Insensibly, the serious element declined, in books as in manners, in works of art as in books. Architecture, instead of being the handmaid of faith, became the slave of phantasy. It was exaggerated, confined to mere decoration, sacrificing general effect to detail, shot up its steeples to unreasonable heights, festooned its churches with canopies, pinnacles, trefoiled arches, open-worked galleries. 'Its whole aim was continually to climb higher, to clothe the sacred edifice with a gaudy bedizenment, as if it were a bride on the wedding morning." Before this marvellous lacework, what emotion could one feel but a pleased astonishment? What becomes of Christian sentiment before such scenic ornamentations? In like manner literature sets

itself to play. In the eighteenth century, the second age of absolute monarchy, we saw on one side garlanded top-knots and cupolas, on the other pretty vers de société, courtly and sprightly tales, taking the place of severe beauty-lines and noble writings. Even so in the fourteenth century, the second age of feudalism, they had on one side the stone fretwork and slender efflorescence of aerial forms, and on the other finical verses and diverting stories, taking the place of the old grand architecture and the old simple literature. It is no longer the overflowing of a true sentiment which produces them, but the craving for excitement. Consider Chaucer, his subjects, and how he selects them. He goes far and wide to discover them, to Italy, France, to the popular legends, the ancient classics. His readers need diversity, and his business is to 'provide fine tales:' it was in those days the poet's business. The lords at table have finished dinner, the minstrels come and sing, the brightness of the torches falls on the velvet and ermine, on the fantastic figures, the oddities, the elaborate embroidery of their long garments; then the poet arrives, presents his manuscript, 'richly illuminated, bound in crimson violet, embellished with silver clasps and bosses, roses of gold:' they ask him for his subject, and he answers 'Love.'

2

III.

In fact, it is the most agreeable subject, fittest to make the evening hours flow sweetly, amid the spiced goblets and the burning perfumes. Chaucer translated first that great storehouse of gallantry, the Roman de la Rose. There is no pleasanter entertainment. It is about a rose which the lover wished to pluck: the pictures of the May months, the groves, the flowery earth, the green hedgerows, abound and display their bloom. Then come portraits of the smiling ladies, Richesse, Fraunchise, Gaiety, and by way of contrast, two sad characters, Daunger and Travail, all crowding, and minutely described, with detail of features, clothing, attitude; they walk about, as in a piece of

1 Renan, De l'Art au Moyen Age.

* See Froissart, his life with the Count of Foix and with King Richard II.

tapestry, amid landscapes, dances, castles, with allegorical groups, in lively sparkling colours, displayed, contrasted, ever renewed and varied so as to entertain the sight. For an evil has arisen, unknown to serious ages—ennui: novelty and brilliancy followed by novelty and brilliancy are necessary to withstand it; and Chaucer, like Boccacio and Froissart, enters into the struggle with all his heart. He borrows from Boccacio his history of Palamon and Arcite, from Lollius his history of Troilus and Cressida, and re-arranges them. How the two young Theban knights, Arcite and Palamon, both fall in love with the beautiful Emily, and how Arcite, victorious in tourney, falls and dies, bequeathing Emily to his rival; how the fine Trojan knight Troilus wins the favours of Cressida, and how Cressida abandons him for Diomedes-these are still tales in verse, tales of love. A little long they may be; all the writings of this age, French, or imitated from French, are born of too prodigal minds; but how they glide along! A winding stream, which flows smoothly on level sand, and glitters now and again in the sun, is the only image we can find. The characters speak too much, but then they speak so well! Even when they dispute, we like to listen, their anger and offences are so wholly based on a happy overflow of unbroken converse. Remember Froissart, how slaughters, assassinations, plagues, the butcheries of the Jacquerie, the whole chaos of human misery, is forgotten in his fine uniform humour, so that the furious and raving figures seem but ornaments and choice embroiderings to relieve the train of shaded and coloured silk which forms the groundwork of his narrative!

