This composition hardly can be called a “tale,” for it contains neither persons nor events; but it is very curious as a specimen of the sermons of the early Reformers: for a sermon it is, and nothing else—a sermon upon the Seven Deadly Sins, divided and subdivided with all the pedantic regularity of the day. It also gives us a very curious insight into the domestic life, the manners, the costume, and even the cookery of the fourteenth century. Some critics have contended that this sermon was added to the Canterbury Tales by Chaucer at the instigation of his confessors, as a species of penitence for the light and immoral tone of much of his writings, and particularly as a sort of recantation, or _amende honorable_, for his innumerable attacks on the monks. But this supposition is in direct contradiction with every line of his admirable portrait of the Parson; and, however natural it may have been for the licentious Boccaccio to have done such public penance for his ridicule of the “Frati,” and his numberless sensual and immoral scenes, his English follower was “made of sterner stuff.” The friend of John of Gaunt, and the disciple of Wickliffe, was not so easily to be worked upon by monastic subtlety as the more superstitious and _sensuous_ Italian. The language of Chaucer is a strong exemplification of the structure of the English language. The ground of his diction will be ever found to be the pure, vigorous, Anglo-Saxon English of the people, _inlaid_—if we may so style it—with an immense quantity of Norman-French words. We may compare this diction to some of those exquisite specimens of _incrusting_ left us by the obscure but great artists of the Middle Ages, in which the polish of metal or ivory contrasts so richly with the lustrous ebony. The difficulty of reading this great poet is very much exaggerated: a very moderate acquaintance with the French and Italian of the fourteenth century, and the observance of a few simple rules of pronunciation, will enable any educated person to read and to enjoy. In particular it is to be remarked that the final letter _e_, occurring in so many English words, had not yet become an _e mute_; and must constantly be pronounced, as well as the termination of the past tense, _ed_, in a separate syllable. The accent also is more varied in its position than is now common in the language. Read with these precautions, Chaucer will be found as harmonious as he is tender, magnificent, humorous, or sublime. Until the reader is able and willing to appreciate the innumerable beauties of the Canterbury Tales, it is not to be expected that he can make acquaintance with the graceful though somewhat pedantic “Court of Love,” an allegorical poem, bearing the strongest marks of its Provençal origin; or with the exquisite delicacy and pure chivalry of the “Flower and the Leaf,” of which latter poem Campbell speaks as follows, enthusiastically but justly: