to appoint a deputy. He held these appointments for little more than a year, and is believed to have been afterwards in straitened circumstances. He still, however, enjoyed his pension of £10, with his allowance of forty shillings yearly for robes as one of the king's esquires. In 1394 he obtained from the king a grant of £20 a year for life, on which, being apparently in want, he received advances from the exchequer. In his Complaint to his Purse,' Chaucer refers to this period:

To you, my purse, and to none other wight,
Complain I, for ye be my lady dear,

I am so sorry now that ye be light;
For certes, but if ye make me heavy cheer,
Me were as lief be laid upon my bier,
For which unto your mercy thus I cry,
Be heavy again, or else might I die!

In May 1398 Chaucer got letters of protection to secure him from arrest · on any plea except it were connected with land,' for a term of two years. In October King Richard granted him a tun of wine yearly for life. The son of his friend John of Gaunt, the triumphant Henry Bolingbroke, now supplanted Richard on the throne; and, October 3, 1399, we find Henry IV. granting Chaucer 40 marks yearly in addition to his former £20 from Richard II. On 24th December the poet covenanted for the lease of a tenement in the garden of St. Mary's Chapel, Westminster (the site of Henry VII.'s chapel), for the long term of 53 years, but he lived only till the following autumn, dying October 25, 1400. He was buried in Westminster Abbey, the first of the illustrious file of poets whose ashes rest in that great national sanctuary.

Chaucer is said to have left two sons-Lewis, who died early, and Thomas, who rose to great wealth and position, was speaker of the House of Commons, and father of an only daughter, Alice Chaucer, who married John De la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, declared by Richard III. heir-apparent to the throne. There are doubts, however, in spite of the attestations of heralds, whether this rich and great Sir Thomas Chaucer was really the son of the author of the 'Canterbury Tales.'

The personal appearance of the poet is partly described by himself in the Prologue to Sir Thopas.' He was stout, but 'small and fair of face :'

Thou lookest as thou wouldst find an hare,
For ever upon the ground I see thee stare. . . .
He seemeth elvish by his countenance,

For unto no wight doth he dalliance.

His character 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, and studions in his horse, and movables. The king forgave him the £20, and the robber, who had appealed by wager of battle against his accomplice, was hanged.

the midst of an active life. He was opposed to all superstition and priestly abuse, but playful in his satire, with a keen sense of the ludicrous, and the richest vein of comic narrative and delineation of character. He retained through life a strong love of the country, and of its inspiring and invigorating influences. No poet has dwelt more fondly on the charms of a spring or summer morning:

The busy lark the messenger of day,
Saluteth in her song the morrow gray,
And fiery Phoebus riseth up so bright
That all the orient laugheth of the sight!
And with his streams dryeth in the greves

The silver drops, hanging on the leaves,
And Arcite that is in the Court Royal,
With Theseus his squire principal,
Is risen, and looketh on the merry day,
And for to don his observance to May.
The Knight's Tale.

May-day, the great English rural festival and Robin Hood anniversary, seems always to have been a carnival in the poet's heart. It enticed him from his studies-‘farewell, my book !'—and he is profuse in descriptions of the new green' of spring, the 'soft sweet grass,' and 'flowers white and red.' In his youth he paid homage to the luxuriant beauty of the rose, but at a later period joined the French poets in adopting the mythology of the daisy.

The daisy, or else the eye of day,

The Empress and flower of flowers all.

Perhaps alluding metaphorically, as Nicolas suggests, to some fair lady named Marguerite, as the word means either a daisy, a pearl, or

a woman.

·

Chaucer's minor poems are numerous. A recent critic-Professor Bernard Ten Brink-divides them into three periods, though no such classification can be considered certain. (1) The A.B.C.,' the Romance of the Rose,' and 'Book of the Duchess,' all written before the poet set out on his Italian missions in 1372. (2) The House of Fame,' the 'Life of St. Cecil' (Second Nun's Tale), the 'Parliament of Birds,' Troilus and Cressida,' and 'The Knight's Tale'-this period ending in 1384. (3) The Legend of Good Women,' the Canterbury Tales,' and other lesser poems. Some of the most admired minor poems are rejected by Ten Brink, Mr. Bradshaw, and Mr. Furnival. The Court of Love,' the Flower and the Leaf,'' Chaucer's Dream,' and the 'Romance of the Rose,' are considered spurious, as contravening the laws of rhyme observed by the poet in his genuine works. 'For instance, if in Chaucer's undoubted works you find that mal-ady-e, or cur-tei-si-e, is four syllables, and rhymes only with other nouns in y-e or i-e, proved by derivation to be a two-syllable termination, and with infinitives in y-e, then if you find in the ‘Romaunt,' Sich joie anon thereof hadde I That I forgat my maladie,

you get a rhyme that is not Chaucer's.'*

We cannot think this test

* Chaucer's Works, Aldine Edition, edited by Morris, vol. i. 267.

