THE fourteenth century is celebrated in English annals by the long and successful reign of Edward III., and by the military glories of his son, Edward the Black Prince, achieved in the famous battles of Crecy and Poitiers, in France.

Civil and Religious Discontents. Before the close of the century, also, serious discontents arose among the common people on account of the oppressions of the government, and the first distinct protest was uttered against the irregularities of the religious orders. In regard both to civil and religious liberty, there was a noteworthy struggle, and many of the reforms in both, which took effect two centuries later, are distinctly traceable to the efforts put forth, and the opinions expressed, in this stirring period.

Writers of the Period. The fourteenth century has a few names of note in the history of English literature. These are CHAUCER, GOWER, PIERS PLOWMAN, WYCKLIFFE, and SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE.

Chaucer.

Geoffrey Chaucer, 1328-1400, is our first great poet, -so incomparably great, as to all that went before, that he is distinctively called the Father of English Poetry.

Without undertaking to determine the precise rank of Chaucer, it is yet safe to say that his name would be found in any list meant to include the five greatest poets of England.

Personal History. The personal history of Chaucer is involved in no little obscurity. Neither the place nor the date of his birth is certainly known, though an early tradition asserts that he was born in London, and the probabilities are in favor of the commonly received date of 1328, as that of his birth. His writings give abundant proof that he was liberally educated, and both the great Universities claim him. Even on this point, however, there is no certainty, though there is a fair probability in the conjecture that, according to a custom much prevalent at that time, he began his studies in one University and finished them in the other, as there is also in the supposition that he spent some time in study abroad at the University of Paris.

Social Position. Chaucer evidently belonged to a good family, and his connections through life were with people of rank and quality. He lived in stirring times, being contemporary with Wyckliffe, John of Gaunt, the great Duke of Lancaster, Edward III., the invader of France, and his son the Black Prince, the hero of Crecy and Poitiers. Chaucer was himself in the army that invaded France, and was taken prisoner. He held at different times various offices of honor and emolument, and the few authentic records of him that we have show that he was on terms of intimacy with the highest nobility in the kingdom.

Marriage. Chaucer was by marriage closely connected with John of Gaunt, who was, for a long time, second only to the King himself, and whose son, Henry of Bolingbroke, during Chaucer's life, succeeded to the throne under the title of Henry IV. This marriage connection arose as follows: In the train of those who came over as attendants to Philippa of Hainault, Queen of Edward III., was Sir Payne Roet. Roet had two daughters, Katherine, who was married to the Duke of Lancaster, and Philippa, who was married to Chaucer. Philippa, Chaucer's wife, was maid of honor to the Queer, and Ch, el mel was valet to the King.

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Further Particulars. —By this marriage Chance kings, four queens, and five princes, of England; to six Scotland; to two cardinals, more than thirty dukes, and.. England; to several dukes of Scotland; and to many pri the continent. Furthermore, his great-great grandson, John, Earl of Lincoln, a lineal descendant in the fifth generation, was declared heir to the throne of Richard III., but perished, like his royal master, on the field of battle.

Political and Religious Affinities. — Chaucer's writings show him to have been in sympathy with Wyckliffe and the Lancastrians, in their resistance to the encroachments of the Roman hierarchy. He does not indeed enter into the political and religious questions of the

time as a disputant, but the sketches of character which he gives show plainly enough where his sympathies lie. Those who are painted as models of excellence, like the Good Parson, belong to the national party in the ecclesiastical hierarchy; while those who are held up to ridicule, like the Friar and the Sumpnour, belong to the class whose ecclesiastical connection was with Rome rather than with England.

Public Positions.- Chaucer was employed on several occasions in foreign embassies: some secret, the nature of which has not transpired, some for commercial negotiations, and some for negotiating royal and princely marriages. On one of these embassies into Italy, he is supposed to have met with the poet Petrarch. He held for many years the office of Comptroller of the Customs for the port of London, and he had various pensions from Edward III., from Richard II., and from Henry IV.

His Income. Though at one time, for reasons which are not now known, he was straitened in his income, it is evident that during the greater part of his life his means were ample for the maintenance of that position in life which his connections entitled him to hold. His income, on a careful examination, is believed to have been about equal to that of the Chief Baron of the Exchequer of that day.

