“That stondeth at a gap with a spere,
      Whan hunted is the lion or the bere,
      And hereth him come rushing in the greves,
      And breking both the boughes and the leves:”—­

or that still finer one of Constance, when she is condemned to death:—­

      “Have ye not seen somtime a pale face
      (Among a prees) of him that hath been lad
      Toward his deth, wheras he geteth no grace,
      And swiche a colour in his face hath had,
      Men mighten know him that was so bestad,
      Amonges all the faces in that route;
      So stant Custance, and loketh hire aboute.”

The beauty, the pathos here does not seem to be of the poet’s seeking, but a part of the necessary texture of the fable.  He speaks of what he wishes to describe with the accuracy, the discrimination of one who relates what has happened to himself, or has had the best information from those who have been eye-witnesses of it.  The strokes of his pencil always tell.  He dwells only on the essential, on that which would be interesting to the persons really concerned:  yet as he never omits any material circumstance, he is prolix from the number of points on which he touches, without being diffuse on any one; and is sometimes tedious from the fidelity with which he adheres to his subject, as other writers are from the frequency of their digressions from it.  The chain of his story is composed of a number of fine links, closely connected together, and rivetted by a single blow.  There is an instance of the minuteness which he introduces into his most serious descriptions in his account of Palamon when left alone in his cell: 

      “Swiche sorrow he maketh that the grete tour
      Resouned of his yelling and clamour: 
      The pure fetters on his shinnes grete
      Were of his bitter salte teres wete.”

The mention of this last circumstance looks like a part of the instructions he had to follow, which he had no discretionary power to leave out or introduce at pleasure.  He is contented to find grace and beauty in truth.  He exhibits for the most part the naked object, with little drapery thrown over it.  His metaphors, which are few, are not for ornament, but use, and as like as possible to the things themselves.  He does not affect to shew his power over the reader’s mind, but the power which his subject has over his own.  The readers of Chaucer’s poetry feel more nearly what the persons he describes must have felt, than perhaps those of any other poet.  His sentiments are not voluntary effusions of the poet’s fancy, but founded on the natural impulses and habitual prejudices of the characters he has to represent.  There is an inveteracy of purpose, a sincerity of feeling, which never relaxes or grows vapid, in whatever they do or say.  There is no artificial, pompous display, but a strict parsimony of the poet’s materials, like the rude simplicity of the age in which he lived.  His