In Chaucer we find both forms of farce. The "sely carpenter" of the _Milleres Tale_ provides plenty of incident well suited to tickle the most elementary sense of the comic. The picture of the unfortunate John victualling his tub in readiness for a second edition of Noah's flood, and sitting in it, slung up to the ceiling, "awaytinge on the reyn," is irresistibly funny, and it is easy to fancy the delight of the audience when, thinking the flood has come, he cuts the cord and comes bumping on to the floor; for the truest farce of all is the practical joke which makes someone else ridiculous. All the coarser tales are full of such episodes. It would make no difference if the incidents were transferred from one tale to another, they have no subtle connection with the personality of those involved in them; the absurdity lies in the actual situation, and is exactly on a level with the rough-and-tumble fights between Noah and his wife, which proved so popular in the Miracle Plays, or the tossing of Mak in a blanket in the well-known Townley Mystery. The portrait of the drunken Cook contains farce of a somewhat higher order. He is a most unattractive person, and from any other point of view would be merely repulsive. But humour, while it cuts through false sentiment, not infrequently softens down the harsher lines in a character. There is no bitterness in true laughter; we cannot wholly despise what amuses us. In a tract the Cook and the Wife of Bath, the Friar and the Pardoner, would serve as awful warnings. In the _Canterbury Tales_ they show an extraordinary power of disarming criticism and worming themselves into our affections:-- The Cook of London, whyl the Reve spak, For joye, him thoughte, he clawed him on the bak. He is a genial rascal after all, and we almost resent his having so unfortunately appropriate a name as Hogge. When he falls asleep as he rides and rolls off his horse our sympathies are with him, though we fully appreciate the force of the Maunciple's plea that he shall not be permitted to tell his tale. The picture of the rest of the pilgrims shoving him to and fro in their efforts to mount him again, is farce of the simplest and most primitive kind, but Roger himself is a live man, not a mere occasion of mirth in others.