LITERATURE OF ENTERTAINMENT
Of Chaucer’s works he prints the immortal “Canterbury Tales”; and in the “Proem”〖H. C., xxxix, 18. For examples of the “Canterbury Tales,” see H. C., xl, 11-51.〗 to this book he expatiates in praise of Chaucer’s style and substance, both because “he comprehended his matters in short, quick, and high sentences, eschewing prolixity, casting away the chaff of superfluity, and shewing the picked grain of sentence uttered by crafty and sugared eloquence”—a characterization of the first great master of English which few of his later critics have bettered. The whole tone of this “Proem” is of a singularly noble and elevated enthusiasm, and in its evident genuineness and warmth it makes us forget that we are reading one of the earliest of English publishers’ advertisements.