is not in
Chaucer--for he knew that "smale foules" shelter in the "hethe" as well
as in the "holt"--among broom and bracken, and heath and rushes. Chaucer
does not _say_, as Mr Horne does, that the birds _dream_--he leaves you
to think for yourself whether they do so or not, while sleeping with
open eye all night. Such conjectural emendations are injurious to
Chaucer. We presume Mr Horne believes he has authority for applying "so
pricketh hem nature in hire corages" to the folks that "longen to go on
pilgrimages"--and not to the "smale foules." Or is it intended for a
happy innovation? To us it seems an unhappy blunder--taking away a fine
touch of nature from Chaucer, and hardening it into horn; while "all
energies and ages" is indeed a free and affected version of "corages."
"For to wander thro'," is a mistranslation of "to seken;" and to "sing
the holy mass," is not the meaning of to "serve halwes couthe," _i.e._
to worship saints known, &c.

Turning over a couple of leaves, we behold a modernization of the
antique with a vengeance--

"His son, a young squire, with him there I _saw_,
A lover and a lusty bache_lor_! (aw) (ah!)
With locks crisp curl'd, as they'd been laid in press,
Of twenty year of age he was, I guess."

Chaucer never once in all his writings thus rhymes off two consecutive
couplets in one sentence so slovenly, as with "I saw," and "I guess."
But Mr Horne is so enamoured "with the old familiar faces" of pet
cockneyisms, that he must have his will of them. Of the same squire,
Chaucer says--

"Of his stature he was of _even length_;"

and Mr Horne translates the words into--

"He was in stature of the common length,"

They mean "well proportioned." Of this young squire, Chaucer saith--

"So hote he loved, that by nightertale
He slep no more than doth the nightingale."

We all know how the nightingale employs the night--and here it is
implied that so did the lover. Mr Horne spoils all by an affected
prettiness suggested by a misapplied passage in Milton.

"His amorous ditties nightly fill'd the vale;
He slept no more than doth the nightingale."

Chaucer says of the Prioresse--

"Full well she sang the service divine
Entuned in hire nose ful swetely."

Mr Horne must needs say--

"Entuned in her nose with _accent_ sweet."

The accent, to our ears, is lost in the pious snivel--pardon the
somewhat unclerical word.

Chaucer says of her---

"Ful semely after