1. So the Man of Law, in the prologue to his Tale, is made to
say that Chaucer “can but lewedly (ignorantly or imperfectly) on
metres and on rhyming craftily.” But the humility of those
apologies is not justified by the care and finish of his earlier
poems.
2. Born: burnish, polish: the poet means, that his verses do not
display the eloquence or brilliancy of Cicero in setting forth his
subject-matter.
3. Galfrid: Geoffrey de Vinsauf to whose treatise on poetical
composition a less flattering allusion is made in The Nun’s
Priest’s Tale. See note 33 to that Tale.