The Monk follows next, and he, like all the ecclesiastics, with the single exception of the Personore or secular parish priest, is described with strong touches of ridicule; but it is impossible not to perceive the strong and ever-present _humanity_ of which we have spoken as perhaps the most marked characteristic of Chaucer’s mind. The Monk is a gallant, richly-dressed, and pleasure-loving sportsman, caring not a straw for the obsolete strictness of the musty rule of his order. His sleeves are edged with rich fur, his hood fastened under his chin with a gold pin headed with a “love-knot,” his eyes are buried deep in his fleshy, rosy cheeks, indicating great love of rich fare and potent wines; and yet the impression left on the mind by this type of fat, roystering sensuality is rather one of drollery and good-fellowship than of contempt or abhorrence. Chaucer exhibits rich specimens of the various _genera_ of that vast species “Monachus monachans,” as it may be classed by some Rabelœsian Theophrastus. The next personage who enters is the Frere, or mendicant friar, whose easiness of confession, wonderful skill in extracting money and gifts, and gay discourse, are most humorously and graphically described. He is represented as always carrying store of knives, pins, and toys, to give to his female penitents, as better acquainted with the tavern than with the lagar-house or the hospital, daintily dressed, and “lisping somewhat” in his speech, “to make his English swete upon the tongue.” This “worthy Limitour” is succeeded by a grave and formal personage, the Merchant: solemn and wise is he, with forked beard and pompous demeanor, speaking much of profit, and strongly in favor of the king’s right to the subsidy “pour la saufgarde et custodie del mer,” as the old Norman legist phrases it. He is dressed in motley, mounted on a tall and quiet horse, and wears a “Flaundrish beaver hat.” The learned poverty of the Clerke of Oxenforde forms a striking contrast to the Merchant’s rather pompous “respectability.” He and his horse are “leane as is a rake” with abstinence, his clothes are threadbare, and he devotes to the purchase of his beloved books all the gold which he can collect from his friends and patrons, devoutly praying, as in duty bound, for the souls of those Who yeve him wherewith to scolaie. Nothing can be more true to nature than the mixture of pedantry and bashfulness in the manners of this anchoret of learning, and the tone of sententious morality and formal politeness which marks his language. We now come to a “Serjeant of the Lawe,” a wise and learned magistrate, rich and yet irreproachable, with all the statutes at his fingers’ ends, a very busy man in reality, “but yet,” not to forget the inimitable touch of nature in Chaucer, “As _seemed besier than he was_.” He is plainly dressed, as one who cares not to display his importance in his exterior.