And then shall the Abbot of Abingdon, and all his subsequent troubles and convulsions. He had par

i

is signed 'Philogenet of Cambridge, Clerk,' and hence he is supposed to have attended the University there; but Warton and other Oxonians claim him for the rival university. It is certain that he accompanied the army with which Edward III. invaded France, and was made prisoner about the year 1359, at the siege of Retters. At this time the poet was honoured with the steady and effective patronage of John of Gaunt, whose marriage with

| Blanche, heiress of Lancaster, he commemorates in
his poem of the Dream. Chaucer and 'time-honoured
Gaunt' became closely connected. The former mar-
ried Philippa Pyckard, or De Rouet, daughter of a
knight of Hainault, and maid of honour to the queen,
and a sister of this lady, Catherine Swinford (widow
of Sir John Swinford) became the mistress, and ulti-
mately the wife, of John of Gaunt. The fortunes of
the poet rose and fell with those of the prince, his
patron. In 1367, he received from the crown a grant
of twenty marks, equal to about £200 of our present
money. In 1372, he was a joint envoy on a mission
to the Duke of Genoa; and it has been conjectured
that on this occasion he made a tour of the northern
states of Italy, and visited Petrarch at Padua. The
only proof of this, however, is a casual allusion in
the Canterbury Tales, where the clerk of Oxford says
of his tale

Learned at Padua of a worthy clerk-
Francis Petrarch, the laureat poet,
Hight this clerk, whose rhetoric sweet
Enlumined all Italy of poetry.

The tale thus learned is the pathetic story of Patient
Grisilde, which, in fact, was written by Boccaccio,
and only translated into Latin by Petrarch. 'Why,'
asks Mr Godwin, 'did Chaucer choose to confess
his obligation for it to Petrarch rather than to Boc-
caccio, from whose volume Petrarch confessedly
translated it? For this very natural reason-be-
cause he was eager to commemorate his interview
with this venerable patriarch of Italian letters, and
to record the pleasure he had reaped from his society.'
We fear this is mere special pleading; but it would
be a pity that so pleasing an illusion should be dis-
pelled. Whether or not the two poets ever met, the
Italian journey of Chaucer, and the fame of Petrarch,
must have kindled his poetical ambition and refined
his taste. The Divine Comedy of Dante had shed a
glory over the literature of Italy; Petrarch received
his crown of laurel in the Capitol of Rome only five
years before Chaucer first appeared as a poet (his
Court of Love was written about the year 1346); and
Boccaccio (more poetical in his prose than his verse)
had composed that inimitable century of tales, his
Decameron, in which the charms of romance are
clothed in all the pure and sparkling graces of com-
position. These illustrious examples must have in-
spired the English traveller; but the rude northern
speech with which he had to deal, formed a chilling
contrast to the musical language of Italy! Edward
III. continued his patronage to the poet. He was
made comptroller of the customs of wine and wool
in the port of London, and had a pitcher of wine
daily from the royal table, which was afterwards
commuted into a pension of twenty marks. He was
appointed a joint envoy to France to treat of a mar-
riage between the Prince of Wales and Mary, the
daughter of the French king. At home, he is sup-
posed to have resided in a house granted by the
king, near the royal manor at Woodstock, where,
according to the description in his Dream, he was
surrounded with every mark of luxury and distinc-
tion. The scenery of Woodstock Park has been
described in the Dream with some graphic and pic-
turesque touches :-

And right anon as I the day espied,
No longer would I in my bed abide,
I went forth myself alone and boldely,
And held the way down by a brook side,
Till I came to a land of white and green,
So fair a one had I never in been.
The ground was green y-powdered with daisy,
The flowers and the groves alike high,

All green and white was nothing else seen.

