His palfrey was as broune as is a bery." ___ [*] PG transcriber's note: "space" instead of "trace" in some editions. ___ The Serjeant at Law is the same identical individual as Lawyer Dowling in Tom Jones, who wished to divide himself into a hundred pieces, to be in a hundred places at once. "No wher so besy a man as he ther n'as, And yet he semed besier than he was." The Frankelein, in "whose hous it snewed of mete and drinke"; the Shipman, "who rode upon a rouncie, as he couthe"; the Doctour of Phisike, "whose studie was but litel of the Bible"; the Wif of Bath, in "All whose parish ther was non, That to the offring before hire shulde gon, And if ther did, certain so wroth was she, That she was out of alle charitee;" --the poure Persone of a toun, "whose parish was wide, and houses fer asonder"; the Miller, and the Reve, "a slendre colerike man," are all of the same stamp. They are every one samples of a kind; abstract definitions of a species. Chaucer, it has been said, numbered the classes of men, as Linnaeus numbered the plants. Most of them remain to this day: others that are obsolete, and may well be dispensed with, still live in his descriptions of them. Such is the Sompnoure: "A Sompnoure was ther with us in that place, That hadde a fire-red cherubinnes face, For sausefleme he was, with eyen narwe, As hote he was, and likerous as a sparwe, With scalled browes blake, and pilled berd: Of his visage children were sore aferd. Ther n'as quicksilver, litarge, ne brimston, Boras, ceruse, ne oile of tartre non, Ne oinement that wolde clense or bite, That him might helpen of his whelkes white, Ne of the knobbes sitting on his chekes. Wel loved he garlike, onions, and lekes, And for to drinke strong win as rede as blood. Than wolde he speke, and crie as he were wood. And whan that he wel dronken had the win, Than wold he speken no word but Latin. A fewe termes coude he, two or three, That he had lerned out of som decree; No wonder is, he heard it all the day.-- In danger hadde he at his owen gise The yonge girles of the diocise, And knew hir conseil, and was of hir rede. A gerlond hadde he sette upon his hede As gret as it were for an alestake: A bokeler hadde he made him of a cake. With him ther rode a gentil Pardonere-- That hadde a vois as smale as hath a gote."