mingle in proud tournaments where eager beauty is leaning from balconies, and the ranged knights, with spear in rest, wait but for the trumpet's blast and the herald's cry; and with equal ease sit with a couple of drunken friars in a tavern, laughing over the confessions they hear, the pardons they dispose of, and singing questionable catches between whiles. Chaucer's range is as wide as that of Shakspere,if we omit that side of Shakspere's mind which confronts the other world, and out of which Hamlet sprang,-and his men and women are even more real, and are more easily matched in the living and breathing world. For in Shakspere's characters, as in his language, there is surplusage, superabundance; the measure is filled and running over. Romeo is more than a human lover, and the stabbed Mercutio more than a mortal wit; the kings in the Shaksperian world are more kingly than earthly sovereigns; Rosalind's silvery laughter was never heard save in the Forest of Arden. The madmen seem to have eaten of some 66 strange root;" no such boon-companion as Falstaff ever heard earthly chimes at midnight; the very clowns are transcendental, with startling scraps of wisdom springing out of their foolishest speech. Chaucer, lacking Shakspere's excess and prodigality of genius, could not so gloriously err; and his creations, wearing no superfluous nimbus, have a harder, drier, more realistic look; are more like the people we hear uttering ordinary English speech, and see on ordinary country roads against an ordinary English sky. If need were, any one of them could drive pigs to market. Chaucer's characters are individual enough, their idiosyncracies are sharply enough defined, but they are to some extent literal and prosaic, they are of the earth earthy." Out of his brain no Ariel ever sprang, no half-human half-brutish Caliban erept. He does not effloresce in illustrations and images, the flowers do not hide the grass; his pictures are masterpieces, but they are portraits, and the man is brought out by a multiplicity of short touches-caustic, satirical, humorous, and matter-of-fact. Reading his poems is like going into a country town on a market day; you see lots of people, every one different from the other in countenance, speech, and attire, but you do not find, nor do you expect to find among the crowd an angel or a demigod.

The "Knight's Tale" is a chivalrous legend, full of huntings, battles, and tournaments. Into it, although the scene is laid in Greece, Chaucer has, with a fine scorn of anachronism, poured all the splendour, colour, pomp, and circumstances of the fourteenth century. It is real cloth of gold. Compared with it Ivanhoe seems a spectacle at Astley's. The style, too, is more adorned than usual; although even here, and in the richest parts, the short, caustic, homely Chaucerian line is largely employed. Here is a noble passage, when Palamon and Arcite are about to decide by single combat which of them should possess the fair Emily, exhibiting Chaucer in his highest mood :—

"And in the grove, at time and place y-set,
This Arcite and this Palamon be met.
Then changen grew the colour of their face,

Right as the hunter in the regne of Thrace

That standeth at a gappè with a spear
When hunted is the lion or the bear,
And heareth him come rushing in the greves,
And breaking both the boughès and the leaves,
And thinketh here cometh my mortal enemy,
Withouten fail he must be dead or I."

Here is the tournament in which the arms of the princely champions are nerved by love, Emily, whose fatal beauty was the cause of all, looking down on the wild mêlée from a balcony:

"Then were the gatès shut, and cried was loud,
'Now do your devoirs, younge knightès proud,'
The heralds left their pricking up and down,
Now ringen trumpets loud, and clarioun.
There is no more to say, but east and west
In
go the spearès sadly in the rest;

In go'th the sharp spur into the side,

Then see men who can joust and who can ride;
Then shiveren shaftès upon shieldès thick,
He feeleth through the hearte-spoon the prick.
Up springen spearès twenty foot in height;
Out go the swordès as the silver bright:
The helmets they to-hewen and to-shred;
Out burst the blood, with sterne streamès red.
With mighty maces the bonès they to-brest,
He through the thickest of the throng gan threst.
There stumblen steedès strong, and down go'th all,
He rolleth under foot as doth a ball.

He foineth on his foe with a truncheon,

And he him hurtleth with his horse adown."

