Moliere paints the times of Louis XIV., and Homer the heroic
periods of Grecian history. This fidelity to nature and
inexhaustible humor and living freshness and perpetual variety are
the eternal charms of the "Canterbury Tales." They bring before
the eye the varied professions and trades and habits and customs of
the fourteenth century. We see how our ancestors dressed and
talked and ate; what pleasures delighted them, what animosities
moved them, what sentiments elevated them, and what follies made
them ridiculous. The same naturalness and humor which marked "Don
Quixote" and the "Decameron" also are seen in the "Canterbury
Tales." Chaucer freed himself from all the affectations and
extravagances and artificiality which characterized the poetry of
the Middle Ages. With him began a new style in writing. He and
Wyclif are the creators of English literature. They did not create
a language, but they formed and polished it.

The various persons who figure in the "Canterbury Tales" are too
well known for me to enlarge upon. Who can add anything to the
Prologue in which Chaucer himself describes the varied characters
and habits and appearance of the pilgrims to the shrine of Thomas
Becket at Canterbury? There are thirty of these pilgrims including
the poet himself, embracing nearly all the professions and trades
then known, except the higher dignitaries of Church and State, who
are not supposed to mix freely in ordinary intercourse, and whom it
would be unwise to paint in their marked peculiarities. The most
prominent person, as to social standing, is probably the knight.
He is not a nobleman, but he has fought in many battles, and has
travelled extensively. His cassock is soiled, and his horse is
strong but not gay,--a very respectable man, courteous and gallant,
a soldier corresponding to a modern colonel or captain. His son,