192 Otto Jespersen: Anm. af Alfred W. Pollard, Chaucer. presented it in so readable ἃ form. ‘The book is, on the whole, a worthy companion to Prof. Dowden’s excellent Shakspere Primer, published by the same firm. After a brief Introduction, the first chapter is headed «Chaucer, the King’s Servant» and relates the story of his life, apart from his poetry. The date of Chaucer's birth is given as 1340 or ἃ year or two earlier; but I do not see any reason why we should not place it some years later; any date up to 1345 fits better in with the well known statement in the Το Scrope suit. — On p. 8, I am glad to find the author warning us «against taking Chaucer's mysterious and unhappy love too seriously or too literally». In my little book on Chaucers Liv og Digtning, which appeared a short time before Mr. Pollard’s, I have taken the same view and supported it by a reference to the tone pervading the last third of the Merciless Beauty. — I am equally glad to see that our author rejects the cousin or namesake theory of Chaucer’s marriage; but when, on p. 16, he narrates the raptus of Cecilia de Chaumpaigne as an incident in the poets married life, he ought to have mentioned that raptus by no means need imply any elopement with the young lady; the word may as well signify the abduction of a ward from a tyrannous guardian, and Chaucer’s conduct on this occasion has, perhaps, been extremely praiseworthy (cf. Modern Language Notes, 1891, p. 248); but, of course, we cannot affirm anything with certainty. Neither are we able to tell whether or not the poet’s marriage was a happy one; Mr. Pollard is inclined to think it was, and adduces the reason for his supposition that the gibes at marriage and the disrespectful utterances on the softer sex generally occur only in the poems written after his wifes death. «Chaucer was ἃ less religious and a less clean-spoken man when his wifes infiuence was removed than he had been during her life.» However interesting this view may be, the inference is hardly the only one possible; for might we not with almost as much right say: «The poet’s wife seems to have been a shameless vixen who led him a terrible life; during her lifetime he dared not even in his poems give vent to his feelings, making only the extremely tame allusion in the Aouse of Fame to the ungoodly tone in which she awakens him of a morning; but as soon as he got rid of her dreaded presence, he made attacks on marriage and on married wives one of his favourite themes and evidently spoke from bitter experience»? What I mean to say is, of course, that we had better state nothing at all about Chaucer’s married life till some day, perhaps, we shall know something positive about it. Chapter II gives a brief, but sufficient account of Chaucer’s reading and of the literary influences traceable in his works; and chapter III deals with the reasons for discarding some poems as spurious and for arranging the genuine ones chronologically. Then