Bade one reach me a Boke, A ROMANCE, and he it me took To read, and drive the Night away; For methought it better play Than play either at Chess or Tables. And assuredly Chaucer found many passages in the old fablers not less entrancing than some of his own. Our poet indulged this vein of playful irony on persons as well as on things. A sly panegyric, sufficiently ambiguous for us to accept as a refined stroke, we find on the abstruse and interminable question of predestination; on which the Nonne's priest declares-- But I ne cannot boult it to the bren, As can the holy doctor Augustín, Or Boecé, or _the bishop Bradwardín_. As this bishop, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, was the first who treated theology on mathematical principles, and likewise wrote on the "Quadrature of the Circle," we may presume "Bishop Bradwardin" rather perplexed the poet. Chaucer discovers his ironical manner when gravely stating the different theories of dreaming-- ---------What causeth Suevenes[3] On the morrow or on evens? he playfully concludes, and modern philosophy could no better assist the inquiry-- ---------Whoso of these Miracles The causes know bet[4] than I Define he, for I certainly Ne can them not, ne never thinke To busie my witte for to swinke To know why this is more than that is, Well worthé of this thing Clerkés, That treaten of this and of other werkés, For I, of none opinion Nil. It is with the same pleasantry he avoids all commonplace descriptions, by playfully suggesting his pretended unskilfulness for the detail, or his want of learning-- Me list not of the chaf, ne of the stre, Maken so long a tale, as of the corn. "Man of Lawe's Ta'e." Yet humour and irony are not his only excellences, for those who study Chaucer know that this great poet has thoughts that dissolve in tenderness; no one has more skilfully touched the more hidden springs of the heart.