SATIRE.--His touches of satire and irony are as light as the hits of an
accomplished master of the small-sword; mere hits, but significant of deep
thrusts, at the scandals, abuses, and oppressions of the age. Like
Dickens, he employed his fiction in the way of reform, and helped to
effect it.

Let us illustrate. While sitting at the table, Chaucer makes his sketches
for the Prologue. A few of these will serve here as specimens of his
powers. Take the _Doctour of Physike_ who

Knew the cause of every maladie,
Were it of cold or hote or wet or drie;

who also knew

... the old Esculapius,
And Dioscorides and eke Rufus,
Old Hippocras, Rasis, and Avicen,

and many other classic authorities in medicine.

Of his diete mesurable was he,
And it was of no superfluite;

nor was it a gross slander to say of the many,

His studie was but litel on the Bible.

It was a suggestive satire which led him to hint that he was