a
local truth and freshness, which gives the very feeling of the air, the
coolness or moisture of the ground. Inanimate objects are thus made to
have a fellow-feeling in the interest of the story; and render back the
sentiment of the speaker's mind. One of the finest parts of Chaucer is
of this mixed kind. It is the beginning of the Flower and the Leaf,
where he describes the delight of that young beauty, shrowded in her
bower, and listening, in the morning of the year, to the singing of the
nightingale; while her joy rises with the rising song, and gushes out
afresh at every pause, and is borne along with the full tide of
pleasure, and still increases, and repeats, and prolongs itself, and
knows no ebb. The coolness of the arbour, its retirement, the early time
of the day, the sudden starting up of the birds in the neighbouring
bushes, the eager delight with which they devour and rend the opening
buds and flowers, are expressed with a truth and feeling, which make the
whole appear like the recollection of an actual scene:

"Which as me thought was right a pleasing sight,
And eke the briddes song for to here,
Would haue rejoyced any earthly wight,
And I that couth not yet in no manere
Heare the nightingale of all the yeare,
Ful busily herkened with herte and with eare,
If I her voice perceiue coud any where.

And I that all this pleasaunt sight sie,
Thought sodainly I felt so sweet an aire
Of the eglentere, that certainely
There is no herte I deme in such dispaire,
Ne with thoughts froward and contraire,
So ouerlaid, but it should soone haue bote,
If it had ones felt this savour sote.

And as I stood and cast aside mine eie,
I was ware of the fairest medler tree
That ever yet in all my life I sie
As full of blossomes as it might be,
Therein a goldfinch leaping pretile
Fro bough to bough, and as him list he eet
Here and there of buds and floures sweet.

And to the herber side was joyning
This faire tree, of which I haue you told,
And at the last the brid began to sing,
Whan he had eaten what he eat wold,
So passing sweetly, that by manifold
It was more pleasaunt than I coud deuise,
And whan his song was ended in this wise,

The nightingale with so merry a note
Answered him, that all the wood rong
So sodainly, that as it