UNI\rERSITr ARCHIVES a y%/n^ Mvxycrdty of California • Berkeley THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA CHRONICLE AN OFFICIAL RECORD Voi...XriNo.3 Commencement Address The Irish Influence in Civilization Flush Times at Potosi Charles Franklin Doe Chaucer's Book of the Duchess University Record Benjamin Ide Wheeler Charles Mills Gayley Bernard Moses Benjamin P. Kurtz l. w. cushman Albert H. Allen JULY. 1909 I68UED QUARTERLY Chie Dollar a Year THE UNIVERSITY PRESS BERKELEY FLUSH TIMES AT POT SI. 239 that these persons were servants in dis^ise. What was [ expected to follow did follow : anger that would not reason, . murder, and at last, when it was too late, a revelation of the whole series of events as a scheme arranged by Claudia ' to remove the person whom she vainly fancied was the only ; obstacle to the realization of her ambition. The temporary prominence attained by a Dona Clara or a Claudia was due to the large number of homeless ad- venturers in the population, to the relatively small number ' of European women, and to the very limited influence ex- ercised by wives and mothers, either in the home or in society in general. In a community kept turbulent by the passions of greed and avarice, and by expectations of ex- traordinary wealth, homely pleasures and homely virtues appeared too tame and colorless to be attractive. The women who broke down the barriers that surrounded the narrow life of the household, who threw virtue and all the forms of social restraint to the winds, and who spent their gains in personal adornment and luxurious living did not want for admirers and champions in the brief periods of their worldly glory. But a notable phase of the society supercharged with violent emotions was a series of horrible crimes, in which women had an active part. Jealousy, vengeance, and the desire to redress a wrong were effective motives to acts in which the hands of women were often smirched with blood. In this society, agitated and torn by conflicting passions, there was only a feeble undertone of unworldliness. Men and women suffered here the ordinary ills of human ex- istence, disappointment, loss of property, treachery of pre- tended friends; and a few sought to escape from these ills by retiring behind the walls of religious houses. But the great majority of the inhabitants were not woman-hearted. The civil wars that raged in Peru brought individual evils as well as public disaster. But in these early decades, the Spanish colonist manifested a virility that commends him to those who admire the heroic qualities of men. 240 UNIVEBSITY OF CALIFORNIA CHEONICLE. CHARLES FRANKLIN DOE. Benjamin P. Kurtz. In the year of the Declaration of Independence, Deacon John Doe, aged twenty-seven, and his wife Elizabeth settled in the western part of the town of Parsonsfield, Maine. Parsonsfield, in the mountainous Ossipee region in the south- west corner of Maine, is a typical New England town of the good old breed. One John Tuck, not the original Eng- lish friar, but his descendant in sturdiness at least — a New England farmer and a patriotic citizen of Parsonsfield — roundly expressed the fame of that region in his speech at the celebration of the town's centennial in 1885. ''To be a Roman citizen," he said, ''was once accounted a high honor. Now a nativity among the mountains of New Eng- land is a better passport to favor with the gathering mill- ions in the increasing States of the West, than a birthplace in any other country on the globe. "^ The proprietors of land in Parsonsfield are particularly proud of the fact that they can trace their titles straight back to the aboriginal owners of the soil. Captain Lundy was the name of the Indian chieftain who, in voluntary return for depredations committed by his tribe, deeded to Francis Small, November 28, 1668, the land lying between the Great and Little Os- sipee rivers. Small was an Indian trader and probably the first white man to enter the region. Later the General M History of the First Century of the Town of Parsonsfield, Maine. Portland, Maine: 1888. CHARLES FBANKLIN DOE. 241 Court of Massachusetts confirmed Small's title, and by- intermediate conveyances the tract passed from hand to hand, under various subdivisions, until the proprietors met, in 1785, at the house of Thomas Parsons and incorporated the town of Parsonsfield. In the western and most picturesque part of the town is a little New England ''mountain." From its summit one may contemplate at leisure a panorama of woods and fields. To the west lies Green Mountain; below, the plain is colored with fertile farms and groves of pine, in the center of which gleams the placid surface of Province Pond. In the distance are more mountains — the rugged crest of Chocorua and the higher peak of Mount Washington — ^while scattered through all the spring verdure, and diversifying it in an enchanting fashion, are innumerable ponds, or lakes. New England ponds ! One, at least, in every town- ship! Quiet, one-hundred or two-hundred acre sheets of deep, clear water, fringed with a strip of white oak, birch, and maple, — they are to