But, in particular, a multitude of descriptions spread their gilding over all. Chaucer leads you among arms, palaces, temples, and halts before each scene. Here:

'The statue of Venus glorious for to see

Was naked fleting in the large see,
And fro the navel doun all covered was
With wawes grene, and bright as any glas.
A citole in hire right hand hadde she,
And on hire hed, ful semely for to see,
A rose gerlond fressh, and wel smelling,
Above hire hed hire doves fleckering.'1

Further on, the temple of Mars:

'First on the wall was peinted a forest,

In which ther wonneth neyther man ne best,
With knotty knarry barrein trees old

Of stubbes and sharp and hidous to behold;

In which ther ran a romble and a swough,

As though a storme shuld bresten every bough:
And dounward from an hill under a bent,
Ther stood the temple of Mars armipotent,

1 Knight's Tale, ii. p. 59, v. 1957-1964.

Wrought all of burned stele, of which th' entree
Was longe and streite, and gastly for to see.
And therout came a rage and swiche a vise,
That it made all the gates for to rise.
The northern light in at the dore shone,
For window on the wall ne was ther none,

Thurgh which men mighten any light discerne.
The dore was all of athamant eterne,
Yclenched overthwart and endelong

With yren tough, and for to make it strong,
Every piler the temple to sustene

Was tonne-gret, of yren bright and shene."1

Everywhere on the wall were representations of slaughter; and in the sanctuary

'The statue of Mars upon a carte stood
Armed, and loked grim as he were wood,
A wolf ther stood beforne him at his fete
With eyen red, and of a man he ete.'2

...

Are not these contrasts well designed to rouse the imagination? You will meet in Chaucer a succession of similar pictures. Observe the train of combatants who came to joust in the tilting field for Arcite and Palamon:

With him ther wenten knightes many on.
Som wol ben armed in an habergeon
And in a brestplate, and in a gipon;
And som wol have a pair of plates large;
And som wol have a Pruce sheld, or a targe,
Som wol ben armed on his legges wele,
And have an axe, and som a mace of stele.
Ther maist thou se coming with Palamon
Licurge himself, the grete king of Trace:
Blake was his berd, and manly was his face.

The cercles of his eyen in his hed
They gloweden betwixen yelwe and red,

And like a griffon loked he about,

With kemped heres on his browes stout;

His limmes gret, his braunes hard and stronge,

His shouldres brode, his armes round and longe.

And as the guise was in his contree,
Ful highe upon a char of gold stood he,
With foure white bolles in the trais.
Instede of cote-armure on his harnais,
With nayles yelwe, and bright as any gold,
He hadde a beres skin, cole-blake for old.
His longe here was kempt behind his bak,
As any ravenes fether it shone for blake.
A wreth of gold arm-gret, of huge weight,
Upon his hed sate ful of stones bright,

1 1 Knight's Tale, ii. p. 59, v. 1977-1996.

2 Ibid. p. 61, v. 2043-2050.

Of fine rubins and of diamants.

About his char ther wenten white alauns,
Twenty and mo, as gret as any stere,
To hunten at the leon or the dere,
And folwed him, with mosel fast ybound,
Colered with gold, and torettes filed round.
An hundred lordes had he in his route,
Armed ful wel, with hertes sterne and stoute.
With Arcita, in stories as men find,
The gret Emetrius the king of Inde,
Upon a stede bay, trapped in stele,

...

