had,
As three of them were good, and two were bad.

She meant that the two were rebellious in comparison with the three who
were her slaves; for in speaking of the entire five, at the commencement
of the prologue, she added,

And all were worthy men in their degree.

Pope has fallen into an inconsistency. He states that the three old
husbands were those who "were just tolerable." Yet when he comes to
describe the youngest of the two, whom he here calls "bad," he makes the
wife of Bath exclaim,

Now for my fifth loved lord, the last and _best_,

In Chaucer she distinctly denies that he was the best, but says she
_loved_ him best, and proceeds to explain the reason, which is that
women always value those most who treat them with harshness or
indifference.]

[Footnote 6: This trait in the wife of Bath's character is brought out
more distinctly by Chaucer:

Me needeth not no longer doon diligence
To win their love, or do them reverence.
They loved me so well, high God above!
That I tolde no deynte of their love.
A wise woman will busy her ever in one
To gete her love, there she hath none.
But synnes I had them wholly in my hand
And synnes they had me given all their land,
What should I take keep them for to please
But it were for my profit or mine ease?

"I tolde no deynte of their love," means I set no store by it; "ever in
one" is always; and "take keep" is take care.]

[Footnote 7: The wife of Bath's first lesson in the art of domestic
government is a panegyric upon the advantages of sturdy lying, in which
Pope has not gone beyond the original:

Ye wise wives that can understand
Thus should ye speak, and bear them wrong in hand;
For half so boldely can there no man
Swere and lie as a woman can.

"To bear them wrong in hand" is to affirm wrongfully or falsely. The
phrase "to bear in hand" for "to asseverate," was still frequently used
in the reign of Charles II.]

[Footnote 8: The wife of Bath accuses her old husbands to their faces of
having delivered this kind of railing lecture to her when they had come
home at night "as drunk as mice." The drunkenness and the railing are
alike inventions of her own, but she appeals to her niece, and Jenkin,
the apprentice, to bear witness to the truth of her assertions. The
version of Pope is not so vivid, so lively, or so close to nature as the
original, and he has nearly passed over one of the mo