The destruction of the Royal Manor at Woodstock, and the subsequent erection of Blenheim, have changed the appearance of this classic ground; but the poet's morning walk may still be traced, and some venerable oaks that may have waved over him, lend poetic and historical interest to the spot. The opening of the reign of Richard II. was unpropitious to Chaucer. He became involved in the civil and religious troubles of the times, and joined with the party of John of Northampton, who was attached to the doctrines of Wickliffe, in resisting the measures of the court. The poet fled to Hainault (the country of his wife's relations), and afterwards to Holland. He ventured to return in 1386, but was thrown into the Tower, and deprived of his comptrollership. In May 1388, he obtained leave to dispose of his two patents of twenty marks each; a measure prompted, no doubt, by necessity. He obtained his release by impeaching his previous associates, and confessing to his misdemeanours, offering also to prove the truth of his information by entering the lists of combat with the accused parties. How far this transaction involves the character of the poet, we cannot now ascertain. He has painted his suffering and distress, the odium which he incurred, and his indignation at the bad conduct of his former confederates, in powerful and affecting language in his prose work, the Testament of Love. The sunshine of royal favour was not long withheld after this humiliating submission. In 1389, Chaucer is registered as clerk of the works at Westminster; and next year he was appointed to the same office at Windsor. These were only temporary situations, held about twenty months; but he afterwards received a grant of £20, and a tun of wine, per annum. The name of the poet does not occur again for some years, and he is supposed to have retired to Woodstock, and there composed his Canterbury Tales. In 1398, a patent of protection was granted to him by the crown; but, from the terms of the deed, it is difficult to say whether it is an amnesty for political offences, or a safeguard from creditors. In the following year, still brighter prospects opened on the aged poet. Henry of Bolingbroke, the son of his brother-in-law, John of Gaunt, ascended the throne: Chaucer's annuity was continued, and forty marks additional were granted. Thomas Chaucer, whom Mr Godwin seems to prove to have been the poet's son, was made chief butler, and elected Speaker of the House of Commons. The last time that the poet's name occurs in any public document, is in a lease made to him by the abbot, prior and convent of Westminster, of a tenement situate in the garden of the chapel, at the yearly rent of 53s. 4d. This is dated on the 24th of December 1399; and on the 25th of October 1400, the poet died in London, most probably in the house he had just leased, which stood on the site of Henry VII.'s chapel. He was buried in Westminster Abbey-the first of that illustrious file of poets whose ashes rest in the sacred edifice.

The character of Chaucer may be seen in his works. He was the counterpart of Shakspeare in cheerfulness and benignity of disposition-no enemy to mirth and joviality, yet delighting in his books,

A full comely creature, truth she hight,
For the virtue that her followed afeard was she never.
When these maidens mette, Mercy and Truth,
Either axed other of this great wonder,

Of the din and of the darkness, &c.

[Covetousness is thus personified.]

And then came Covetise, can I him not descrive,
So hungrily and hollow Sir Hervey him looked;
He was beetle-browed, and babberlipped also,
With two bleared een as a blind hag,
And as a leathern purse lolled his cheeks,

Well syder than his chin, they shriveled for eld:
And as a bondman of his bacon his beard was be-

[The existing condition of the religious orders is delineated in the following allegorical fashion. It might be supposed that the final lines, in which the Reformation is predicted, was an interpolation after that event; but this has been ascertained not to have been the case.]

Ac now is Religion a rider, a roamer about,
A leader of lovedays, and a lond-buyer,
A pricker on a palfrey from manor to manor.
An heap of hounds [behind him] as he a lord were:
And but if his knave kneel that shall his cope bring,
He loured on him, and asketh him who taught him

courtesy ?

tractions which followed, and the paucity of any striking poetical genius for at least a century and a half after his death, too truly exemplify the fine simile of Warton, that Chaucer was like a genial day in an English spring, when a brilliant sun enlivens the face of nature with unusual warmth and lustre, but is succeeded by the redoubled horrors of winter, 'and those tender buds and early blossoms which were called forth by the transient gleam of a temporary sunshine, are nipped by frosts and torn by tempests.'

Chaucer was a man of the world as well as a student; a soldier and courtier, employed in public affairs of delicacy and importance, and equally acquainted with the splendour of the warlike and magnificent reign of Edward III., and with the bitter reverses of fortune which accompanied the

And then shall the Abbot of Abingdon, and all his subsequent troubles and convulsions. He had par

issue for ever

Have a knock of a King, and incurable the wound.

