the Duke of Lancaster. He died about a year after him, when Henry had been King thirteen months.

John of Gaunt was buried in St. Paul's, by the side of his first and best-loved wife, Blanche; Geoffrey Chaucer was buried in Westminster Abbey.

So ended the first, and almost the greatest, English writer, of whom no one has spoken an ill word, and who himself spoke no ill words.

Poet, soldier, statesman, and scholar, truly his better ne his pere, in school of my rules could I never find. . . In goodness of gentle, manly speech he passeth all other makers."

XII.

And now for Chaucer's speech.' How shall I show you its' goodness,' since it is so difficult to read this old English? Wait a bit. You will soon understand it all, if you take pains at the first beginning. Do not be afraid of the funny spelling, for you must remember that it is not so much that Chaucer spells differently from us, as that we have begun to spell differently from Chaucer. He would think our English quite as funny, and not half so pretty as his own; for the old English, when spoken, sounded very pretty and stately, and not so much like a 'gabble' as ours.

I told you a little while ago, you know, that our talking is much faster than talking was in Chaucer's time; it seems very curious that a language can be so changed in a few hundred years, without people really meaning to change it. But it has changed gradually. Little by little new words have come into use, and others have got 'old-fashioned.' Even the English of one hundred years ago was very unlike our own. But the English of five hundred years ago was, of course, still

more unlike.

XIII.

Now, I have put, as I told you, two versions of Chaucer's poetry on the page, side by side. First, the lines as Chaucer made them, and then the same lines in English such as we speak. You can thus look at both, and compare them.

I will also read you the verses in the two ways of pronouncing them, Chaucer's way and our way: but when you have grown a little used to the old-fashioned English, you will soon see how much prettier and more musical it sounds than our modern tongue, and I think you will like it very much. Besides, it is nice to be able to see the words as Chaucer put them, so as to know exactly how he talked.

In Chaucer's time a great deal of French was spoken in England, and it was mixed up with English more than it is now. The sound of old French and old English were something the same, both spoken very slowly, with a kind of drawl, as much as to say-" I am in no hurry. I have all day before me, and if you want to hear what I have got to say, you must wait till I get my words out."

So if you wish to hear Chaucer's stories, you must let him tell them in his own way, and try and understand his funny, pretty language. And if you do not pronounce the words as he meant, you

* Author of the Testament of Love.'

will find the verses will sound quite ugly-some lines being longer than others, and some not even rhyming, and altogether in a jumble.

XIV.

Chaucer himself was very anxious that people should read his words properly, and says in his verses, as if he were speaking to a human being

To mis-metre is to read the metre wrong; and the metre is the length of the line. If you read the length all wrong, it sounds very ugly.

Now, suppose those lines were read in modern English, they would run thus :

And because there is so great a diversity

In English, and in writing our tongue,

So I pray God that none miswrite thee

Nor mismetre thee through defect of tongue.

:

How broken and ragged it all sounds! like a gown that is all ragged and jagged, and doesn't fit. It sounds much better to read it properly.

You will find that when Chaucer's words are rightly pronounced, all his lines are of an even length. and sound pretty. I don't think he ever fails in this. This is called having a musical ear. Chaucer had a musical ear. Some people who write poetry have not, and their poetry is good for nothing. They might as well try to play the piano without a musical ear; and a pretty mess they would make of that! +

XV.

When you find any very hard word in Chaucer's verses which you cannot understand, look in the glossary and the modern version beside them; and you will see what is the word for it nowadays. A few words which cannot be translated within the metre you will find at the bottom of the page; but think for yourself before you look. There is nothing like thinking for one's self. Many of the words are like French or German words: so if you have learnt these languages you will be able often to guess what the word means.

For instance, you know how, in French, when you wish to say, I will not go or I am not sure, two no's are used, ne and pas: Je n'irai pas, or je ne suis pas sûr. Well, in Chaucer's time two no's were used in English. He would have said, "I n'ill nat go," and "I n'am nat sure.”

*Alluding to the numerous dialects in use in England at the time.

The mother should here read to the child some lines with the proper pronunciation: see Preface, pp. x., xi.

There are many lines where you will see two no's. "I n'am nat precious." "I ne told no deintee." "I wol not leve no tales." "I ne owe hem not a word." "There n'is no more to tell," &c. Sometimes, however, ne is used by itself, without not or nat to follow. As "it n'is good," "I n'ill say—or sain," instead of "it is not good—I will not say."

And, as in this last word sain (which only means say), you will find often an n at the end of words, which makes it difficult to understand them; but you will soon cease to think that a very alarming difficulty if you keep looking at the modern version. As, "I shall nat lien" (this means lie). "I wol nat gon" (go): “withouten doubt" (without). "Ther wold I don hem no pleasance " (do); "thou shalt ben quit" (be). "I shall you tellen" (tell).

And I think you will also be able to see how much better some old words are for expressing the meaning, than our words. For instance, how much nicer 'flittermouse' is than 'bat.' That is an old North-country word. When you see a little bat flying about, you know it is a bat because you have been told: but 'flitter-mouse' is better than bat, because it means 'floating mouse.' Now a bat is like a mouse, floating in the air. The word expresses the movement and the form of the creature.

Again the old word 'herteles' (heartless), instead of without courage, how well it expresses the want of courage or spirit: we often say people have no heart for work, or no heart for singing, when they are sad, or ill, or weak. Heartless does not always mean cowardly; it means that the person is dejected, or tired, or out of spirits. We have left off using the word heartless in that sense, however, and we have no word to express it. When we say heartless we mean cruel or unkind, which is a perfectly different meaning.

One more instance. The word 'fret' was used for devouring. This just describes what we call 'nibbling' now. The moth fretting a garment-means the moth devouring or nibbling a garment. This is a word we have lost sight of now in the sense of eating; we only use it for complain

ing' or 'pining.' But a fretted sky—and the frets on a guitar-are from the
old Saxon verb frete, to eat or devour, and describe a wrinkly uneven

surface, like the part of a garment fretted by the moth.

So you must not be impatient with the

old words, which are sometimes much

better for their purpose than

the words we use

nowadays.

CANTERBURY TALES.

S

CHAUCER'S PILGRIMS.

OME of Chaucer's best tales are not told by himself. They are put into the mouths of other people. In those days there were no newspapers-indeed there was not much news-so that

when strangers who had little in common were thrown together, as they often were in inns, or in long journeys, they had few topics of conversation: and so they used to entertain each other by singing songs, or quite as often by telling their own adventures, or long stories such as Chaucer has written down and called the Canterbury Tales.'

The reason he called them the 'Canterbury Tales' was because they were supposed to be told by a number of travellers who met at an inn, and went together on a pilgrimage to a saint's shrine at Canterbury.

But I shall now let Chaucer tell you about his interesting company in his own way.

He begins with a beautiful description of the spring-the time usually chosen for long journeys, or

for any new undertaking, in those days.

When you go out into the gardens or the fields, and see the fresh green of the hedges and the white May blossoms and the blue sky, think of Chaucer and his Canterbury Pilgrims!