The man hath served you of his cunning,
And furthered well your law in his writing,
All be it that he cannot well indite,
Yet hath he made unlearned folk delight
To serve you in praising of your name.

And so he resumes his favourite theme once more, to tell, as the "Man
of Law" says, "of lovers up and down, more than Ovid makes mention of
in his old 'Epistles.'" This fact alone--that our first great English
poet was also our first English love-poet, properly so called--would
have sufficed to transform our poetic literature through his agency.

What, however, calls for special notice, in connexion with Chaucer's
special poetic quality of gaiety and brightness, is the preference
which he exhibits for treating the joyous aspects of this many-sided
passion. Apart from the "Legend of Good Women," which is specially
designed to give brilliant examples of the faithfulness of women under
circumstances of trial, pain, and grief, and from two or three of the
"Canterbury Tales," he dwells with consistent preference on the bright
side of love, though remaining a stranger to its divine radiance, which
shines forth so fully upon us out of the pages of Spenser. Thus, in
the "Assembly of Fowls" all is gaiety and mirth, as indeed beseems the
genial neighbourhood of Cupid's temple. Again, in "Troilus and
Cressid," the earlier and cheerful part of the love-story is that which
he developes with unmistakeable sympathy and enjoyment, and in his
hands this part of the poem becomes one of the most charming poetic
narratives of the birth and growth of young love, which our literature
possesses--a soft and sweet counterpart to the consuming heat of
Marlowe's unrivalled "Hero and Leander." With Troilus it was love at
first sight--with Cressid a passion of very gradual growth. But so
full of nature is the narrative of this growth, that one is
irresistibly reminded at more than one point of the inimitable
creations of the great modern master in the description of women's
love. Is there not a touch of Gretchen in Cressid, retiring into her
chamber to ponder over the first revelation to her of the love of
Troilus?--

Cressid arose, no longer there she stayed,
But straight into her closet went anon,
And set her down, as still as any stone,
And every word gan up and down to wind,
That he had said, as it came to her mind.

And is there not a touch of Clarchen in her--though with a
difference--when from her casement s