“No more of this, for Heaven’s high dignity!” Quoth then our Host, “for, lo! thou makest me So weary of thy very simpleness, That all so wisely may the Lord me bless, My very ears, with thy dull rubbish, ache. Now such a rime at once let Satan take. This may be well called ‘doggrel rime,’” quoth he. “Why so?” quoth I; “why wilt thou not let me Tell all my tale, like any other man, Since that it is the best rime that I can?” “Mass!” quoth our Host, “if that I hear aright, Thy scraps of rhyming are not worth a mite; Thou dost nought else but waste away our time:— Sir, at one word, thou shalt no longer rhyme.” p. 39CHAUCER’S Friar’s Tale; Or, The Sumner And The Devil. p. 39 MODERNISED BY LEIGH HUNT. MODERNISED BY LEIGH HUNT. There lived, sirs, in my country, formerly, A wondrous great archdeacon,—who but he? Who boldly did the work of his high station In punishing improper conversation, And all the slidings thereunto belonging; Witchcraft, and scandal also, and the wronging Of holy Church, by blinking of her dues In sacraments and contracts, wills and pews; Usury furthermore, and simony; But people of ill lives most loathéd he: Lord! how he made them sing if they were caught. And tithe-defaulters, ye may guess, were taught Never to venture on the like again; To the last farthing would he rack and strain. For stinted tithes, or stinted offering, He made the people piteously to sing. He left no leg for the good bishop’s crook; Down went the black sheep in his own black book; For when the name gat there, such dereliction Came, you must know, sirs, in his jurisdiction. There He had a Sumner ready to his hand; A slyer bully filched not in the land; For in all parts the villain had his spies To let him know where profit might arise. Well could he spare ill livers, three or four, To help his net to four-and-twenty more. ’Tis truth. Your Sumner may stare hard for me; I shall not screen, not I, his villainy; For heaven be thanked, laudetur Dominus, They have no hold, these cursed thieves, on us; Nor never shall have, let ’em thieve till doom. [“No,” cried the Sumner, starting from his gloom, “Nor have we any hold, Sir Shaven-crown, On your fine flock, the ladies of the town.” “Peace, with a vengeance,” quoth our Host, “and let The tale be told. Say on, thou marmoset, Thou lady’s friar, and let the Sumner sniff.”] “Well,” quoth the Friar;
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