infallible. The poet may not have always Leen consistent in his rhymes, or copyists may have made alterations; and we know of no other poet of that day who was capable (none has claimed or been mentioned) of writing the rejected poems. Poetical readers will not readily surrender Chaucer's right to the 'Romaunt of the Rose,' the 'Court of Love,' or the 'Flower and the Leaf'—all fresh with t. e dew of youth and brilliant fancy.

The versification of Chaucer is various. He probably began with the octo-syllabic measure common with the French poets, as he translated the Roman de la Rose,' or rather adapted it, from the work of William de Loris and John de Meun: of the 22,000 verses, Chaucer translated 7,700. The 'House of Fame,' an allegorical version, is in the same measure, and contains some bold imagery and the romantic machinery of Gothic fable. A more important work, Troilus and Cressida, is in seven-line stanzas. This poem, taken from the Filostrato' of Boccaccio, has, from its pathos and beauty, always been popular. Sir Philip Sidney admired it. Warton and every subsequent critic have quoted, with just admiration, the passage in which Cressida makes an avowal of her love:

And as the new abashed nightingale,

That stinteth first, when she beginneth sing
When that she heareth any herdis tale,

Or in the hedges any wight stirring;

And, after, siker [sure] doth her voice outring:
Right so Cresside, when her dread stent,

Opened her heart, and told him her intent.

·

The 'Canturbury Tales' are chiefly in the heroic couplet, contain ing five accents, and generally ten syllables, but in this respect Chaucer adopted the poetic license of lengthening or shortening the lines. The opening of the poem, with the accents marked, is as follows:

When that Aprillé, with shcowrés swoote, (1)

And drought of Marche hath percéd to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licóur, (2)
Of which vertue engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek, with his sweté breeth
Enspired hath in every holte (3) and heeth
The tender croppés, (4) and the yongé sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfé cours i-ronne, (5)
And smalé fowles maken melodie,
That slepen al the night with open yhe,
So priketh hem (6) natúre in here coráges;
Thanne longen folk to gon on pilgrimages,
And palmers for to seeken straunge strondes

To ferné halwés (7) kouthe (8) in sondry londes;

1 Sweet. sometimes written sote and swete,

2 Such liquor or moisture,

4. Croppes, twigs, boughs, the tops of branches.

3 Holt, a wooded hill.

5-ronne, sometimes wronne, for the and were used indiscriminately to denote the pa t participle. Thus Spenser has clad, ydrad, etc.

6 Hem and her were in Chaucer's time, and previously, the same as them and thei 7 Ferne halwes, distant saints or shrines (ferne, from fer or jur; hulwes, as in AddHollows, etc.).

8 Kouthe or couthe, known, renowned; we still have uncouth.

And spécially, from every schirés ende
Of Engeloud, to Canturbury they wende,
The holy blisful martir (1) for to seeke,

That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke.

The 'Canterbury Tales' form the best and most durable monument of Chaucer's genius. Boccaccio, in his 'Decameron,' supposes ten persons to have retired from Florence during the plague of 1348, and there, in a sequestered villa, amused themselves by relating tales after dinner. Ten days formed the period of their sojourn; and we have thus a hundred stories, lively, humorous, or tender, and full of characteristic painting in choice Italian. Chaucer seems to have copied this design, as well as part of the Florentine's freedom and licentiousness of detail; but he greatly improved upon the plan. There is something repulsive and unnatural in a party of ladies and gentlemen meeting to tell tales, many of them of a loose kind, while the plague is desolating the country around them. The plays of Chaucer have a more pleasing origin. A company of pilgrims, consisting of twentynine sundry folk,' meet together in fellowship at the Tabard Inn, Southwark, all being bent on a pilgrimage to the shrine of Thomas á Becket at Canterbury. These pilgrimages were scenes of much enjoyment, and even mirth; for, satisfied with thwarting the Evil One by the object of their mission, the devotees did not consider it necessary to preserve any religious strictness or restraint by the way. The poet himself is one of the party at the Tabard. They all sup together in the large room of the hostelry; and after great cheer, the landlord proposes that they shall travel together to Canterbury; and, to shorten their way, that each shall tell two tales, both in going and returning, and whoever told the best, should have a supper at the expense of the rest. The company assent, and mine host, Harry Bailly--who was both 'bold of his speech, and wise and well taught '-is appointed to be judge and reporter of the stories. The characters composing this social party are inimitably drawn and discriminated. First we have the chivalrous Knight:

