showrës sweet" and the "foulës song;" of "May with all her flourës and
her green;" of the new leaves in the wood, and the meadows new powdered
with the daisy, the mystic Marguerite of his _Legend of Good Women_. A
fresh vernal air blows through all his pages.

[Footnote 10: Lie.]
[Footnote 11: Laborer.]

In Chaucer's earlier works, such as the translation of the _Romaunt of
the Rose_ (if that be his), the _Boke of the Duchesse_, the _Parlament
of Foules_, the _Hous of Fame_, as well as in the _Legend of Good
Women_, which was later, the inspiration of the French court poetry of
the 13th and 14th centuries is manifest. He retains in them the mediæval
machinery of allegories and dreams, the elaborate descriptions of
palaces, temples, portraitures, etc., which had been made fashionable in
France by such poems as Guillaume de Lorris's _Roman de la Rose_, and
Jean Machault's _La Fontaine Amoureuse_. In some of these the influence
of Italian poetry is also perceptible. There are suggestions from
Dante, for example, in the _Parlament of Foules_ and the _Hous of Fame_,
and _Troilus and Cresseide_ is a free handling rather than a translation
of Boccaccio's _Filostrato_. In all of these there are passages of great
beauty and force. Had Chaucer written nothing else, he would still have
been remembered as the most accomplished English poet of his time, but
he would not have risen to the rank which he now occupies, as one of the
greatest English poets of all time. This position he owes to his
masterpiece, the _Canterbury Tales_. Here he abandoned the imitation of
foreign models and the artificial literary fashions of his age, and
wrote of real life from his own ripe knowledge of men and things.

The _Canterbury Tales_ are a collection of stories written at different