in April, 1388. They go further still and identify Chaucer's host
with the actual Henry Bailley, who certainly was in possession of
the Tabard in years not remote from that date. The records show that
he twice represented the borough of Southwark in Parliament, and
another ancient document bears witness how he and his wife,
Christian by name, were called upon to contribute two shillings to
the subsidy of Richard II. These are the dry bones of history; for
the living picture of the man himself recourse must be had to
Chaucer's verse:

"A semely man our hoste was with-alle
For to han been a marshal in an halle;
A large man he was with eyen stepe,
A fairer burgeys is ther noon in Chepe;
Bold of his speche, and wys, and well y-taught,
And of manhood him lakkede right naught.
Eke thereto he was right a merry man."

No twentieth century pilgrim to the Tabard inn must expect to find
its environment at all in harmony with the picture enshrined in
Chaucer's verse. The passing years have wrought a woeful and
materializing change. The opening lines of the Prologue are
permeated with a sense of the month of April, a "breath of
uncontaminate springtide" as Lowell puts it, and in those far-off
years when the poet wrote, the beauties of the awakening year were
possible of enjoyment in Southwark. Then the buildings of the High
street were spaciously placed, with room for field and hedgerow;
to-day they are huddled as closely together as the hand of man can
set them, and the verdure of grass and tree is unknown. Nor is it
otherwise with the inn itself, for its modern representative has no