during the month of May, and mourns the
livelong day under the green boughs. If the conjecture which Tyrwhitt
throws out, but without much insisting upon it, that John of Gaunt, wooing
his Duchess Blanche, is here figured, this is a _disguising_ allegory of
the lowest ideal idealization. The conjecture of Tyrwhitt, whether exact
or not, quite agrees to the art of poetical invention in that age.

That old and deeply-rooted species of fable, which ascribes to the
inferior animals human mind and manners, was another prevalent allegory.
Usually, the picture of humanity so conveyed is of a general nature. But
if, as has been guessed, the first and noblest of the Three Tercels that
woo the "formell eagle," in the Assemblee of Foules, be the same John of
Gaunt wooing the same Blanche, here would be two varieties of
allegory--the disguising of particular persons and events, and the veiling
of human actions and passions, under the semblance of the inferior
kinds--mixed in this part of the poem, which, in as much as it also
introduces wholly ideal personages, would, if the key to the enigma has
been truly found, very fully exemplify the allegorizing genius of the old
poetry.

Certainly, many of the old poems, unless they are interpreted to allude,
in this manner, to particular persons and occurrences, appear to want due
meaning, such as this Complaint of the nameless Black Knight, this Wooing
of the Three Tercels, and the faithless Hawk whom Canace hears. We may
often feel ourselves justified in presuming an allusion, although in
regard to the true import of the allusion it may be that Time has first
locked the door, and then thrown the key over the wall.

Of one Poem, to which we have hitherto but alluded, we feel ourselves now
called on to give an analysis, both for sake of its own exquisite beauty
and surpassing loveliness, and for sake of Dryden's immortal
paraphrase--THE FLOURE AND THE LEAF.

There is in the plan of "The Floure and the Leaf," a peculiarity which is
not easily accounted for. In the other poems of Chaucer, which are thrown
into the form of an adventure or occurrence personal to the relater, he
relates in person his own experience. Here the parts of experiencing, and
of relating an adventure, are both transferred to an unknown person of the
other sex. It is also remarkable that this difference in the personality
of the relater does not appear until the very close of the poem, and then
incidentally, one of th