The Reve's Prologue opens thus in Chaucer-- "Whan folk han laughed at this nice cas Of Absalom and _hendy_ Nicholas." Mr Horne says-- "Of Absalom and _credulous_ Nicholas!" He manifestly mistakes the sly scholar for the credulous carpenter, whom on the tenderest point he outwitted! To those who know the nature of the story, the blunder is extreme. What is to be thought of such rhymes as these? "And for to drink strong wine as red as _blood_, Then would he jest, and shout as he were _mad_." "Toward the mill, the bay nag in his _hand_, The miller sitting by the fire they _found_." "And on she went, till she the cradle _found_, While through the dark still groping with her _hand_." These to our ears, are not happy modernizations of Chaucer. Here come a few more Cockneyisms. "Alas! our warden's palfrey it is _gone_. Allen at once forgot both meal and _corn_." "Allen stole back, and thought ere that it _dawn_, I will creep in by John that lieth for_lorn_." "For, from the town Arviragus was _gone_, But to herself she spoke thus, all _forlorn_." "Aurelius, thinking of his substance _gone_, Curseth the time that ever he was _born_." "An arm-brace wore he that was rich and _broad_, And by his side a buckler and a _sword_." "Now grant my ship, that some smooth haven _win her_; I follow Statius first, and then _Corinna_." Alas! this worst of all is Elizabeth Barrett's! "Well of English _undefiled_!" In Chaucer we have-- "A SERGEANT OF THE LAWE, ware and wise, That often hadde yben _at the Parvis_." Mr Horne gives us-- "A Sergeant of the Law, wise, wary, _arch_! _Who oft had gossip'd long in the church porch._" The word "arch" is here interpolated to give some colour to the charge of "gossiping," absurdly asserted of the learned Sergeant. The Parvis was the place of conference, where suitors met with their counsel and legal advisers; and Chaucer merely intimates thereby the extent of the Sergeant's practice. In Chaucer we have-- "In termes hadde he cas and domes alle That fro the time of _King Will._ weren falle." Who does not see the propriety of the customary contraction, _King Will._? Mr Horne does not; and substitutes, "since King William's reign." Of the Frankelein Chaucer says, he was "An housholder, and that a gret was he;" the context plainly showing the meaning to be, "hospitable on a great scale." Mr Horne ignorantly translates the words, "A householder of great extent was he." In Chaucer we have-- "His table dormant in his halle alway Stood ready covered all the longe day." The meaning of that is, that any person, or party, might sit down, at any hour of the day, and help himself to something comfortable, as indeed is the case now in all country houses worth Visiting--such as Buchanan Lodge. Mr Horne stupidly exaggerates thus-- "His table with repletion heavy lay Amidst his hall throughout the feast-long day."