"He hadde ymade ful mony a mariage
Of yongè women, at his owen coste;"
and Mister Horne brazen-facedly,
"Full many a marriage had he brought to bear,
For women young, and _paid the cost with sport_."
O fie, Mister Horne! To hide our blushes, will no maiden for a moment
lend us her fan? We cover our face with our hands.--Of this same Frere,
Mr Horne, in his introduction, when exposing the faults of another
translator, says that "Chaucer shows us the quaint begging rogue playing
his harp among a crowd of admiring auditors, and _turning up his eyes_
with an attempted expression of religious enthusiasm;" but Chaucer does
no such thing, nor was the Frere given to any such practice.
Of the Clerk of Oxenford, Chaucer says, he "loked holwe, and thereto
soberly." Mr Horne needlessly adds "ill-fed." Chaucer says--
"Ful threadbare was his overest courtepy."