nge gise
And all slitttered for queintise
In many a place, low and hie,
And shode he was with great maistrie
With shoone decoped and with lace,
By drurie and by solace
His leefe a rosen chapelet
Had made, and on his head it set."

He speaks in equally high terms of "Dame Gladnesse."

We can appreciate Chaucer's address to his empty purse--

"To you my purse, and to none other wight
Complaine I, for ye be my lady dere,
I am sorry now that ye be light,
For certes ye now make me heauy chere
Me were as lefe laid vpon a bere,
For which vnto your mercy thus I crie
Be heauy againe or els mote I die.

"Now vouchsafe this day or it be night
That I of you the blissful sowne may here,
Or see your colour like the sunne bright
That of yelowness had neuer pere;
Ye be my life, ye be my hertes stere
Queen of comfort, and good companie
Be heauy againe, or els mote I die.

"Now purse that art to me my liues delight
And sauiour, as downe in this world here,
Out of this towne helpe me by your might
Sith that you woll not be my treasure,
For I am shave as nere as any frere,
But I pray vnto your curtesie
Be heauy againe, or els mote I die."

Chaucer was very fond of allegory. This is especially visible not only
in the "Romaunt of the Rose," but in the "Court of Love," "Flower and
Leaf," the "House of Fame," and the "Cuckoo and Nightingale." In the
"Assembly of Fowls" we have a fable. Chaucer was attached to the service
of John of Gaunt, which may have led to his attacking the clergy, but in
his youth he was fined two shillings for beating a Franciscan friar in
Fleet Street. He favoured Wickliffe, and was for this reason eventually
obliged to flee the country; but he returned and obtained remunerative
appointments. It is said that on his death-bed he lamented the
encouragement which vice might receive from his writings, but their
indelicacy was not really great for the age in which he lived.

Henry Heywood has been called the "Father of English Comedy," and he was
certainly one of the first that wrote original dramas, representing the
ordinary social life of this country. His pieces, which all appeared
before 1550, were short and simple, and seem to us very deficient in
delicacy and humour. But in his day he was considered a great wit, and
as a court-jester drew many a lusty laugh from old King Hal, and could
even soothe the rugged brow of the f