though they are to drunkenness.

And yet another

The

point is that England is not now a conquering country. War brings mourning, but it brings elation also. meanest man in the population partakes of the sense of power which a victory brings to a country. Once more, we must take into account, perhaps, the gradual civification of the surface of the land, and the removal of the country to a distance from the eyes of so large a number of the people. The return of the Spring, the sight of the near meadows, 'painted with delight,' as Shakespeare says, the sights and sounds of harvesthome, were all occasions of common joy to the people in a thousand places where they now miss any such excitements, sweet and wholesome as they were. It may be said, even now, that when the fine days begin, the town pours out its wholesome merriment into the green suburbs, whoever stays within the stony bounds for amusement. The sweethearts, and the boys and girls, all whose hearts overflow with natural gladness, -go off into the fields to romp and be gay. If they want any pleasure made for them, it is of a very simple character, -a merry-go-round is enough; but better is the pleasure they make for themselves at kiss-in-the-ring or leap-frog. It is scarcely possible to doubt that there was more of this spontaneous pleasure-making in the England of the Edwards than there is now. But of course the change in this particular is part of a larger change which lies, we hope, in the path to a greater good. The lightsomeness, of

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which I spoke as a main characteristic, of Chaucer's writings, is long ago gone from our literature, and the other forms of our art do not help us as they ought. When our religion and our art have overtaken the problems set them by the changing conditions of our history, we shall have no reason, even if we now had any reason, to regret Merry England.

CHAPTER VII.

THERE was once a magistrate who, acting impromptu, in every case of wrong-doing that came before him, upon an old maxim which is well known, used to ask at once, Well, who is she?'-so convinced was he that there was a woman at the bottom of all human misfeasance. But there is no real humour in this; because woman, being half the human race, is at the

We

bottom of everything, good, bad, and indifferent. cannot escape her, turn which way we please; and the reader of these pages will have to put up with a good deal more of her, before I have done. What did I have for dinner yesterday, John?' said the doubting gentleman. Yesterday? a chop and a steak, sir!' To which the gentleman made answer, meekly, 'Oh, then let me have a steak and a chop today.' We must return, for a few paragraphs, to the subject of the part played by women in mediæval life because we must try somewhat more seriously than we have as yet done, to get at the heart of England in the days of Chaucer; but I hope not to weary the reader by mere repetitions and transpositions of certain ideas as elementary in their way as any simples of modern eating.

I. In the Middle Ages the Church had taken possession of all the critical periods of life. It had said, 'There is nothing sacred but what we make sacred.' Everything was, so to speak, excised and made to pay toll, in money or in sentiment, to the Church. It seized the human being at birth, and said, 'We must christen him or he will be lost.' It took him up again at marriage, and said, "The instinct which underlies the attraction of sex is deadly sin, but we will do what we can for you, and by a sacramental process we will convert this foul, corrupt, and damnable thing into something venial.' It pursued the human being to his

death-bed, and sent him out of the world with the tolling of a sprinkled bell (necessary for frightening away evil spirits) and the sacrament' of extreme unction. From first to last it took possession of humanity; would neither let it come into the world, increase the world, or go out of the world without its authoritative interference, in the sense, not of a willing helper, but of one who had property in a vassal or villein, and could pronounce him and all his possibilities unclean and damnable, if without ecclesiastical sanction for his very existence and all his functions.

Pleasure or delight was the especial hatred of an asceticizing Church; and, above all, the delight which we habitually roof over in our thoughts with the words 'a happy home.' As many people of both sexes as it could possibly induce to celibate it did, and upon the married state itself it placed every restriction it could think of. There was not a corner of conjugal life that it did not invade with its petty inquisitiveness and its noisome adjectives. When it could do no more, it could at least call names. It married men and women at the church door, and did its best to prevent a

The Wife of Bath says,

'I thank it God, that is eterne on lyve,

Housbandes atte chirch dore I have had fyve.'

I think it is at Norwich Cathedral that there is a sculptured representation yet existing of a marriage at the church door. After the marriage, the priest used to go up to the altar and there celebrate the mass, at which the bride and bridegroom 'assisted.'