Anglo-Saxon forms might affect the grammar as well as the delicacy of the writer's meaning; to leave old words and old grammatical forms, and modernise the rest, might appear incongruous. All this may be true; but it does not alter the fact that the spelling is nearly as great an obstacle as the language. Moreover, it may be observed that no settled rules of orthography are observed by the writers or the copyists, differences being found even in juxtaposition. In the Creed of Piers Ploughman, the word "little" stands in one line as we now spell it, in the next it is "lytel." Chaucer in one place spells mine host of the Tabard "oste;" a few lines further on he uses the modern orthography "host;" it is also found as "hoste," at other times as "ost." The orthographical variations running through the entire works of a writer are still more numerous. Chaucer spells the word "much" in seven different ways, says Mr. Bell; while "the past tense of the verb 'to see' is rendered into at least ten different forms." So much, indeed, is the trouble of perusal enhanced to a beginner by the accident of spelling, that we believe a skilful reader could make Chaucer perfectly intelligible to a mixed audience, by merely changing the obsolete words (or giving their meaning in a sort of vocal parenthesis). Every one would recognise the words when heard, though they would be a puzzle if seen. Neither would such a reader have to pronounce so many halting lines as is commonly asserted, if, instead of trying to count syllables on his fingers, he accommodated his voice to the poet's language, moving as it ever does with his conceptions. This last opinion can of course only be tested by the living voice. A short example will indicate the obstacles which spelling interposes. The lines are from the Vision of Piers Ploughman:

"Impe on an ellere,

And if thyn appul be swete,

Muchel merveille me thynketh;

And moore of a sherewe

That bryngeth forth any barn,

But if he be the same,

And have a savour after the sire;

Selde sestow oother."

In all this only one word is obsolete ("ellere"), though "impe" is obsolete in the sense of " to graft.' Modernise the spelling, and the meaning is clear of the rest, though the use of "but if" may be odd:

"Impe (graft) on an ellere (elder-tree),
And if thine apple be sweet,

Much marvel me thinketh;
And more of a shrew

That bringeth forth any bairn,

But if (unless) he be the same,

And have a savour after the sire;
Seldom see'st thou other."

11. 5471-5478.

In fact the spelling produces the same effect as a bad handwriting; we do not read it-we have to decipher it.

But steady application will soon conquer difficulties arising from mere language, though only practice will give the familiarity with old modes of thought and diction which is requisite to produce facility of perusal and thoroughness of apprehension. The real obstacles to the popularity of even the greatest medieval writers lie deeper than language, often extending to the form and substance. A student looks for dryness in technical or scientific books. But he makes up his mind to persevere, finding his reward, not only in the acquisition of knowledge, but in the growing interest he feels in the subject as his knowledge increases. A work of imagination is expected to supply that interest of itself by exciting our sympathies; if it does not, the reader is disappointed. But the greatest genius must have something congenial to appeal to in the mind he addresses; and that something we believe is essentially knowledge, with its associations. What is the interest of a "general reader" in a book on mathematics, or on any other scientific or professional subject, compared with the interest of a practitioner or professor? The apathy with which the public mind regards Indian topics and Hindoo literature is mainly owing to ignorance, for the Hindoo mythology is not more absurd than the Scandinavian or Egyptian: Hindoo men and women display the passions and feelings of a common humanity, though coloured and modified by Oriental habits: the worldly and moral maxims of their works often exhibit the conclusions of a just observation: but the English public knows little or nothing of India, and will not be at the trouble of learning, so that to readers in general the Hindoos are an abomination. An indifference, though much less in degree, is exhibited even towards English writers of a past age, and the indifference is greater the more the age differs from our own in manners and opinions, habits of thinking, and of expressing its thoughts. Except Shakespeare, the great Elizabethan dramatists cannot be called popular. Their successors of the Restoration, and the play-writers to the close of the last century, are pretty much in the same predicament. So, perhaps, are the poets, with the exception of Milton, Pope, and Goldsmith. We still talk of Addison and Steele; but few, we fancy, read them,

save students of history or manners. The collected essays of the last century, called the British classics, are quite gone out. Except his dictionary, the world reads Johnson in Boswell; for the gloomy philosophy of Rasselas, or the weight of thought

and strength of expression in his poetry, are only perused by the few, though many may quote his lines without knowing the author. When writers removed from us by only two centuries and a half at the most, and the latest of whom were contemporaries of our grandfathers, have thus fallen out of mind, we can scarcely wonder that those who flourished nearly five hundred years ago should not have much attraction for persons who read without a regular object, or indeed without any object except to amuse themselves at the least expense of mental exertion.