Covered with cloth of gold diapred wele,
Came riding like the god of armes Mars.
His cote-armure was of a cloth of Tars,
Couched with perles, white, and round and grete.
His sadel was of brent gold new ybete;
A mantelet upon his shouldres hanging
Bret-ful of rubies red, as fire sparkling.
His crispe here like ringes was yronne,
And that was yelwe, and glitered as the sonne.
His nose was high, his eyen bright citrin,
His lippes round, his colour was sanguin
And as a leon he his loking caste.
Of five and twenty yere his age I caste.
His berd was well begonnen for to spring;
His vois was as a trompe thondering.
Upon his hed he wered of laurer grene
A gerlond fresshe and lusty for to sene.
Upon his hond he bare for his deduit
An egle tame, as any lily whit.
An hundred lordes had he with him there,
All armed save hir hedes in all hir gere,
Ful richely in alle manere thinges.
About this king ther ran on every part

Ful many a tame leon and leopart.'1

A herald would not describe them better nor more fully. The lords and ladies of the time would recognise here their tourneys and masquerades.

There is something more pleasant than a fine narrative, and that is a collection of fine narratives, especially when the narratives are all of different colourings. Froissart gives us such under the name of Chronicles; Boccacio still better; after him the lords of the Cent Nouvelles nouvelles; and, later still, Marguerite de Navarre. What more natural among people who meet, talk, and try to amuse themselves? The manners of the time suggest them; for the habits and tastes of society had begun, and fiction thus conceived only brings into books the conversations which are heard in the hall and by the wayside. Chaucer describes a troop of pilgrims, people of every rank, who are going to

1 1 Knight's Tale, ii. p. 63, v. 2120-2188.

Canterbury: a knight, a sergeant of law, an Oxford clerk, a doctor, a miller, a prioress, a monk, who agree to relate a story all round:

'For trewely comfort ne mirthe is non,

To riden by the way domb as the ston.'

They relate accordingly; and on this slender and flexible thread all the jovialities of the feudal imagination, true and false, come and contribute their motley figures to the chain; alternately noble, chivalrous stories: the miracle of the infant whose throat was cut by Jews, the trials of patient Griselda, Canace and the marvellous fictions of Oriental fancy, obscene stories of marriage and monks, allegorical or moral tales, the fable of the cock and hen, a list of great unfortunate persons: Lucifer, Adam, Samson, Nebuchadnezzar, Zenobia, Croesus, Ugolin, Peter of Spain. I leave out some, for I must be brief. Chaucer is like a jeweller with his hands full: pearls and glass beads, sparkling diamonds and common agates, black jet and ruby roses, all that history and imagination had been able to gather and fashion during three centuries in the East, in France, in Wales, in Provence, in Italy, all that had rolled his way, clashed together, broken or polished by the stream of centuries, and by the great jumble of human memory; he holds in his hand, arranges it, composes therefrom a long sparkling ornament, with twenty pendants, a thousand facets, which by its splendour, varieties, contrasts, may attract and satisfy the eyes of those most greedy for amusement and novelty.

He does more. The universal outburst of unchecked curiosity demands a more refined enjoyment; reverie and fantasy alone can satisfy it; not profound and thoughtful fantasy as we find it in Shakspeare, nor impassioned and meditated reverie as we find it in Dante, but the reverie and fantasy of the eyes, ears, external senses, which in poetry as in architecture call for singularity, wonders, accepted challenges, victories gained over what is rational and probable, and which are satisfied only by what is dense and dazzling. When you look at a cathedral of that time, you feel a sort of fear. Substance is wanting; the walls are hollowed out to make room for windows, the elaborate work of the porches, the wonderful growth of the slender columns, the thin curvature of arches-everything seems to totter; support has been withdrawn to give way to ornament. Without external prop or buttress, and artificial aid of iron clamp-work, the building would have crumbled to pieces on the first day as it is, it undoes itself; we have to maintain on the spot a colony of masons continually to ward off the continual decay. But our eyes lose themselves in following the wavings and twistings of the endless fretwork; the dazzling centre-rose of the portal and the painted glass throw a diapered light on the carved stalls of the choir, the gold-work of the altar, the long array of damascened and glittering copes, the crowd of statues, gradually rising; and amid this violet light, this quivering purple, amid these arrows of gold which pierce the gloom, the building