GEOFFREY CHAUCER.

With these imperfect models as his only native guides, arose our first great author, GEOFFREY CHAUCER, distinctively known as the Father of English poetry. Though our language had risen into importance with the rise of the Commons in the time of Edward I., the French long kept possession of the court and higher circles, and it required a genius like that of Chaucer-familiar with different modes

of life both at home and abroad, and openly patrone ised by his sovereign-to give literary permanence and consistency to the language and poetry of England. Henceforward his native style, which Spenser terms the pure well of English undefiled,' formed a standard of composition, though the national dis

1 Hanging wider than his chin.

2 As the mouth of a bondman or rural labourer is with the bacon he eats, so was his beard beslabbered-an image still familiar in England.

taken freely in all; and was peculiarly qualified to excel in that department of literature which alone can be universally popular, the portraiture of real life and genuine emotion. His genius was not, indeed, fully developed till he was advanced in years. His early pieces have much of the frigid conceit and pedantry of his age, when the passion of love was erected into a sort of court, governed by statutes, and a system of chivalrous mythology (such as the poetical worship of the rose and the daisy) supplanted the stateliness of the old romance. In time he threw

off these conceits

He stoop'd to truth, and moralised his song.

When about sixty, in the calm evening of a busy life, he composed his Canterbury Tales, simple and varied as nature itself, imbued with the results of extensive experience and close observation, and coloured with the genial lights of a happy temperament, that had looked on the world without austerity, and passed through its changing scenes without losing the freshness and vivacity of youthful feeling and imagination. The poet tells us himself (in his Testament of Love) that he was born in London, and

3 Loveday is a day appointed for the amicable settlement of the year 1328 is assigned, by the only authority we

possess on the subject, namely, the inscription on his tomb, as the date of his birth. One of his poems

1

is signed Philogenet of Cambridge, Clerk,' and
hence he is supposed to have attended the Univer-
sity there; but Warton and other Oxonians claim
him for the rival university. It is certain that he
accompanied the army with which Edward III. in-
vaded France, and was made prisoner about the
year 1359, at the siege of Retters. At this time the
poet was honoured with the steady and effective
patronage of John of Gaunt, whose marriage with
Blanche, heiress of Lancaster, he commemorates in
his poem of the Dream. Chaucer and 'time-honoured
Gaunt' became closely connected. The former mar-
ried Philippa Pyckard, or De Rouet, daughter of a
knight of Hainault, and maid of honour to the queen,
and a sister of this lady, Catherine Swinford (widow
of Sir John Swinford) became the mistress, and ulti-
mately the wife, of John of Gaunt. The fortunes of
the poet rose and fell with those of the prince, his
patron. In 1367, he received from the crown a grant
of twenty marks, equal to about £200 of our present
money. In 1372, he was a joint envoy on a mission
to the Duke of Genoa; and it has been conjectured
that on this occasion he made a tour of the northern
states of Italy, and visited Petrarch at Padua. The
only proof of this, however, is a casual allusion in
the Canterbury Tales, where the clerk of Oxford says
of his tale

Learned at Padua of a worthy clerk-
Francis Petrarch, the laureat poet,
Hight this clerk, whose rhetoric sweet
Enlumined all Italy of poetry.