Chaucer's principal work, The Canterbury Tales, is believed to have been written late in life, after the age of sixty, though it is probable that one at least of the Tales, and that the longest in the collection, had been written earlier as a separate performance,

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Plan of the Work - Aecor dine to the pl+ of th." the poet represents himsed as reat on a pigia to the tomb of Tunas à Paket at Conte che :v, At the Tabari 1 in Southwark, Le meets with nine-and-twenty o bor på grims, ali bord on the same crzabu. They buc me acciainted, and resolve to make the journey in company, the host of the Tabard going along as self-constituted master of ceremonies. To beguile the tedium of the way, they agree that each shall tell a tale, both going and returning. Hence the name, "The Canterbury Tales.”

Structure of the Work. In his Prologue, which is itself no inconsiderable poem, Chaucer describes each of his fellow travellers, and in these descriptions has given a series of portraits that are unequalled of their kind in English literature. In the art of word-painting, these portraits have never been surpassed. They constitute a picture gal

lery, of which the great English race may well be proud, as a monument of art which can never decay, and which can never be stolen by Vandal invaders. The gay cavalcade having set out, the narration of the tales is interspersed with amusing incidents of the journey. Each tale is in keeping with the supposed character of the narrator; and as each is taken from some walk in life different from the others, the whole together form a moving panorama of life and manners in the fourteenth century. Probably of no country in the world, except perhaps Arabia and Palestine in the time of the Patriarchs, have we such a lively picture as Chaucer, in the Canterbury Tales, has given us of the England of Wyckliffe and Edward III.

Circumstances of its Composition. -This work, so far as we can learn, was written during the last ten years of the author's life, and after his withdrawal from public business. The first threescore years of his life would seem to have been a sort of special training for this great work. He had been a student, a soldier, an officer of the customs, a negotiator, a courtier. He had seen almost every phase of public life, had tried his hand at almost every kind of style "prosing and versing." He had successfully imitated the various modes of versification among continental writers, as well as those among his own countrymen, and had learned by experience which of them were best suited to the genius of the English. He seems at this advanced age to have been not only in possession of the amplest fruits of experience, but with all his intellectual powers unabated. Thus endowed by nature, thus cultivated by art, thus laden with knowledge, thus invigorated by exercise, in circumstances of worldly comfort and honor, in the full enjoyment of royal favor, the veteran poet, from his "loopholes of retreat," may be seen casting his practiced eye over society, and penning those exquisite sketches of life and manners, which have made the Canterbury Tales the most amusing, as they are the most real and instructive, picture of the English nation during the fourteenth century.

Other Poems. -The other poems of Chaucer are, The Romaunt of the Rose; Troilus and Crescide; The Court of Love; The Complaint of Pily; Queen Annelida and False Arcite; The Assembly of Forls, sometimes called the Parliament of Birds; The Complaint of the Black Knight; Chaucer's A. B. C.; The Book of the Duchess, written on the occasion of the death of the first Duchess of Lancaster; The House of Fame; Chaucer's Dream; The Flower and the Leaf; The Legend of Good Women; The Complaint of Mars and Venus; The Cuckoo and the Nightingale. Besides these and some ni ms Chaucer wrote three prose works of considerable length: A translation of Boethius on The Consolation of Philosophy; The Testament of Love; and The Conclusions of the As trolabe, a treatise on practical astronomy, as then known, written somewhat after the Peter Parley style, for the instruction and amusement of his young son Lewis.

"In elocution and elegance, in harmony and perspicuity of versification, Chaucer surpasses his predecessors in infinite proportion: his genius was universal, and adapted to themes of unbounded variety; and his merit was not less in painting familiar manners with humor and propriety, than in moving the passions and representing the beautiful or pure in objects of nature, with grace and sublimity."- Warton.

"I take unceasing delight in Chancer. His merry cheerfulness is especially delicious to me in my old age. How exquisitely tender he is, yet how perfectly free from the least touch of sickly melancholy, or morbid drooping."— Coleridge.