Lectures On The English Poets William Hazlitt

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Of so yong age, as wel in chere as dede.
For though the people have no gret insight
In vertue, he considered ful right
Hire bountee, and disposed that he wold
Wedde hire only, if ever he wedden shold.
Grisilde of this (God wot) ful innocent,
That for hire shapen was all this array,
To fetchen water at a welle is went,
And cometh home as sone as ever she may.
For wel she had herd say, that thilke day
The markis shulde wedde, and, if she might,
She wolde fayn han seen som of that sight.
She thought, "I wol with other maidens stond,
That ben my felawes, in our dore, and see
The markisesse, and therto wol I fond
To don at home, as sone as it may be,
The labour which longeth unto me,
And than I may at leiser hire behold,
If she this way unto the castel hold."
And she wolde over the threswold gon,
The markis came and gan hire for to call,
And she set doun her water-pot anon
Beside the threswold in an oxes stall,
And doun upon hire knees she gan to fall.
And with sad countenance kneleth still,
Till she had herd what was the lordes will."
The story of the little child slain in Jewry, (which is told by the
Prioress, and worthy to be told by her who was "all conscience and
tender heart,") is not less touching than that of Griselda. It is simple
and heroic to the last degree. The poetry of Chaucer has a religious
sanctity about it, connected with the manners and superstitions of the
age. It has all the spirit of martyrdom.
It has also all the extravagance and the utmost licentiousness of
comic humour, equally arising out of the manners of the time. In this
too Chaucer resembled Boccaccio that he excelled in both styles, and
could pass at will "from grave to gay, from lively to severe"; but he