All this is wonderfully concise, vivid, and powerful; and great art is shown in the subordination of individual prowess, "He rolleth," "He foineth," to the feeling of universal combat. No single hero rides "lord of the ringing lists;" it is the wild mêlée and tumult of a hundred knights.

In the tales to which we have already adverted, Chaucer is humorous or picturesque; in some others, he pierces the depths of patience and sorrow. The stories of Constance and Griselda are among the most precious and tender things in our literature. These ladies are of the same rare stamp as Shakspere's Cordelia. They are the white lilies of womanhood. They are clothed with the beauty of holiness. How tender and delicate Chaucer is, how profound his pity for human distress, may be seen from his description of Constance, when she is put with her little child into the boat, and sent drifting out into the vast, salt unfriendly sea :

"Weepen both young and old in all that place,
When that the king this cursed letter sent;
And Constance with a deadly palè face,
The fourthe day toward the ship she went;
But natheless she taketh in a good intent,
The will of Christ, and kneeling on the strand,
She saide, 'Lord, aye welcome be thy hand.'

"The little child lay weeping in her arm,
And kneeling piteously, to him she said,

'Peace, little son, I will do thee no harm,'
With that her coverchief off her head she braid,
And over his little eyen she it laid,

And in her arms she lulleth it full fast,
And into the heaven her eyen up she cast.

"O little child, alas! what is thy guilt?
Thou never wroughtest sin as yet, pardie;
Why will thine harde father have thee spilt?
O mercy, deare constable, (quoth she)
As let my little child dwell here with thee,
And if thou dar'st not saven him from blame,
So kiss him onès in his father's name."

"Therewith she looketh backward to the land,
And saide Farewell, husband ruthèless;'
And up she rose, and walketh down the strand
Toward the ship; her followeth all the press :
And ever she prayeth her child to hold his peace,
And taketh her leave, and with a holy intent,
She blesseth her, and into the ship she went."

Can anything be more simple and touching than this description? How affecting the circumstance of the forlorn mother taking off her coverchief" to bind the eyes of her little child! The line,

"And ever she prayeth her child to hold his peace,"

makes the tears start almost. The old religious story is full of pity and the tenderest truth; and showing that Chaucer is as much at home in the distracted heart of the banished and innocent queen, as amongst armed knights, and banners, and the dust of tournament, or the ribaldry of drunken friars in a tavern, it gives a competent idea of the variety and the circuit of his powers.

ALEXANDER SMITH.

VII. NATURAL HISTORY IN HOME EDUCATION. THE study of Natural History does not, at the present time, take its proper place as a branch of general education. It seems desirable therefore to put forward in a systematic form its claims to recognition, so that they may be fairly considered by a tribunal competent to decide. Natural History seeks for admission to the youthful mind, at each successive stage of development, in the home circle, in the schoolroom, in the University. It comes under different guises, and in some of its many aspects it may be welcome to all. I propose in the present paper to treat of it as fitted for childhood; and to examine the effects which, at that period, it is capable of producing on the mental and moral constitution. The term Natural History I shall use as embracing, in a general sense, the series of studies that treats of animals and plants, whether recent or fossil, their structure, functions, habits, arrangement, and distribution; and ever bear in mind that the

true, the really important object in the education of youth, "is not so much to give a certain amount of knowledge, as to awaken the faculties, and give the pupil the use of his own mind." *

Goodrich, an American writer, better known in this country by his popular appellation of Peter Parley, says: "I would commend the study of children not to parents alone, but to all, as an interesting and important theme of philosophical inquiry. . . . Study childhood. Be not too eager for the remote, when the near and the familiar are so worthy of attention."

