as also the men and women of his age, as they appeared in their
outward life. He describes the passion of love with great
tenderness and simplicity. In all his poems, love is his greatest
theme,--which he bases, not on physical charms, but the moral
beauty of the soul. In his earlier life he does not seem to have
done full justice to women, whom he ridicules, but does not
despise; in whom he indeed sees the graces of chivalry, but not the
intellectual attraction of cultivated life. But later in life,
when his experiences are broader and more profound, he makes amends
for his former mistakes. In his "Legend of Good Women," which he
wrote at the command of Anne of Bohemia, wife of Richard II., he
eulogizes the sex and paints the most exalted sentiments of the
heart. He not only had great vividness in the description of his
characters, but doubtless great dramatic talent, which his age did
not call out. His descriptions of nature are very fresh and
beautiful, indicating a great love of nature,--flowers, trees,
birds, lawns, gardens, waterfalls, falcons, dogs, horses, with whom
he almost talked. He had a great sense of the ridiculous; hence
his humor and fun and droll descriptions, which will ever interest
because they are so fresh and vivid. And as a poet he continually
improved as he advanced in life. His last works are his best,
showing the care and labor he bestowed, as well as his fidelity to
nature. I am amazed, considering his time, that he was so great an
artist without having a knowledge of the principles of art as
taught by the great masters of composition.

But, as has been already said, his distinguishing excellence is
vivid and natural description of the life and habits, not the
opinions, of the people of the fourteenth century, described
without exaggeration or effort for effect. He paints his age as