the inhabitants of the region what his burns and lochs are to the Caledonian, what his fjords are to the Norwegian. On top of the pygmy mountain and in full sight of many such ponds, Deacon John Doe built his house. While great matters of taxation and war were rife in Boston, the young Baptist deacon, with his wife and first daughter, had traveled from Newmarket, New Hampshire, up the Pisacataqua river, perhaps, and Salmon Falls, past the Blue Mountains and Teneriffe, until he had entered the region that a century before had swarmed with the Ossipee Indians. In that same earlier century his ancestors had been busy migrating to the New World. Two brothers, Nicholas and Sampson Doe, had come from England about 1650, and had settled at Newmarket. Now their grandson, the Baptist Deacon, had moved his chattels further into the heart of the great, new country. And this bit of a moun- tain — thereafter called Doe Mountain — ^was to become for 242 UNIVEBSITY OF CALIFOBNIA CHRONICLE. four generations the Doe homestead; and there he raised seven more children, making in all a Maine family of eight. The sixth child, Bartlett Doe, who was born in 1785, and who afterwards was a prominent Mason and a success- ful farmer, became a colonel in the second regiment of the Maine militia, and raised a family of twelve children ! By all accounts the Colonel was what used to be called a ''very personable sort of a man." He was, according to the rather quaint words of the historian of Parsonsfield, ' ' a man of high moral standing, a courteous gentleman of the old school, of a large, generous, loving nature, with every trait of genuine, robust and kindly humanity, and fully alive to every touch of true manliness. He believed in the development of every part of our nature, placing the foun- dation of excellence in deep religious principle, but not overlooking or underrating the claims of social and mental culture. When a young man, he was enrolled in the militia, where, displaying great military capacity, he soon rose from the ranks to the several grades of officers, and was finally commissioned as Colonel of the Second Regiment of Maine Militia. He was at that time of tall and command- ing form, of fine proportions, broad shoulders and full chest; his features were regular and handsome, his voice clear and resounding, and when clad in his uniform and mounted upon his caparisoned steed made a most distin- guished appearance." Uprightness, integrity, and natural ability — stem, ca- pable, New England qualities — ^were the marks of the Doe men. They reached surely after the simple and substantial rewards of industry, and held them firmly. The Colonel's well-tilled acres and bursting granaries proved the sane, careful husbandman's thought behind all that bravery of the resounding voice and caparisoned steed! The names of the Colonel's twelve children would be recognized in any corner of the United States as the roster of a New England family : Martha and Mary were twins ; CHARLES FBANELIN DOE. 243 Captain Alvah Doe seems to have followed his father's mil- itary and Masonic proclivities ; Amzi came next ; then Han- nah, Bartlett junior, John, Elizabeth, Calvin the first (who died an infant), another Calvin to take the first one's place, Nancy, and, last of all, and when the line was beginning to lose some of its vitality, Charles Franklin Doe, the sub- ject of this biographical sketch. Every two years a child had seen the light for the first time through the shutters of the old homestead on Doe Mountain. That had kept up for twenty-two years. Charles Franklin closed the indus- trious line, and sealed it with his own insufficient birthright of vitality, August 13, 1833. The history of the life of Charles Doe is the history of how the indomitable but quiet and careful will of the Par- sonsfield Does maintained itself, and wrought with almost unstinted success, in the delicate body of the youngest of twelve children. The immediate ancestors of Charles F. Doe had not partaken vividly, picturesquely, dramatically in the stirring events of the early war-days ; they had been farmers, or colonels and captains of militia whose military operations were limited to the hills and ponds of the Os- sipees. But they had been a part of the great, silent, sure- getting, careful-spending. God-fearing, New England sub- stratum of the nation. They were not heroes; they were taxpayers. And that solid sureness, that unvarying exact- ness of daily doing of the daily task, that Puritanical bed- rock of character — more indispensable to the nation than its heroes — was the character the large inheritance of which more than made up for the physical frailty of the boy Charles, and finally guided him to a mature and phenomenal financial success in a strange land on the other side of the continent. The first period of his life, up to his migration to Cali- fornia, opens to us the spectacle of a persistently indus- trious spirit constantly dogged, constantly thwarted, in its various attempts by ill health. After a common school 244 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFOBNIA CHRONICLE. education