great arteries of London. The Romans knew
of it, and perhaps made it; or perhaps even the
Britons, in the pre-Roman times, had already
marked out a track to the southern coast
through the marshy soil which in those days
here spread itself about the uncertain confines
of the river. In the middle ages, it was often
thronged by pilgrims to the shrine of Thomas à
Becket, and hence arose the number of inns by
which the way is lined; for the pilgrims were
commonly very jolly fellows, and did not
consider it necessary to mortify themselves on the
road. To this day, the White Hart, the George,
the King's Head, and the Talbot—the last the
most famous of all, under its more ancient and
correct name of the Tabard—remain almost
untouched, to remind us of the times when people
travelled at the rate of only a few miles a day,
and were obliged, even in the course of a short
journey, to put up for the night at hostelries
large enough to accommodate a small army with
bed and board. At the White Hart,
Shakespeare introduces Jack Cade, and it was here
that Mr. Pickwick first made the acquaintance
of Mr. Samuel Weller: the house until the last
few weeks remained exactly as it was on the
latter occasion, and as it manifestly had been
for some centuries; but, as I write, it is being
pulled down. Older than the White Hart, or
any of the others, however, is the Tabard, and
round its walls and on its roof will glimmer, as
long as they shall last, the very dawn-light of
English poetry.

"In Southwark," writes Stow, as far back as
1598, "be many fair inns for receipt of travellers;
amongst the which the most ancient is
the Tabard, so called of the sign, which as we
now term it is of a jacket or sleeveless coat,
whole before, open on both sides, with a square
collar, winged at the shoulders: a stately
garment of old time, commonly worn of noblemen
and others, both at home and abroad in the
wars; but then (to wit, in the wars) their arms
embroidered, or otherwise depict upon them,
that every man by his coat of arms might be
known from others. But now these tabards are
only worn by the heralds, and be called their
coats of arms in service." It was from this
house, towards the close of the fourteenth
century, that nine-and-twenty pilgrims set forth on
that journey which gave rise to the Canterbury
Tales of Geoffrey Chaucer. At this distance
of time we are little concerned with the
speculation whether or not any such pious company
ever really started from the Tabard under the
exact circumstances described by our great old
poet. That pilgrimages to the shrine of St.
Thomas à Becket were frequent at that period,
we know as a matter of history; and that they
started from hostelries in the neighbourhood,
at which they had previously mustered, is so
probable as to be almost certain. Chaucer,
though inclined to liberal views in religion, to
the extent even of being a Wicliffite, was
doubtless well enough disposed to join in the
religious ceremonies of his age, if only for the
sake of observing character; and it is therefore
not at all unlikely that he actually formed one
of a band of pilgrims who baited at the Tabard
the night before their journey to the Kentish
city. Again, it is probable enough that at least
some of his characters are life-portraits; they
certainly have all the effect of literal truth.
But, even if they are pure inventions, they have
been clad by the genius of the poet with that
mysterious vitality which is more enduring than
the mere life of flesh and blood. What men
and women of the old days of Edward the Third
and Richard the Second—apart from such as
have become famous, historically or otherwise—
possess a tithe of the reality of those jovial
pilgrims who told tales of mirth and sadness, of life
and love and death, of marvel and enchantment
and saintly miracle, as they ambled by the way,
and who shall continue to tell them in the free and
facile verse of Chaucer as long as this English
tongue is spoken on English ground, or in any
region peopled by our race? The Knight who
had fought in many strange lands, Christian and
Heathen, and yet was "of his port as meek as
is a maid;" the Squire, his son, "a lover and a
lusty bachelor," singing and fluting all day,
accomplished in all feats of chivalry, and embroidered
in his attire as a mead with fresh white
and red flowers; the Yeoman, with his nut-
head and brown visage, and his "sheaf of
peacock arrows bright and keen," borne thriftily
under his belt; the Prioress, who was simple
and coy of her smiling, and yet such a sweet
human soul, so all-compact of "conscience and
tender heart," that we love her like a friend;
the Monk, who evidently thought more of
horseflesh than of devotion, and rode with a bridle
jingling in the wind like the chapel bells; the
Friar, wanton and merry, who heard confession
"sweetly," and gave absolution "pleasantly,"
and was great at weddings, and knew the taverns
in every town better than the very beggars;
the Merchant, who never lost an opportunity of
proclaiming his vast increase in wealth, and
who managed matters so well that no one had
any idea he was in debt; the Clerk of Oxenford,
who cared for books above everything else in
the world, and who did not speak a word
beyond what was necessary; the Sergeant of the
Law, "wary and wise," who knew all the
precedents from the time of William the Conqueror
downwards; the Franklin, who was "Epicurus's
own son," and loved in the morning a sop in
wine, and in whose house it "snowed of meat
and drink;" the Cook, who had an intimate
knowledge of "a draught of London ale," and
was unrivalled in the making of blanc-mange;
the Seaman, who rode clumsily, as all seamen
do, and was a good fellow, though not caring
much for nice points of conscience, and was
brown with the hot summer, and had felt many
a tempest in his beard; the Doctor of Physic,
who was grounded in astronomy, and studied
the Bible but little, and read Æsculapius, and
Hippocrates, and Galen, and Avicenna, and
would eat nothing but what was very nourishing
and digestible, and that not in excess; the Wife
of Bath, handsome and free, and somewhat