21 APRIL 1900, Page 23

The Chaucer Canon. By the Rev. Walter W. Skeet. (Claren-

don Press. 3s. Gd.)—Professor Skeet states some tests, grammatical and metrical, which are drawn from undoubted works of Chaucer, and by which poems which lack external evidence may be tried. The "Remount of the Rose" is the most important work that comes in question. The " Romannt " is a translation of a much longer French poem of 22,074 lines,—i.e.. about a third longer than the Iliad. The " Romaunt " consists of a version of 1-5,610 and 10,710.12,664, or about a third of the original. Professor Skeet has no difficulty in satisfying himself that the first portion, 1-1,705, is genuine, that the second, 1,706-5,619, is an imitation (by some Northern poet, who did not, however, contemplate a fraud, not knowing, as Professor Skeet cuttingly remarks, "that there would be a race of critics who could not tell Northern dialect from Southern "), and that the third is also spurious. It is needless to go through the list of pieces variously attributed to Chaucer. Professor Skeet care- fully examines them all, and will probably be allowed to have said the last word on the question.