A Knight there was, and that a worthy man,
That from the tyme thet he first bigan
To ryden out, he lovede chyvalrye,

Trouthe and honour, fredom and courtesie.
Ful worthi was he in his lordes werre,

And thereto hadde he riden, noman ferre, (2)
As wel in Cristendom as in hethenesse.
And evere honoured for his worthinesse.
At Alisandre (3) he was whan it was wonne,
Ful ofte tyme he hadde the bord bygonne
Aboven alle naciouns in Pruce.

1 The famous martyr, Thomas a Becket, slain in Canterbury Cathedral in 1170. 2 No man further.

3 Alexandria. Why Chaucer should have chosen to bring his knight from Alexandria and Lettowe rather than from Cressy and Poitiers, is a problem difficult to resolve, except in supposing that the slightest services against infidels were in those days more honourable than the most splendid victories over Christians'.-Tyrwhitt.

In Lettowe hadde he reysed and in Ruce, (1)
No cristen man so ofte of his degre.
In Gernade atte siege hadde he be
Of Algesir, and riden in Belmarie.
At Lieys was he, and at Satalie, (2)

Whan they were wonne; and in the Greete see
At many a noble arive hadde he be.

At mortal batailles hadde he ben fiftene,

And foughten for oure feith at Tramassene (3)
In lystes thries, and ay slayn his foo,
This ilke worthi knight hadde ben also
Sometyme with the lord of Palatye,
Ageyn another hethene in Turkye:

And everemore he hadde a sovereyn prys. (4)

And though that he was worthy, he was wys,

And of his port as meke as is a mayde.

He nevere yit no vilonye ne sayde

In al his lyf, unto no maner wight.

He was a verray perfight gentil knight.

But for to telle you of his array,

His hors was good, but here ne was nought gay.
Of fustyan he werede a gepoun (5)

Al bysmotered with his habergeoun.

For he was late ycome from his viage,

And wente for to doon his pilgrimage.

The Knight was accompanied by his son, a gay young Squire with

curled locks:

With him ther vas his sone, a yong Squyer,
A lovyer, and a lusty bacreler,

With lokkes crulle as they were layde in presse.
Of twenty yeer of age he was I gesse.

Of his stature he was of evene lengthe.

And wonderly delyver, and gret of strengthe.
And he hadde ben somtyme in chivachie, (6)
In Flaundres, in Artoys, and Picardie,
And born him wel, as in so litel space,
In hope to stonden in his lady grace.
Embrowdid was he, as it were a mede
Al ful of fresshe floures, white and reede.
Syngynge he was, or floytynge, al the day;
He was as fressh as is the moneth of May.

Schort was his goune, with sleeves longe and wyde.

Wel cowde he sitte on hors, and faire ryde.

He cowde songes wel make and endite,

Juste (7) and eek daunce, and wel purtraye and write.

So hote he lovede, that by nightertale (8)

He sleep nomore than doth a nightyngale.
Curteys he was, lowly, and servysable,
And carf byforn his fadur at the table.

A yeoman was also in attendance, with his bow and sheaf of ar

1 Pruce, Lettowe, Ruce.-Prussia. Lithrania, Russia.

2 Gernade. Granada; Algesir. Algesiras in Spain; Belmarie, one of the Moorish kingdoms in Africa; Laeys, in Armenia, Satalie, or Atalia, in Asia Minor. Both the latter were taken from the Turks by Pierre de Lusignan-Lieys about 1367, Atalia about 1352, 3 A Moorish kingdom in Africa. 4 High praise,

5 Gepo, a short cassock; bysmotered, soiled or smutted (rom the Anglo-Saxon be8m t' to defile).

6 Military expeditions, riding. 7 Joust, tilt. 8 Night-time; tule, reckoning. /