comic humour, equally arising out of the manners of the time. In this
too Chaucer resembled Boccaccio that he excelled in both styles, and
could pass at will "from grave to gay, from lively to severe"; but he
never confounded the two styles together (except from that involuntary
and unconscious mixture of the pathetic and humorous, which is almost
always to be found in nature,) and was exclusively taken up with what he
set about, whether it was jest or earnest. The Wife of Bath's Prologue
(which Pope has very admirably modernised) is, perhaps, unequalled as a
comic story. The Cock and the Fox is also excellent for lively strokes
of character and satire. January and May is not so good as some of the
others. Chaucer's versification, considering the time at which he wrote,
and that versification is a thing in a great degree mechanical, is not
one of his least merits. It has considerable strength and harmony, and
its apparent deficiency in the latter respect arises chiefly from the
alterations which have since taken place in the pronunciation or mode of
accenting the words of the language. The best general rule for reading
him is to pronounce the final _e_, as in reading Italian.

It was observed in the last Lecture that painting describes what the
object is in itself, poetry what it implies or suggests. Chaucer's
poetry is not, in general, the best confirmation of the truth of this
distinction, for his poetry is more picturesque and historical than
almost any other. But there is one instance in point which I cannot help
giving in this place. It is the story of the three thieves who go in
search of Death to kill him, and who meeting with him, are entangled in
their fate by his words, without knowing him. In the printed catalogue
to Mr. West's (in some respects very admirable) picture of Death on the
Pale Horse, it is observed, that "In poetry the same effect is produced
by a few abrupt and rapid gleams of description, touching, as it were
with fire, the features and edges of a general mass of awful obscurity;