Many a man lives in our remembrance owing to his portrait. If his image had not been preserved by an artist of genius his memory would have been abolished. Who would remember, but for her tomb at Lucca, lovely Ilaria del Carretto? Many among us would not suspect that the long vanished pardoner ever existed if the master-painter, Chaucer, had not drawn, from life, his unlovely portrait. “Lordyngs,” says the one in the “Canterbury Tales”: “Lordyngs, quod he, in chirches whan I preche, I peyne me to have an hauteyn speche, And ryng it out, as lowd as doth a belle, For I can al by rote which that I telle. My teeme is alway oon, and ever was; _Radix omnium malorum est cupiditas_.” In the pulpit he leans to the right, to the left, he gesticulates, wanders in his talk; his arms move as much as his tongue; it is a wonder to see and hear him: “I stonde lik a clerk in my pulpit, And whan the lewed people is doun i-set, I preche so as ye have herd before, And telle hem an hondred japes more. {316} Than peyne I me to strecche forth my necke And est and west upon the people I bekke, As doth a dowfe (pigeon), syttyng on a berne; Myn hondes and my tonge goon so yerne, That it is joye to se my businesse. * * * * * I preche no thyng but of coveityse. Therefor my teem is yit, and ever was, _Radix omnium malorum est cupiditas_.” The description may seem to-day improbable and exaggerated, but it is not. A verifying from authentic sources and a search for documents only shows once more Chaucer’s marvellous exactness; not a trait in his picture that may not be justified by letters from papal or episcopal chanceries.