The CANTERBURY TALES are full of cheerfulness and fun; full of love for the beautiful world, and full of sympathy for all who are in trouble or misery. The beauty of Chaucer’s character, and his deep piety, come out very clearly in these tales, as I think you will see. No one could have sung the ‘ditties and songs glad’ about birds in the medlar trees, and the soft rain on the ‘small sweet grass,’ and the ‘lily on her stalk green,’ and the sweet winds that blow over the country, whose mind was clouded by sordid thoughts, and narrow, selfish aims. No one could have sung so blithely of ‘fresh Emily,’ and with such good-humoured lenity even of the vulgar, chattering ‘Wife of Bath,’ whose heart was full of angry feelings towards his fellow-creatures. And no one, who was not in his heart a religious man, could have breathed the words of patience with which Arcite tries to comfort his friend, in their gloomy prison--or the greater patience of poor persecuted Griselda--or the fervent love of truth and honourable dealing, and a good life, which fills so many of his poems--or a hundred other touching prayers and tender words of warning. There was a large-heartedness and liberality about Chaucer’s mind, as of one who had mixed cheerfully with all classes, and saw good in all. His tastes were with the noble ranks among whom he had lived; but he had deep sympathy with the poor and oppressed, and could feel kindly even to the coarse and the wicked. He hated none but hypocrites; and he was never tired of praising piety and virtue. Chaucer wrote a great many short poems, which I have not told you of. Many have been lost or forgotten. Some may come back to us in the course of time and search. All we know of, you will read some day, with the rest of the CANTERBURY TALES not in this book: a few of these poems I have placed at the end of the volume; and among them one ‘To his empty Purse,’ written only the year before his death.[22] There is only a little more I can tell you about Chaucer’s life before we begin the stories. We got as far as 1398, when the King gave Chaucer letters of protection from his creditors. About this time another grant of wine was bestowed on him, equal to about £4 a year, or £40 of our money. In the next year, King Richard, who had not gained the love of his subjects, nor tried to be a good King, was deposed--that is, the people were so angry with him that they said, “You shall not be our King any more;” and they shut him up in a tower, and made his cousin, Henry, King of England. Now this Henry was the son of John of Gaunt, by his first wife, Blanche, and had been very badly treated by his cousin, the King. He was a much better man than Richard, and the people loved him. John of Gaunt did not live to see his son King, for he died while Henry was abroad; and it must have been a real grief to Chaucer, then an old man of sixty,[23] when this long and faithful friend was taken from him.