characteristics.

For not only are we at the opening of the "Canterbury Tales" placed in the
very heart and centre of English life; but the poet contrives to find for
what may be called his action a background, which seems of itself to
suggest the most serious emotions and the most humorous associations. And
this without anything grotesque in the collocation, such as is involved in
the notion of men telling anecdotes at a funeral, or forgetting a
pestilence over love-stories. Chaucer's dramatis personae are a company
of pilgrims, whom at first we find assembled in a hostelry in Southwark,
and whom we afterwards accompany on their journey to Canterbury. The
hostelry is that "Tabard" inn which, though it changed its name, and no
doubt much of its actual structure, long remained both in its general
appearance, and perhaps in part of its actual self, a genuine relic of
mediaeval London. There, till within a very few years from the present
date, might still be had a draught of that London ale of which Chaucer's
"Cook" was so thorough a connoisseur; and there within the big courtyard,
surrounded by a gallery very probably a copy of its predecessor, was ample
room for

--well nine and twenty in a company
Of sundry folk,

with their horses and travelling gear sufficient for a ride to Canterbury.
The goal of this ride has its religious, its national, one might even say
its political aspect; but the journey itself has an importance of its own.
A journey is generally one of the best of opportunities for bringing out
the distinctive points in the characters of travellers; and we are
accustomed to say that no two men can long travel in one another's company
unless their friendship is equal to the severest of tests. At home men