Certainly, many of the old poems, unless they are interpreted to allude, in this manner, to particular persons and occurrences, appear to want due meaning, such as this Complaint of the nameless Black Knight, this Wooing of the Three Tercels, and the faithless Hawk whom Canace hears. We may often feel ourselves justified in presuming an allusion, although in regard to the true import of the allusion it may be that Time has first locked the door, and then thrown the key over the wall. Of one Poem, to which we have hitherto but alluded, we feel ourselves now called on to give an analysis, both for sake of its own exquisite beauty and surpassing loveliness, and for sake of Dryden's immortal paraphrase--THE FLOURE AND THE LEAF. There is in the plan of "The Floure and the Leaf," a peculiarity which is not easily accounted for. In the other poems of Chaucer, which are thrown into the form of an adventure or occurrence personal to the relater, he relates in person his own experience. Here the parts of experiencing, and of relating an adventure, are both transferred to an unknown person of the other sex. It is also remarkable that this difference in the personality of the relater does not appear until the very close of the poem, and then incidentally, one of the imaginary persons addressing the relater as "Daughter." In the adventure, which is simply the witnessing a Vision, there is nothing that might not as well have happened to Chaucer himself as to dame or damsel. In a sweet season of spring, a lady who, for some cause unknown to herself, cannot sleep, rises at the peep of day, and wanders out into a lofty and pleasant grove, where a slender unworn path, not easily seen, leads her to a fair arbour of elaborate workmanship, and so framed as that the sitter within sees, unseen, whatsoever passes without; adjoining which is a singularly beautiful medlar-tree in full blossom. A goldfinch leaps from bough to bough, eating buds and blossoms his fill, and then sings most 'passing sweetly,' and is answered by an unseen nightingale, in a note 'so merry' that all the wood rang again. Whilst the lady adventuress sits upon the turfed seat listening, a new burst, as if of angelical voices, is heard. The harmony proceeds from "a world of ladies," who march out from a neighbouring grove, clad in richly-jewelled surcoats of white velvet, each wearing on her head a chaplet of green leaves, laurel, or woodbine, or Agnus Castus. They dance and sing soberly, surrounding one who wears on her head a crown of gold, has a branch of Agnus Castus in her hand, excels them all in beauty, appears to be their queen, and sings a roundel having some allusion to the Green Leaf, and advance, dancing and singing, into a meadow fronting the arbour. The song is not given--its name is in half unintelligible French. Now a thundering of trumpets is heard: and innumerable "men of arms" issue from the grove from which the ladies came.