Anyone wishing to picture these times will find that Chaucer has written very carefully of the costume of his Pilgrims. They will find the pith of the costume in this book of mine; but since no book is complete in every sense, they should see for themselves how men of the day drew the costume they saw about them. It will give them a sense of the spirit of the age which so many modern drawings lack. I give you Gower's picture of an exquisite; no words of mine could show so well the manner of the man: 'And therof thenketh he but a lite, For all his lust is to delite In newe thinges, proude and veine, Als ferforth as he may atteine. I trowe, if that he mighte make His body newe, he wolde take A newe form and leve his olde. For what thing that he may behold The which to common use is straunge, Anone his olde guise chaunge He woll, and falle therupon Lich unto the camelion, Whiche upon every sondry hewe That he beholt he mote newe His coloun; and thus unavised Full ofte time he stand desguised. More jolif than the brid in Maie, He maketh him ever fressh and gaie And doth all his array desguise, So that of him the newe guise Of lusty folke all other take.' Now, if I have described the costume of these times clearly--and I think I have done so--these lines should conjure up a gay fellow, with his many changes of dress. If the vision fails, then allow me to say that you are at fault, and have taken no pains with the description. Because the coloured drawing to the chapter of Richard II. shows a long houppelande and a chaperon tied in a certain way, you will very possibly forget that this dandy would have also a short houppelande, differently jagged sleeves, more ruffle about the twisting of his chaperon, more curve to the points of his shoes. You may see the image of Gower for yourself in St. Mary Overies Church, now called St. Saviour's, on the Southwark side of London Bridge. He is dressed in his sober black, his head resting upon his three books. In 1397 Gower retired from active life, and resigned his Rectory of Great Braxted, Essex; he was seventy years of age, and at that age he married Agnes Groundolf in a chapel of his own under the rooms where he lived in the Priory of St. Mary Overies. In 1400 his friend Chaucer died and Gower went blind. He died in 1408. Chaucer, whose eyes saw England in her greatness after the Battle of Crecy in 1346, and in her pitiful state at the downfall of Richard II., saw such a pageant of clothes pass before him that, in describing those wonderful national types, his Canterbury Pilgrims, he marks each one with some hint of array that we may know what manner of habit was proper to them. Here, then, is a list of the clothes he pictured them as wearing: [Illustration {The knight}] THE KNIGHT