The tale thus learned is the pathetic story of Patient Grisilde, which, in fact, was written by Boccaccio, and only translated into Latin by Petrarch. 'Why,' asks Mr Godwin, 'did Chaucer choose to confess his obligation for it to Petrarch rather than to Boccaccio, from whose volume Petrarch confessedly translated it? For this very natural reason-because he was eager to commemorate his interview with this venerable patriarch of Italian letters, and to record the pleasure he had reaped from his society.' We fear this is mere special pleading; but it would be a pity that so pleasing an illusion should be dispelled. Whether or not the two poets ever met, the Italian journey of Chaucer, and the fame of Petrarch, must have kindled his poetical ambition and refined his taste. The Divine Comedy of Dante had shed a glory over the literature of Italy; Petrarch received his crown of laurel in the Capitol of Rome only five years before Chaucer first appeared as a poet (his Court of Love was written about the year 1346); and Boccaccio (more poetical in his prose than his verse) had composed that inimitable century of tales, his Decameron, in which the charms of romance are ☐☐ clothed in all the pure and sparkling graces of composition. These illustrious examples must have inspired the English traveller; but the rude northern speech with which he had to deal, formed a chilling contrast to the musical language of Italy! Edward III. continued his patronage to the poet. He was made comptroller of the customs of wine and wool in the port of London, and had a pitcher of wine daily from the royal table, which was afterwards commuted into a pension of twenty marks. He was appointed a joint envoy to France to treat of a marriage between the Prince of Wales and Mary, the daughter of the French king. At home, he is supposed to have resided in a house granted by the king, near the royal manor at Woodstock, where, according to the description in his Dream, he was surrounded with every mark of luxury and distinction. The scenery of Woodstock Park has been described in the Dream with some graphic and picturesque touches :

And right anon as I the day espied,
No longer would I in my bed abide,
I went forth myself alone and boldely,
And held the way down by a brook side,
Till I came to a land of white and green,
So fair a one had I never in been.
The ground was green y-powdered with daisy,
The flowers and the groves alike high,

All green and white was nothing else seen.

The destruction of the Royal Manor at Woodstock, and the subsequent erection of Blenheim, have changed the appearance of this classic ground; but the poet's morning walk may still be traced, and some venerable oaks that may have waved over him, lend poetic and historical interest to the spot. The opening of the reign of Richard II. was unpropitious to Chaucer. He became involved in the civil and religious troubles of the times, and joined with the party of John of Northampton, who was attached to the doctrines of Wickliffe, in resisting the measures of the court. The poet fled to Hainault (the country of his wife's relations), and afterwards to Holland. He ventured to return in 1386, but was thrown into the Tower, and deprived of his comptrollership. In May 1388, he obtained leave to dispose of his two patents of twenty marks each; a measure prompted, no doubt, by necessity. He obtained his release by impeaching his previous associates, and confessing to his misdemeanours, offering also to prove the truth of his information by entering the lists of combat with the accused parties. How far this transaction involves the character of the poet, we cannot now ascertain. He has painted his suffering and distress, the odium which he incurred, and his indignation at the bad conduct of his former confederates, in powerful and affecting language in his prose work, the Testament of Love. The sunshine of royal favour was not long withheld after this humiliating submission. In 1389, Chaucer is registered as clerk of the works at Westminster; and next year he was appointed to the same office at Windsor. These were only temporary situations, held about twenty months; but he afterwards received a grant of £20, and a tun of wine, per annum. The name of the poet does not occur again for some years, and he is supposed to have retired to Woodstock, and there composed his Canterbury Tales. In 1398, a patent of protection was granted to him by the crown; but, from the terms of the deed, it is difficult to say whether it is an amnesty for political offences, or a safeguard from creditors. In the following year, still brighter prospects opened on the aged poet. Henry of Bolingbroke, the son of his brother-in-law, John of Gaunt, ascended the throne: Chaucer's annuity was continued, and forty marks additional were granted. Thomas Chaucer, whom Mr Godwin seems to prove to have been the poet's son, was made chief butler, and elected Speaker of the House of Commons. The last time that the poet's name occurs in any public document, is in a lease made to him by the abbot, prior and convent of Westminster, of a tenement situate in the garden of the chapel, at the yearly rent of 53s. 4d. This is dated on the 24th of December 1399; and on the 25th of October 1400, the poet died in London, most probably in the house he had just leased, which stood on the site of Henry VII.'s chapel. He was buried in Westminster Abbey-the first of that illustrious file of poets whose ashes rest in the sacred edifice.

The character of Chaucer may be seen in his works. He was the counterpart of Shakspeare in cheerfulness and benignity of disposition-no enemy to mirth and joviality, yet delighting in his books,

The Canterbury Tales form the best and most durable monument of Chaucer's genius. Boccaccio, only by heralds (Speght's Glossary) to the Talbot, a species of