into this house, and sees its distinguished occupants standing upon
columns of different kinds of metal, according to their merits. The poem
ends with the third book, very abruptly, as Chaucer awakes from his
vision.

"The Legend of Good Women" is a record of the loves and misfortunes of
celebrated women, and is supposed to have been written to make amends for
the author's other unjust portraitures of female character.


THE CANTERBURY TALES.--In order to give system to our historic inquiries,
we shall now present an outline of the Canterbury Tales, in order that we
may show--

I. The indications of a general desire in that period for a reformation
in religion.

II. The social condition of the English people.

III. The important changes in government.

IV. The condition and progress of the English language.

The Canterbury Tales were begun in 1386, when Chaucer was fifty-eight
years old, and in a period of comparative quiet, after the minority of
Richard II. was over, and before his troubles had begun. They form a
beautiful gallery of cabinet pictures of English society in all its
grades, except the very highest and the lowest; and, in this respect, they
supplement in exact lineaments and the freshest coloring those compendiums
of English history which only present to us, on the one hand, the persons