lgrimage to the hallowed shrine at
Canterbury, when he is called upon for his story, his fancy flies to the
old romantic mythology. Mars is his god of war, and Venus his mother of
loves, and, by an anachronism quite common in that day, Palamon and Arcite
are mediaeval knights trained in the school of chivalry, and aflame, in
knightly style, with the light of love and ladies' eyes. These
incongruities marked the age.

Such was the flickering brightness of chivalry in Chaucer's time, even
then growing dimmer and more fitful, and soon to "pale its ineffectual
fire" in the light of a growing civilization. Its better principles, which
were those of truth, virtue, and holiness, were to remain; but its forms,
ceremonies, and magnificence were to disappear.

It is significant of social progress, and of the levelling influence of
Christianity, that common people should do their pilgrimage with community
of interest as well as danger, and in easy, tale-telling conference with
those of higher station. The franklin, with white beard and red face, has
been lord of the sessions and knight of the shire. The merchant, with
forked beard and Flaundrish beaver hat, discourses learnedly of taxes and
ship-money, and was doubtless drawn from an existing original, the type of
a class. Several of the personages belong to the guilds which were so
famous in London, and

Were alle yclothed in o livere
Of a solempne and grete fraternite.

GOVERNMENT.--Closely connected with this social progress, was the progress
in constitutional government, the fruit of the charters of John and Henry
III. After the assassination of Edward II. by his queen and her paramour,
there opened upon England a new historic era, when the bold and energetic
Edward III. ascended the throne--an era reflected in the poem of Chaucer.
The king, with Wiclif's aid, checked the encroachments of the Church. He
increased the representation of the people in parliament, and--perhaps the
greatest reform of all--he divided that body into two houses, the peers
and the commons, giving great consequence to the latter in the conduct of
the government, and introducing that striking feature of English
legislation, that no ministry can withstand an opposition majority in the
lower house; and another quite as important, that no tax should be imposed
without its consent. The philosophy of these great facts is to be found in
the democratic spirit so manifest among the pilgrims; a spiri