thing almost grotesque in the fact that Chaucer should have been a favorite of the adherents of the stern creed of Calvin, who, not content with hating impurity, frowned upon pleasure. For if we accept Heine's distinction of the two great opposing forces in modern civilization, none have been more conspicuously the representatives of the Hebraic element than the Puritans of the sixteenth century. In them both its best and its worst aspects are to be found exemplified. On the other hand, of all the English poets no one is so fully the representative of the Hellenic element as Chaucer. No one has felt more keenly than he, and expressed more vividly, the joy of life as life. In him, too, can be recognized the Hellenic clearness of vision which saw human nature exactly as it was, and did not lack the courage to depict it. Equally in him can be found its freedom from excitement and passion which to many seems freedom from earnestness. Nowhere, indeed, is this more noticeable than in the calmness of his attitude towards the religious sentiment itself, not in the sense of being indifferent to it, but in the sense of looking upon it as one of many forces that influence life instead of embodying the one supreme object for which life is lived. That by any combination of circumstances the serious and even sombre Puritan element of the sixteenth century should have come to regard the poet of joyousness and gayety and chivalry as a burning and shining light in the religious world is one of those freaks of fancy which seem always happening as if designed to make perfectly clear the utter emptiness of the inferences of the reason. Still, to a great extent such was the fact. We can see, therefore, that in

the case of many it was not a love of literature that brought familiarity with Chaucer's writings, but admiration for his supposed theology. Least of all was it

any disposition to tolerate impurity that led to their overlooking what may have seemed objectionable, or to their condoning what must have seemed sinful. They forgave the evil for the sake of the testimony that had been borne and for the service that had been rendered in the exposure of the corruptions that had poisoned the purity of the primitive faith. If this way of judging the character of a man's work be erroneous, it is by no means peculiar. There is a supply of modern illustrations of the same method of proceeding sufficiently ample to keep the Puritans in countenance. So long as Protestants of the nineteenth century are enabled to look upon Henry VIII. as a reformer, Protestants of the sixteenth century may be pardoned for treating Chaucer as

a saint.

Something of the poet's repute was certainly due to this source, at least for a limited period. To suppose that much was due to it would be a great error. There is evidence, indeed, that Chaucer's writings were looked upon coldly by men of that class to whom all efforts of the creative imagination lack what they are pleased to call truth. So wide was his popularity, so universal was the acquaintance with his writings, that his greatest work came early to be almost a synonym for fictitious narrative of any sort. As such it would naturally fall under the ban of that somewhat dreary body of men, in whom the Anglo-Saxon race has always abounded, who look askance upon all literature which deals with matters

outside of the region of figures and facts. This class, often composed of good men, invariably of prosaic men, did not escape the observation of Chaucer himself. He represents as belonging to it his Parson, a man morally of a lofty type of character, but plainly marked in certain respects by intellectual narrowness. When he comes to tell his story he informs his auditors that in anything he says he will not deviate in the slightest degree from the truth. "Fables and such wretchedness" is the comprehensive term he applies to everything that is not in accordance with actual fact. Why should he sow chaff, he asks, when it is in his power to sow wheat? This is the spirit with which he introduces his own didactic and rather dull discourse. It is a spirit of a precisely similar nature that is exhibited in the famous Retractation appended to the 'Canterbury Tales.' The genuineness of the addition can only be conceded on the assumption. that the poet, at a period of life when physical and intellectual strength were failing, had fallen under the influence of men of very earnest convictions and of very limited ideas.

If Chaucer could put into the mouth of one of his own characters a comment that implied that nearly everything which had been related during the pilgrimage was in the eyes of the speaker trivial, where it was not worse, we may be sure that criticism of the same kind did not die out in the centuries that followed. Much of what he wrote would have been ill-suited to the taste of the men who were engaged in the theological conflicts of the sixteenth century. That work of this nature did fall under their condemnation is clear from the con

temptuous way in which a story, especially improbable, came to be termed a Canterbury tale. Here again the fury of religious controversy added its intensity of meaning to an estimate which was based primarily upon dul ness of apprehension and incapacity of appreciation. With the primacy of Canterbury the papacy was, from the nature of things, largely identified. The pilgrimage to the shrine of its martyred archbishop had been the most famous of all while England remained under the sway of the Roman church. It was natural that any phrase which disparaged it should become a popular one with the reforming party. It enabled its members to fling contempt upon the side they hated without appearing to make a direct attack. "If we take it," said Cranmer, speaking of the gospel, “ for a Canterbury tale, why do we not refuse it?" Language of this kind—and it is but one instance out of many-shows decisively the existence of a general acquaintance with the poet's greatest work. But it likewise gives the impression that to some serious souls the matter it contained was vanity, as to dull souls it undoubtedly was vexation of spirit. Had not Chaucer's value as an ally come early to be recognized, it is not improbable that many of the voices which blessed his memory would have hastened to bestow upon it some vigorous maledictions.

It is not, however, to the men who were taking part in the stormy religious controversies of the period that we are to look for genuine appreciation of the poet as poet. Fortunately, we do not need to look to them. The recognized superiority of Chaucer down to the end

1

1 Cranmer's Miscellaneous Writings and Letters, p. 198 (Parker Society).

of the sixteenth century can be easily demonstrated by an appeal to sources that are purely literary. It remained undisputed, although the effects that result from the changes that had taken place in the language had begun to operate. These necessarily gave to all that he wrote a sense of remoteness and strangeness, and to some of it obscurity and even incomprehensibility. Still, on the part of the greatest men of letters there prevailed a loyalty to his memory that permitted no one to occupy a place by his side. In the 'Shepherd's Calendar,' Chaucer is styled "the god of shepherds," which is explained in the glossary as signifying "the god of poets." The phrase, after its appearance in this work, was henceforth specifically applied to him by the critical writers of the time. He is so termed by Webbe in his 'Discourse of English Poetry,' and by Meres in his Palladis Tamia.' But references to him of all sorts abound in the sixteenth century. They embrace numerous names, from Ascham, who about the middle of it styles Chaucer the English Homer, to Camden, who towards the end of it uses of him the same phrase, and asserts that he had left far behind all others who had written since. Of these he spoke with unnecessary asperity, but in the true antiquarian spirit, as poetasters. Besides these two celebrated scholars, the early poet was made the subject of panegyric by a number of authors, the chief claim of some of whom to mention now is that they mentioned Chaucer then. There are too many of these references to be quoted, and the most important of them are too well known to need quotation.

There is one man, however, whose words cannot be