at Parsonsfield and some time at the Seminary at Drakes Corner, Effingham, just over the New Hamp- shire border, Doe began to make his own way as a school- teacher at Parsonsfield. He was thrown entirely upon his own resources. Neither then, nor at any other time, did he receive aid from his family. Very soon the confined life of a teacher affected his health for the worse. Noth- ing daunted, he moved to Boston and learned the carpen- ter 's trade. Characteristically, the man was snatching op- portunity from misfortune: ill health necessitated an out- door occupation; carpenter work was outdoor work, and carpenter work in Boston might lead a young and ambi- tious man up to contractor's work, and, beyond that, to wholesale or retail commerce in building materials! But again ill health thwarted his plans. The air of Boston was not suited to his physical condition. Another change was necessary. For a short time he was employed in the post- office at Biddeford, Maine. But only for a short time. Changing to Biddeford was not snatching opportunity from defeat, — was not the way of a Doe. If the change must be to a freer and wider air, that freer and wider air ought to be found in a land of new opportunity, in a young land growing to greatness, full of promise to the energetic and ambitious. In 1850, Bartlett Doe, his elder brother, had gone to California, and another brother, John, had followed two years later. There they had established, under the firm name of ''B. and J. S. Doe," a sash, door, and blind busi- ness, which was to last half a century. To the delicate but ambitious younger brother the opportunity was obvious : California — square miles, cubic miles, of fresh air — a grow- ing country — a lumber business! In 1857 Charles came to San Francisco and associated in business with his brothers. Doubtless his practical experience as a carpenter stood him in some stead in this wider business. r Later he formed a partnership with James Knowland CHABLES FRANKLIN DOE. 245 for the purpose of engaging in the retail lumber business. After a time this partnership was dissolved, and the busi- ness continued under the name of Charles F. Doe and Company. In these ventures the fortune of Charles Doe was made; in these ventures, and in investments made with their gains, thousands rolled up thousands, until the million mark was passed and repassed and passed again. The sickly boy had spent his years in the new country; he had nursed his health there, steadily and frugally ; there, when he did business under the sign of Charles F. Doe and Company, he had achieved the vision of the Boston car- penter ; and, by extending to that business the same qualities of foresight, frugality, indomitable perseverance, and suc- cessful management in the face of failure, which had brought him through the earlier years of his life, he had won a financial success that had put him, and kept him until his death in 1904, in the first rank of San Francisco capitalists. Even since his death the business he so wisely and carefully built up during his life has continued its success under the management of his nephew, Frank P. Doe. There was nothing spectacular about this success. There was no wild speculation in western bonanzas. A sanely, conservatively managed business in a profitable commod- ity brought in sure returns. The returns were loaned out at moderate interest, or invested in city real estate that invariably increased rapidly in value. Real values alone attracted Charles Doe's attention; there was in his business no commercial thievery by means of fictitious and inflated valuations — no making of fortunes by mere desk jugglery of pen and ink. Money earned money in a quiet, legitimate fashion; there was no buccaneering under the euphemistic cover of "astute financial operations." And this quiet, honest business — so good to reflect upon, so« heartening in the midst of universal sensationalism and moral flippancy — was all conducted in San Francisco. 246 UNIVEBSITY OF CALIFORNIA CHRONICLE. There Charles Doe earned his money honestly, and there he invested it wisely, — a New Englander transplanted to San Francisco and not afraid or ashamed to live the stem, simple, placid life of the older and more staid community in the new and gayer and less conscientious metropolis. He was an argonaut who forgot not the lessons of his first home in the glamour of new opportunities. In California he came to man's estate. No picture of him is left to us. None is extant, save a daguerreotype taken just before he started for California. Temperamen- tally he was subject to an intense dislike of the camera — a subjection to which not a few modest, and perhaps over- serious, people — not necessarily New Englanders — are quite painfully bound. But the Doe men all look alike; a de- scription of one is a picture of the clan. Spare in old age, but not emaciated ; some five feet ten inches in height, and about one hundred and fifty pounds in weight ; a long face, with full beard; prominent forehead, and firmly modeled nose, bushy eyebrows, with eyes rather contemplative or judicial than