet himself, is a genuine production. "I am very glad," Caryll writes, May 23, 1712, "for the sake of the widow, and for the credit of the deceased, that Betterton's remains are fallen into such hands, as may render them reputable to the one, and beneficial to the other." In a note Pope states that the remains were the modernised portions of Chaucer contained in the Miscellany of Lintot. There was no apparent motive for deception on the subject, and the internal evidence supports the conclusion that Betterton composed the translation, and that Pope merely revised it. It is a bald, worthless production, with a few lines or couplets which seem to have proceeded from a more practised versifier than the novice who put together the bulk of the work. The choicest parts are verylittle better than bad; for Pope was a provident poet, and he did not decorate Betterton with feathers which would have shone with lustre in his own plumage. The great actor, on his side, has signally failed in the point where his art might have been expected to teach him better. He who had such a deep insight into the characters he personated, and who gave voice, action, and gesture to all the passions with such fidelity and power, has pared away the dramatic vivacity of Chaucer and left only a vapid, hybrid compound which is neither modern nor mediæval. The sketch of the good parson is omitted altogether, doubtless because Dryden had already tried his hand upon it, and it was thought imprudent to provoke a comparison with his masterly paraphrase.

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