It now becomes our delightful duty to speak of the “Canterbury Tales;” and we can hardly trust ourselves to confine within reasonable limits the examination of this admirable work, containing in itself, as it does, merits of the most various and opposite kinds. It is a finished picture, delineating almost every variety of human character, crowded with figures, whose lineaments no lapse of time, no change of manners, can render faint or indistinct, and which will retain, to the latest centuries, every stroke of outline and every tint of color, as sharp and as vivid as when they came from the master’s hand. The Pilgrims of Chaucer have traversed four hundred and fifty years—like the Israelites wandering in the wilderness—arid periods of neglect and ignorance, sandy flats of formal mannerism, unfertilized by any spring of beauty, and yet “their garments have not decayed, neither have their shoes waxed old.” Besides the lively and faithful delineation—_i. e. descriptive_ delineation of these personages, nothing can be more dramatic than the way in which they are set in motion, speaking and acting in a manner always conformable to their supposed characters, and mutually heightening and contrasting each other’s peculiarities. Further yet, besides these triumphs in the _framing_ of his Tales, the Tales themselves, distributed among the various pilgrims of his troop, are, in almost every case, master-pieces of splendor, of pathos, or of drollery. Chaucer, in the Prologue to the “Canterbury Tales,” relates that he was about to pass the night at the “Tabarde” inn in Southwark, previous to setting out on a pilgrimage to the far-famed shrine of St. Thomas of Kent—_i. e._ Thomas à Becket—at Canterbury. On the evening preceding the poet’s departure there arrive at the hostelry— Wel nine and twenty in a compagnie Of sondry folk, by aventure y-fulle In felowship, and pilgrimes wer they alle, That toward Canterbury wolden ride. The poet, glad of the opportunity of traveling in such good company, makes acquaintance with them all, and the party, after mutually promising to start early in the morning, sup and retire to rest. Chaucer then gives a full and minute description, yet in incredibly few words, of the condition, appearance, manners, dress, and horses of the pilgrims. He first depicts a Knight, “brave in battle, and wise in council,” courteous, grave, religious, experienced; who had fought for the faith in far lands, at Algesiras, at Alexandria, in Russia; a model of the chivalrous virtues: And though that he was worthy, he was wise, And of his port _make as is a mayde_. He was a veray parfit gentle knight. He is mounted on a good, though not showy, horse, and clothed in a simple _gipon_ or close tunic, of serviceable materials, characteristically stained and discolored by the friction of his armor.