These words occur in a work bearing the expressive title of Fireside Education, and designed to show, in the first instance, "that the controlling lessons of life, those which last the longest, those which result in fixed habits and permanent tastes, and usually determine the character for good or ill, are given in early life; that they are given at the fireside seminary; and that here the parent, as well by the ordinance of God as the institutions of society, is the teacher." These propositions it is needless here to discuss; the supreme importance of early training, physical, intellectual and moral, may be taken for granted; and these conclusions being admitted, it is only needful to glance at that continuous, though unconscious education that is ever going on amid the busy idleness of childhood. It flourishes in the atmosphere of home, no matter what that home in itself may be. It belongs not to the school-room, but to the nursery and the playground; it has reference not to the master, but to the playmate and the nurse, who are often in their own sphere the most effective and most cherished instructors.

I wish now to inquire if Natural History, in some of its attractive aspects, might not advantageously form a part of this home-education. If so, what kind of influence would it exert on the expanding faculties? Would children find it agreeable or repulsive, intelligible or obscure? What would be its effect as one of the vents for the restless activity of childhood? In discussing such subjects it is necessary to speak of trivial things, for by trivial circumstances are characters moulded, and by slight but recurring causes are permanent habits acquired.

When entering on such an inquiry, we must of course begin with infancy, and here we are struck with the fact that our very senses must be trained to action, and that it is consequently by a species of education that the right use of them is acquired. To see, to feel, to hear, and to guide the hand to an object, are achievements which demand long and repeated efforts. What would not the philosopher give for a true record of these attempts, and a faithful analysis of the sensations, perceptions, and nascent ideas of external things which they infer? What experiments could equal in value those which would make us acquainted with the awakening of the mind,-with that "troubling of the waters," which gives the first indication that man bears within him a something which is not "of the earth, earthy. Those who have watched the faint dawnings of intellect, and the gradual brightening that heralds in the day, will have observed that chil* Channing.

dren very early become acquainted with certain objects, and indicate when eight or ten months old their instantaneous detection of changes in those things to which they are accustomed. Such observers will testify that next to the familiar faces of the members of their own family, there are no objects which attract their attention sooner, or more powerfully, than our domestic quadrupeds. The dog, the cat, the horse and the cow, are to them wonders. Not only do they become acquainted with the figure, colour, and movements of these animals, but with their various cries; so that long before the infant lips are capable of articulating the name of the dog or of the cow, the bark of the one, and the lowing of the other, will be attempted, and will be so associated with the animal as to serve instead of a name. Thus with children an imitative or natural language precedes the artificial. The imitated sound is to them the representative of a certain idea, namely, that of the quadruped. Ideas therefore relating to a class of natural history objects, are among the earliest mental acquirements of children.

But they do not long remain content with the knowledge that their own feeble powers of observation can furnish. So soon as they possess the means of asking for information, how ceaseless are the inquiries! how boundless their range! "How does the sun give light!" "Why does water not drown a fish?" "What makes a bird able to fly! Every one familiar with children will call to mind questions of a similar kind; and every parent will recollect inquiries eminently suggestive, but which he was altogether unable to answer. It will be admitted by all, that children manifest an eager desire for additional information respecting animals and plants.

It is of great consequence to the child that the spirit of inquiry should not be checked. It gushes forth spontaneously, singing and prattling in its course, and converting the most arid wastes into meads clothed with verdure and bedecked with blossoms. Let not this

natural outpouring be repressed; the future progress of the child demands that it should be encouraged, and that it be guided into safe and legitimate channels. Too often an opposite course is pursued. "Natural history," says Edgeworth,* "interests children at an early age, but their curiosity and activity are too often repressed and restrained, by the ignorance or indolence of their tutors. The most inquisitive genius grows tired of repeating 'pray look at this. What is it? What can the use of this be?' when the constant answer is, 'Oh, it's nothing worth looking at, throw it away, it will dirty the house.

If this spirit of inquiry be not checked, and children be encouraged to observe and to seek for information, they rapidly extend their little circle of familiar objects, and evince a considerable amount of discrimination. They remark the size and plumage of our most common birds, notice the gay wings of the butterfly, the more sombre tints of the "poor beetle we tread upon," cull the daisy and the buttercup, and gather on the beach, shells of various shapes and colours. Let a

* Practical Education.