Moreover, there are reasons, or at least excuses, for the popular reader. The medieval writers, as Dryden speaking of Chaucer expresses it, "lived in the infancy of our poetry, and nothing is brought to perfection at once." Although we think the halting character of medieval verse is exaggerated, there are undoubtedly many prosaic lines to be found, and many that will not scan, though they may not be lame if judiciously read. In short, the writers of the middle ages had made little advances in literary mechanics, and though mere mechanical finish cannot long furnish a substitute for weight of thought or felicity of expression, it will support attention for a while, or at least not fatigue it. The medieval writers, if not strictly prolix, are sometimes minute to tediousness. The form of their worl;s is frequently that of allegory or vision, or both in combination. Their story and narrative is consequently often artificial or lifeless, sometimes confused. The critic has prepared himself to expect this, and the faults themselves furnish him with noteworthy matter. But the popular reader, scarcely acquainted with any literature, or indeed with any thing beyond that of his own time, and rendered intolerant by the very narrowness of his range, is cut off from such sources of interest. It is only persons of a peculiar taste who will find even in the Canterbury Tales the perpetual beauties and sustained interest a certain school ascribes to them. Passages equal to those of later poets in power and harmony, and sometimes superior in natural touches, will be found in the three great poets of the fourteenth century, namely, the author of Piers Ploughman, Chaucer, and Gower. A humour quaint, dry, rich, or delicate, and racy of the English soil, will frequently be met with. A worldly wisdom, as keen as that of Bacon's in Tudor times, seems to have been an equal necessity under the Plantagenets, and the reader will often come upon maxims in the pithy lines of these writers which are still in use as proverbs. Moral philosophy, religious toleration, nay, strange as it may seem to an age that is somewhat prone to consider all times preceding it as ignorant and semi-barbarous, "advanced liberal opinions," are occasionally put forth, which, we flatter ourselves, are our own discoveries. All these

excellencies, however, are parts, counterbalanced by other parts dry, tedious, or commonplace, or at least which seem commonplace to us, though they might not have been at the time of writing.

The obstacles enumerated are common to most works of another age, or written in a language which is strange to the reader. There are circumstances connected with the fourteenth century which are further opposed to modern taste, namely, the predominance of the scholastic philosophy, the incongruities between the theory and practice of chivalry, and the opinions regarding the commerce of the sexes, rendered fashionable by the Courts of Love. Whether the real power of the scholastic philosophy had begun to decline in Chaucer's age may be matter of question, but whatever internal germs of decay existed, its direct influence over the minds of men was yet potent. In Chaucer's lifetime (1328-1400) no educated mind could escape its sway, or prevent its spirit from becoming part of his intellectual nature. Coleridge truly remarked, that the modern world is more indebted to the schoolmen than it is disposed to acknowledge; but the value is chiefly in results. Their quaint, subtle, and exhaustive reasoning, their rigorously formal logic, their metaphysical and fanciful, or at least unreal, speculations, and the abstruse character of their real topics, founded as they were on abstract entities, are not adapted to obtain popularity, at all events in our times. When the influence of the scholastic philosophy appears in medieval works in the form of didactic or religious discussion, they are likely to interest the student, whatever effect they may have on the general reader, because there is a congruity of place, and the philosophy is exhibited as it were in action. Where a storyteller exhausts an incident, as he would an argument in the schools, or a lover talks of his passion, or presses his suit in the manner of a pleader and with the spirit of a casuist, a further tediousness is added to that resulting from over-minuteness and remote manners.

The spirit of chivalry and the notions on love then prevalent gave a further peculiarity to that age, though rather moral than intellectual. More fortunate than the school philosophy, the influence of chivalry over modern society has been allowed, if not sufficiently; for to that we owe the sense of honour, the spirit of fairness, and that unique production, the modern English gentleman. Of course the practice of many knights was different from the theory of their order. Still, as a body, they would seem to have supported something of the ideal character that attaches to them in "fable or romance." The knight, in fact, was the greatest ideal of the age; the king and the ploughman being the two other ideals. The exception to this

poetical conception is in matters amatory. From the true knight, indeed, a conventional fidelity was required almost superhuman, proof against coldness, cruelty, absence, temptation, and enchantment. But morality seems to have been by no means essential. It was indifferent whether his lady was "maid, wife, or widow," or a mistress par amour. In the case of the famous Sir Lancelot (whose doings have lately been revived among us), neither duty, gratitude, nor honour were any sort of check to his adulterous passion; and he justifies the plain remarks of Roger Ascham on "Arthur's knights," and their "open manslaughter," and other evil-doing not to be mentioned to ears polite.

This lax sense of morality is not very surprising when we consider the course through which the world had passed. The gross and naked sensuality of the northern barbarians who overthrew the Roman Empire had combined with the corruption of the ancient civilisation. To this must be added the boundless licentiousness in which the celibate priests of a pure religion indulged themselves, and the consequent evil example to the world. Some, indeed, have ascribed this moral laxity to the Provençal poets and the "Courts of Love;" but neither the one nor the other caused medieval immorality, though they might encourage by giving it form, system, and a poetical sanction. Whatever of elevation, devotion, or "dignified obedience" was then infused into the passion of love, really originated in the spirit of chivalry. The troubadours might endow it with a meretricious grace and an erotic logic, in form derived from the schoolmen, and in arguments from a libertine casuistry, something more than traces of which may still be found in continental writers, especially in modern fictionists of France. The stamp of la mode, the authority of custom, and the weight of a regular system were given by the Courts of Love. These very curious institutions would require an essay to themselves as regards origin and constitution, without, after all, leading to any sure conclusions. It is clear, however, that they consisted of ladies, and probably men, of fashion; that the court sat "in the month of May, in an open field, under an elm-tree," and considered such cases as were brought before it. The courts had no legal means of enforcing their decrees; but, such is the authority of fashion, they seem to have been obeyed. Many, perhaps most, of the cases reported are not well authenticated. One principle alone seems clearly established,—all sense of wifely fidelity or duty was disregarded, while female honour consisted at best in not being found out. The husband—quâ husband-had no locus standi against the wife or the gallant, though his existence might be recognised under some love-laws,