aggressive, the brows and lids rather long and well apart — those were the main points of appear- ance. In habits, Charles Doe was the personification of regularity. The daily routine of his life was seldom varied : stated hours for rising, for breakfast and his walk to the office, for attention to business, and for the other simple arrangements of each day^s life. He belonged to no fra- ternal orders. His evenings were uniformly, year after year, spent at home — after 1888 at the home he built for himself on the corner of California and Laguna streets, where his niece, Mrs. Martha A. Swan, kept house for him. He never traveled to any extent; he was never out of the United States. He had few intimates. Shy, retiring, deli- cate, he never mixed with his fellows. In that respect he was the opposite of his elder brother Bartlett, to whose quick, warm, positive nature the entire family, Charles included, looked for sympathy and advice. Especially in CHABLES FBANKLIN DOE. 247 the presence of women, Charles Doe evinced a shyness that left him singularly without feminine companionship save that of the women of his own immediate family. Books were his companions. In them he found a quiet, leisurely, and faithful substitute for the more various and precarious companionship of men and women. And, characteristic- ally, even in this friendship with books, a certain thorough- ness and frugality showed itself; for he was not a light reader of many books, but a deep reader of a few. And the few were books richly remunerative in knowledge and common sense. Natural science and astronomy were his favorite subjects; Darwin, Huxley, and Spencer the au- thors he read most. In religion he was a Universalist, looking out impartially and benevolently upon the variety of religious sects, seeing much good in all, and never allow- ing the narrowness of vision or smallness of nature often evinced by this or that sect to embitter his view of human character or its religious ideals. Under all changes and colors of creed he saw the one common human nature; and that human nature was truly beloved by the quiet, simple New Englander. His will is proof of that: Chris- tian and Jew, Catholic and Protestant, benefit alike by the wise charities of that noble document. The list of his legacies includes, among others, such societies as the fol- lowing: The San Francisco Protestant Orphan Asylum Society, the Pacific Hebrew Orphan Asylum and Home Society, The Roman Catholic Orphan Asylum, The Hos- pital for Children and Training School for Nurses, The Boys and Girls Aid Society, and The Golden Gate Kinder- garten Association. In that list of legacies — all to societies dealing with the care of children — ^there seems to be a mute testimony of a deep affection going out from the heart of a lonely man to the children whom he could never know in the more loving way of a father. There is much peace and much love behind the bare, terse law phrases in which the gifts 248 UNIFEESITY OF CALIFOBNIA CHRONICLE. are declared; just as behind the stern, simple lines of the donor's New England countenance there was a deep, sure love for the peaceful ways of children. His kindness and generosity found expression during his life in the loving way in which, year by year, he entertained his relatives on the happy feast days of the calendar. About his table on holidays, especially on Thanksgiving Day and at Christ- mas, simply and joyously he gathered his kin. At such times the self-contained nature of the man seemed to his relatives, both old and young, like the benediction of one for whom the cares of the world had eventuated in a per- fect and constrained peace, in a wise, calm, masterful reconciliation with his lot in life. But what was to be the final fruit of this quiet, strong life? So much financial success had come to the man that very great power was his. "Was that power to dwindle at his death, accomplishing no perpetual monument of its own rise to greatness, and of its own beneficent and wise, calm dealing with the hurly-burly of life? Was not the dignity of some public and perpetual usefulness to be the eventuation of so much private success? Of these things Charles Doe was not unmindful. He himself saw that private success, when it amounts to more than an individual sufficiency, involves a public duty. He often said that five hundred thousand dollars was enough for any one man, and that all wealth in excess of that amount should, on the owner's death, revert to the state. Many were his quiet charities while alive ; many, as we have seen, were his legacies to charitable institutions. But there yet remained the desire to do his own particular part, to per- petuate in some fashion the quiet, deep ways of his own manner of taking life, of his own springs of action and ideals. Many ideas suggested themselves; he discussed them with his friend and counsellor, Mr. H. B. Phillips. A vast marble mausoleum, to repose in statuesque useless- ness in some hillside cemetery, was out of the question. CHABLES FEANELIN DOE. 249 The quaint problem of ' ' diuturnity " fascinated him, to be sure; the pyramids of Egypt