feminine rhymes and kept the consonants from coming harshly
together.

Great poet as Chaucer was, he was not quite free from the literary
weakness of his time. He relapses sometimes into the babbling style of
the old chroniclers and legend writers; cites "auctours" and gives long
catalogues of names and objects with a _naive_ display of learning; and
introduces vulgar details in his most exquisite passages. There is
something childish about almost all the thought and art of the Middle
Ages--at least outside of Italy, where classical models and traditions
never quite lost their hold. But Chaucer's artlessness is half the
secret of his wonderful ease in story-telling, and is so engaging that,
like a child's sweet unconsciousness, one would not wish it otherwise.

The _Canterbury Tales_ had shown of what high uses the English language
was capable, but the curiously trilingual condition of literature still
continued. French was spoken in the proceedings of Parliament as late
as the reign of Henry {41} VI. (1422-1471). Chaucer's contemporary,
John Gower, wrote his _Vox Clamantis_ in Latin, his _Speculum
Meditantis_ (a lost poem), and a number of _ballades_ in Parisian
French, and his _Confessio Amantis_ (1393) in English. The last named
is a dreary, pedantic work, in some 15,000 smooth, monotonous,
eight-syllabled couplets, in which Grande Amour instructs the lover how
to get the love of Bel Pucell.

1. Early English Literature. By Bernhard ten Brink. Translated from
the German by H. M. Kennedy. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1883.

2. Morris and Skeat's Specimens of Early English. (Clarendon Press
Series.) Oxford.

3. Langland's Vision of William concerning Piers the Plowman. Wright's
Edition; or Skeat's, in Early English Text Society publications.

4. Chaucer: Canterbury Tales. Tyrwhitt's Edition; or Wright's, in
Percy Society publications.

5. Complete Writings. Morris's Edition. 6 vols. (In Aldine Series.)

[1] Hue.

[2] Those.

[3] Realm.

[4] Bowstring.

[5] Pain.

[6] Branch.

{42}

CHAPTER II.

FROM CHAUCER TO SPENSER.

1400-1599.

The 15th century was a barren period in English literary history. It
was nearly two hundred years after Chaucer's death before any poet
came, whose name can be written in the same line with his. He was
followed at once by a number of imitators who caught the trick of his
language and verse, but lacked the genius to make any fine use of