"A monk there was, an outsider, that loved venery; Of pricking and of hunting for the hare, Was all his lust for no cost would he spare." "A friar there was, a wanton and merry Limitour (a licensed beggar), a full solemne man, who Was an easy man to give penance There as he wist (to those he knew) to have a good pittance." Who "Knew well the taverns in every town, And every hosleter and gay tapstere, Better than a lazar or a beggere." A merchant with a forked beard, "a Flandrish beaver hat, and bootes clasped fair and fetisly." A threadbare clerk of Oxenford, on a horse as "lean as a rake," who would rather have twenty bookes of Aristotle and his philosophy, "Then robès rich, fiddle, or psaltry." A sergeant-at-law, "wary and wise, that often had been at the Porvis" (the portico of St. Paul's, where lawyers met for consultation). A Frankelin, with white beard and sanguine complexion, and a silken "Gipciere" (purse) hanging from his girdle; a pompous sort of man, fond of good living, in whose house "snowed meat and drink, who was an important man in his county, lord and sire at sessions, high sheriff, and full often knight of the shire." A haberdasher, a carpenter, a webbe (weaver), a dyer, and a tapiser; citizens with pouches full of silver; "yclothed in one livery of a solemn and great fraternity." "Well seemed each of them a fair burgess, To sitte in a Guildhall, on the dais," and all fitted by wisdom to be aldermen. With them had they a cook, "to boil the chickens and the marrow bones," who, perhaps in consequence of the hot nature of his vocation, had a wondrous _penchant_ for "draughts of London ale." A shipman, "who rode upon a rouncy (hack) as best he could," somewhat after the style of modern mariners. A doctor of physic, "well grounded in astronomy," who "Kept his patient a full great deal In houres by his magic natural." A wife of Bath, who had had five husbands and was ready for a sixth; a buxom dame, dressed in scarlet hosen and hat as broad as a buckler, who smirked and smiled upon the squire, much as the widow Wadman did, in an after age, upon Uncle Toby. A poore parson, "rich of holy thought and work," a learned man and clerk "that Christe's Gospel woulde preach living at home in his parish instead of running up to London," unto St. Paul's, to seek for a chantry for souls. "For Christe's love and his Apostles twelve, He taught, but first he followed it himselve." With whom was his brother, a ploughman, "that had of dung laid many of fother: a true swinker, who would thresh and dike and delve for Christ's sake, for every poore wight, withouten hire, if it lay in his might."