Of all the pictures drawn by Chaucer, the portraits of the pilgrims in the Prologue to the _Canterbury Tales_ are the most valuable for our present purpose, as showing us the men and women who were to be seen daily in the streets of London.
It is a difficult matter to appraise the relative positions of our great authors, but probably the true test of immortality is the creation of living characters. It is largely the dramatic power displayed in the Prologue to the _Canterbury Tales_ which places Chaucer by the side of Shakespeare.
The river has made London, and London has acknowledged its obligations to the Thames. It was the Silent Highway along which the chief traffic of the city passed during the Middle Ages, and, probably, the roads of London would have been better if the water carriage had not been so good. The river continued to be the Silent Highway until the nineteenth century, when it lost its high position. With the construction of the Thames Embankment the river again took its proper place as the centre of London, but it did not again become its main artery.
We have seen in the previous chapter how the poet Gower met King Richard II. near Westminster and was summoned to the royal barge.
Fitz-Stephen gives a vivid description of the sports on the Thames: 'In the Easter holidays they play at a game resembling a naval engagement. A target is firmly fastened to the trunk of a tree which is fixed in the middle of the river, and in the prow of a boat, driven along by oars and the current, a young man, who is to strike the target with his lance; if in hitting it he break his lance, and keep his position unmoved, he gains his point, and attains his desire; but if his lance be not shivered by the blow he is tumbled into the river, and his boat passes by, driven along by its own motion. Two boats, however, are placed there, one on each side of the target, and in them a number of young men to take up the striker when he first emerges from the
[Illustration: VISSCHER'S VIEW OF LONDON, A.D. 1616.
_Section (reduced) from the Re-production by the Topographical Society of London._]
stream.... On the bridge, and in balconies on the banks of the river, stand the spectators.' Four centuries after this Stow describes a somewhat similar scene: 'I have also in the summer season seen some upon the river of Thames rowed in wherries, with staves in their bands, flat at the fore end, running one against another, and for the most part, one or both overthrown, and well ducked.'