appealed to his imagination, and, even more, the endlessness of years of the California Sequoia — ^what a monument might a Sequoia be, outlasting the pyramids by thousands of years! But usefulness, re- turns on the investment — spiritual, beneficent returns — were a necessity in the eyes of Charles Doe. Opportunities in and about the Golden Gate Park of San Francisco were considered. The Carnegie Libraries were passed in review. Mr. Doe thought that something more centralized would be of greater use. His sum to give was smaller than Mr. Carnegie's, and could not readily admit of a wide distri- bution. Libraries, however, appealed to him; books had al- ways been the companions of his quiet spirit. The loss of the great Alexandrian Library seemed to him one of the irreparable losses of history. Gradually the library idea gained upon him. From talks with Mr. Phillips the idea began to take shape. About two years before his death, just after a severe illness, he had a new will drawn in which he bequeathed to the regents of the University of California twenty-four per cent, of his property, *'in trust for the following purposes : as much as may be neces- sary thereof to be used in the construction and erection of a library building for its Academic Department, and the surplus not used for the construction and erection of a library building to be permanently invested by said Regents, and the income, revenue, and profit thereof to be used for the purchase of books.*' Mr. Doe would have given much more had not the state code contained a provision limiting the percentage of for- tune a man may bequeath to benevolent institutions. Such, then, — a University library building, capacious, invincible to weather and time, removed from the sensa- tionalism of life, returning richly upon the investment in dividends of character and power — a perpetual monument 250 UNIVEBSITY OF CALIFORNIA CHRONICLE. to the will and industry and sure methods that had raised a private success to the measure of a public power, nobly discharging the public duty of that success — such, . then, was the eventuation of the life that had begun quietly and sickly at Doe Mountain, had progressed frugally and gently through the East to the West, and had gone out from East and from West and from all else in the same uneventful fashion it had known all the days of its doing on earth. A great Library — ministering always to the young and the courageous, to the hopeful and the makers of the future; ministering both by its calm, gracious, eternally stanch exterior, and also by the rich, deep hoards of human knowledge and wisdom stored safely in its in- terior; ministering for sanity, conservatism, truth, rever- ence, and public and private responsibility; ministering out of the growing West to the reawakening East — like a modern Alexandria performing to the old civilizations of the past the reverence of a newer world power — such is the culmination of Charles Franklin Doe's life. The gran- ite of the New England character and the granite of Cali- fornia mountains have found each other in a mutual sym- bolism of that which is honest and true from the core out. Of all that large family of brothers and sisters — twelve of them — ^to which Charles Doe belonged, only one, Mrs. Nancy H. Kezar, now remains; but California is proud of the name of Doe, and all Californians will unite with Mrs. Kezar in being glad that the Doe name is perpetuated in this generous fashion. The life of many a man is called by his biographers uneventful. Charles Doe's life was uneventful. But, bet- ter understood, more deeply viewed, Charles Doe's life is the most eventful of all things — ^the growth of a great, sane character day by day — more valuable to the nation than the drama of a conquering war-hero — less obvious, more basal. The magnificent building at Berkeley sym- bolizes the solidity of achievement represented by such CHARLES FBANKLIN DOE. 251 a character and so needed in the midst of our changing, kaleidoscopic national existence. This monument stands for much. To the young men and women of California it can stand for nothing with greater profit than for the character of Charles Franklin Doe, thus epitomized, in relation to the building, by his nephew, Loring B. Doe, in a brief speech at the laying of the cornerstone of the Library: **AnD I WANT TO SAY THIS TO THE YOUNG MEN WHO ARE GOING THROUGH THIS UNIVERSITY: YoU WILL NEVER HEAR THE widow's SIGH ECHO THROUGH THESE RAFTERS; NO OR- PHAN'S TEARS WILL EVER MOISTEN THAT CORNER-STONE, NOR WILL THERE BE ONE UNCLEAN DOLLAR IMBEDDED IN THOSE MASSIVE WALLS: FOR ChARLES F. DoE HAD NOT ONE CENT 252 UNIVEBSITY OF CALIFORNIA CHRONICLE, CHAUCER'S BOOK OF THE DUCHESS. L. W. CUSHMAN. Chaucer's Book of the Duchess has, curiously enough, not received at the hands of the critics the treatment it may fairly be said to deserve. The most that is usually accorded it is some discussion of the sources or of the form, a mere summary or a brief comment, almost always un- favorable. Whatever their motives or their point of view, our literary historians and critics certainly do not