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his significant way, as a work held in great estimation by the ladies. The Nun's Priest, speaking of the tale of the Cock and the Fox, which he is relating, says to his hearers,
"This story is al so trewe, I undertake,
"As is the book of Launcelot du Lake,
"That women holde in ful gret reverence."
Canterbury Tales: V. 15147.
"As is the book of Launcelot du Lake,
"That women holde in ful gret reverence."
Canterbury Tales: V. 15147.
The great father of our poetry, by the way, is a little ungrateful with his jokes upon chivalrous stories, of which he has left such noble specimens in the Palamon and Arcite, and in the unfinished story of Cambuscan, which Milton delighted to remember; but both he and the Italian poets appear to have laughed at them occasionally, as lovers affect to do at their mistresses. I have in my possession an imperfect copy of Launcelot of the Lake in Italian, and have taken occasion of my story, to give an abstract of the beginning of
