LAST LEAVES. THE fifth and sixth volumes of ENGLISH WRITERS, which should have been ready in 1889, have been deferred by time lost in the act of getting leisure. But the leisure is secured, and, while health lasts, the half-yearly volumes will now, it is to be hoped, keep fair time with the coming and the going of the swallows. The sixth volume-From Chaucer to Caxton-should be ready next October. The first chapters will still deal with the times of Chaucer, and complete the record of the Fourteenth Century while carrying its life into the Fifteenth. It will be most convenient, for example, to connect John Barbour with a sketch of the development of Scottish literature, and to make the account of our old English songs and romances as continuous as possible. Twenty-three years have gone by since the first publishing of the study of Chaucer, which has remained without reprint until it could be here revised. It was written when there were few aids to a student beyond the accepted texts, which were read through again with close attention. The fragment of "The Romaunt of the Rose" was read line by line with the original, and study of "Filostrato" and the "Teseide" was joined with the reading of "Troilus" and the Knight's Tale." No change has been made in observations founded upon such comparisons. If made again they would be less fresh, and might be confounded with the later work of other students. But the interval of three-and-twenty years has been filled by many faithful labourers with successful seeking for light on the poet and his works. A few conclusions, that hereafter may prove just, have, I think, been too hastily taken as established; but the real advance made has been very great, so great that I dare not hope to have done more than suggest to the reader the importance and variety of recent Chaucer studies. I have tried, however, to pay due respect to the work of all my fellow-students, among whom let me especially name, in Germany, Professor ten Brink; in England, Professor Skeat and Dr. Furnivall. Professor Skeat's Clarendon Press edition of Chaucer's Minor Poems, with Introduction and Notes, published in 1888, his edition of the "Legend of Good Women," and his Clarendon Press editions of "Canterbury Tales,” should be in the hands of all who have learnt that it is good to add Chaucer himself to the number of their home companions. Dr. Furnivall's six-text edition of "The Canterbury Tales," with much other solid work that has followed upon his founding of the English Chaucer Society, is also built to last. As the record in ENGLISH WRITERS of the Literature of the Fourteenth Century is not yet quite finished, the continuation of the Bibliography is still reserved. It will come most conveniently at the end of the next volume, when we sum up that part of our history which deals with Literature before the Invention of Printing. And so we go on with study of the voice of Literature as the voice of Life, Hominem pagina nostra sapit. The right spirit of Chaucer lives and grows among his students, and in the great fellowship of men whom he took for kindred and taught how to deal with one another.-In the name of Sir Thopas, rhyme ! There's health in men whom Chaucer's pen Has lifted to simplicity, Who sit above, and laugh and love And care not for-who is it? he But fit their bit of ready wit To common life's reality. Could Chaucer give us force to live His patient satisfaction too; Could Chaucer teach his faith to each Then we should find how to be kind Of God's eternal verity; Its flow would show the life below A light robe of sincerity. Carisbrooke, May, 1890. II. M PRINTED BY CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED, LA BELLE SAUVAGE, London, E.C. 25.690. |