help us very materially towards an appreciation of this piece of work. The criticisms of the principal historians. Ten Brink, Lounsbury, Courthope and Root, are, to say the least, discouraging and deterrent. The others are either flippant or superficial. It would seem that, as regards the Book of the Diichess, there has crept into Chaucerian criti- cism, all unconsciously, a bias or prejudice, due, possibly, to the magnitude and excellence of Chaucer's later work. But it is a mistake to regard any one of Chaucer's works as negligible or as despicable, or to rest content merely with condemnation or with perfunctory comment, — unless the piece be, indeed, thoroughly bad. Far more helpful would it be, it seems to me, if critic and student alike would approach this poem, not in the spirit of bias or of indifference, but in the spirit and with something of the * A paper read by title at the English Department Meeting, March 26, 1909. CHAUCER'S BOOK OF THE DUCHESS. 253 eagerness of those who first saw and read it — the courtiers of Edward III. This is by no means difficult or impossible. To them it was a new work of art by that "Squire of the King's Chamber" who, no doubt, had already won not a little reputation as a versifier. Those other great works of his, upon which we expend so much enthusiastic and pain- ful study — ^the Troiliis and Cressida, the Parliament of Fowls, and the Canterbury Tales — were as yet undreamt of, even by their author ; but this poem, the Book of the Duch- ess — ^was it not then a bran-new poem by a popular and scholarly courtier, the greatest yet produced in English? Was not everybody impatient to get hold of it, as the manu- script copies came fresh from the hands of the scribe, or were passed about from one to another ? Was not the sub- ject, too, one in which all were deeply and mournfully in- terested 1 If so, then it has an interest and a value for us, however highly we may value Chaucer's other works. At the risk of tediousness let us gather the more sig- nificant statements of the principal critics. A rapid survey of these will at once disclose a highly interesting situation. Professor Ten Brink declares that the Book of the Duchess abounds in learned digressions, and that, in the ending, which was probably planned as a climax, Chaucer "misses his aim and spoils the effect of his poem." M. Sandras, who long ago attempted to prove the dependence of Chau- cer on the French, though he praises the beauty of certain passages, emphatically denies to Chaucer both originality and art; in his estimation, the Book of tlve Duchess is the "weakest of Chaucer's works." Professor Lounsbury clearly refutes the contention of M. Sandras that Chaucer lacks originality, but he joins with him in condemning the art of the Book of the Duchess; the digressi'ons are, he con- siders, "improper digressions," "gross deviations from propriety caused by the anxiety to display learning. ' ' Pro- fessor Courthope says of it that ' * The design * * * is barren of genuine invention, * * * the action is clum- 254 UNIVEBSITY OF CALIFORNIA CEBONICLE. sily conducted," and the effect of a "dramatic climax" is spoiled. Mr. Root of Princeton in his recent book, The Poetry of Chaucer y finds serious fault with the ' ' long drawn out speeches" and the * ' unintermitted pedantry" of this poem, and declares that, ''on the whole, it furnishes but weary reading. ' ' Mr. Ward quotes an unnamed writer who makes himself merry over the poem, saying that Chaucer ' ' ought to be ashamed of writing such a thing. ' ' Professor Ker remarks incidentally that the Book of the Duchess is *'no worse than some of Chaucer's other works." Richard Garnett in his Illustrated Record merely says that the poem is an elegy and that "about 1369 Chaucer was under the influence of French poetry whose meters were octosyl- labic." Mr. Snell in his Age of Chaucer finds fault with the * * disproportionately long preface ' ' ; but for some unac- countable reason he devotes to the matter of this preface two full paragraphs, to the matter of the rest of the poem only one. Other critics, such as Minto and M. Jusserand, content themselves with pointing out a few obvious beauties here and there. Mr. Ward's account of the poem in the English Men of Letters, though appreciative, is very mea- ger; so also is Professor Morley's account, apart from the excellent summary he gives. M. Taine does not mention the poem. Whether the faults said to be found by the critics in the Book of the Duchess, as above pointed out — the alleged di- gressions, abrupt ending, pedantic display of learning and conventionality — are really faults or not can best be de- termined by a study of the purpose and plan of the poem, and the circumstances of its production. An examination, somewhat in detail, of these alleged faults, will, I believe, reveal the fact that it is not so immature and artistically inferior as the prevailing criticism would lead one to be- lieve. A sympathetic study of the poem as a whole will certainly go far to restore it to its appropriate place in the estimation of the readers and students of Chaucer.