and the opportunity was too good a one to be lost. Chaucer saluted his king and queen in the _Parlement of Foules_, which though partially based on the fabliau of _Hucline and Eglantine_ and containing passages from Dante and Boccaccio, is in all essentials a thoroughly original work. The poet, as usual, falls asleep and has a dream. He is taken by Scipio Africanus (he had just been reading the _Somnium Scipionis_), to the gate of a park which he is told none but the servants of Love may enter. Although he himself is but dull and has lost the taste of love he is permitted to see what passes in order that he may describe it, and is led into a beautiful garden in which many fair ladies, such as Beautee and Jolyte, are disporting themselves under the eye of Cupid. A number of women are dancing round a temple of brass, before whose door Dame Pees sat with a curteyn in hir hond. A long description of the temple and its occupants (Venus, Bacchus, Ceres, etc.) follows, and the poet then passes once more into the open air where ... in a launde[38] upon a hille of floures he finds the "noble goddesse Nature," who has sent for every bird to come and choose its mate in honour of St. Valentine. Upon her hand she holds A formel[39] egle, of shap the gentileste[40] That ever she among hir werkes fonde. Nature calls upon the royal eagle to make first choice, and he, With hed enclyned and with ful humble chere, at once chooses the bird upon her hand. Before the formel eagle has summoned up sufficient courage to give her answer, Another tercel egle spak anoon, Of lower kinde, and seyde, "that shal not be; I love hir bet than ye do, by seynt John." And hardly has he finished when a third eagle puts forward his claim. The various birds are called upon for their advice, and after a great deal of chattering and confusion, Nature finally decrees that the choice is to lie with the formel eagle herself. She modestly begs for a year's respite in which to make up her mind, and the parliament is adjourned. But first were chosen foules for to singe As yeer by yere was always hir usaunce To singe a roundel at hir departinge To do Nature honour and pleasunce, and the whole ends with the charming roundel:-- Now welcom somer with thy sonne softe. The poem has a freshness and tenderness which its conventional setting cannot conceal, and the humour of the conversation among the worm-foul, water-foul, and seed-foul, must have been even more delightful than it is to-day if--as has been suggested--the "fool cukkow," "the waker goos," "the popinjay, ful of delicacy," and the rest were easily recognisable portraits of contemporary courtiers. The _Parlement of Foules_ was followed by the _Hous of Fame_. Here again Chaucer makes use of the conventional stock-in-trade of medieval poets.