OF Geoffrey Chaucer, MODERNIZED. That noble Chaucer, in those former times, WORDSWORTH. LONDON: WHITTAKER & Co. AVE MARIA LANE. 12424 HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY Live I find. LONDON: GILBERT & RIVINGTON, PRINTERS, PROLOGUE TO THE CANTERBURY TALES.....BY R. H. HORNE cvii THE CUCKOO AND THE NIGHTINGALE ........BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH THE LEGENDS OF ARIADNE, PHILOMENE, BY THOMAS POWELL.......... 55 .......BY LEIGH HUNT................ 87 THE RIME OF SIRE THOPAS.....................BY Z. A. Z........................ 107 EXTRACT FROM TROILUS AND CRESIDA......BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 125 ................BY R. H. HORNE................ 137 ...............BY THOMAS POWELL.......... 161 .BY LEIGH HUNT................ 193 THE COMPLAINT OF MARS AND VENUS....BY ROBERT BELL.............. 211 QUEEN ANNELIDA AND FALSE ARCITE......BY ELIZABETH B. BARRETT 235 THE FRANKLIN'S TALE...........................BY R. H. HORNE ................ 289 Σ INTRODUCTION. For out of the olde fieldés, as men sayth, Cometh all this new science that men lere. CHAUCER. THE present publication does not result from an antiquarian feeling about Chaucer, as the Father of English Poetry, highly interesting as he must always be in that character alone; but from the extraordinary fact, to which there is no parallel in the history of the literature of nations,-that although he is one of the great poets for all time, his works are comparatively unknown to the world. Even in his own country, only a very small/ class of his countrymen ever read his poems. Had Chaucer's poems been written in Greek or Hebrew, they would have been a thousand times better known. |