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 Studies in Chaucer. "It ought not, indeed, to be necessary to say that Chaucer wrote in the speech of his time and wrote in that only. The idea of constructing or re-constructing a language no more entered his mind than it has that of any of his successors. Men of genius are little apt to take this course in any age. But in days when the readers in any tongue were few, when the knowledge of foreign tongues was limited to far fewer and when dictionaries did not exist, the introduction of a large number of unfamiliar terms would have been the most effectual means a writer could have devised to keep himself from being read at all. There need be no doubt entertained that Chaucer was well aware of this fact as we. He could not have introduced many foreign words into the tongue if he would, and he would not have introduced them if he could. His main object in writing like that of every author, was to be read. He could only hope by writing in a language which every one was capable of comprehending. That course he certainly followed. He became the popular author of his time. To that fact is due the inﬂuence he has exerted upon the speech. He wrote in the East Midland dialect with which he was well acquainted—his mother tongue and that dialect became language of English literature. The wide circulation of his poems preserved many words which otherwise