law as a profession, having, it appears, received some appointment which required his attendance at court.

་

At

gun; the tuning of a thousand instruments by the minstrels in attendance is in the ear of the dreamer, when, O misery! he awakes—

Black Knight,' to assist him in melting the obdurate heart of the lady. The coalition was successful, and in 1359 Chaucer proChaucer is now about thirty years of age, duced another poem entitled, Chaucer's already the author of many ditties and Dream,' in honor of the marriage of the songs glad,' and in a situation where his prince with Lady Blanche. In this poem, temptations to continue the practice of however, it is not Lady Blanche, but a my composition are very great. It was the age lady' who occupies the foreground. of chivalry and gallantry, and the most tached to the court were two sisters, Cathchivalrous and gallant court in Europe was arine and Philippa, the daughters of Sir that of the brave English monarch. Her- Payne Rouet, Guienne King-at-Arms, a naaldic pageants and tournaments were more tive of Hainault, who had come over to frequent and splendid than they had been England in the train of Queen Philippa, afin any previous reign. To typify the power ter whom, probably, his younger daughter of the fair sex, processions were arranged was named. This Philippa Rouet is the in which ladies of the first distinction ap- lady of Chaucer's dream. The poet dreams peared riding on palfreys and dragging that the newly-married prince and his lady, knights captive through the streets by bring him and his lady to the parish church golden chains. Luxuries unknown in for-there to conclude the marriage.' The mer reigns were now common, the fruits of service is 'full y-sungen out after the cusEdward's continental conquests. The court tom and the guise of Holy Church's ordiwas a galaxy of beauty and chivalry There naunce;' the marriage feast is already bemight be seen the brave monarch himself, the hero of Creci, yet in the prime of manhood; his queen, Philippa, the gentle lady who saved the lives of the burgesses of Calais; their family of seven princes and four princesses, some of them yet mere children, others already grown up, of whom the eldest was the heroic Black Prince, the junior of Chaucer by two years, and the sixth was John of Gaunt, afterwards the celebrated Duke of Lancaster, now a grave studious stripling of eighteen; and around this family group, knights and ladies innumerable. Moving through this courtly crowd we discern the figure of our poet. He is a handsome man of thirty, with a fair complexion verging towards paleness; his hair a dusky yellow, short and thin; his beard of a forked shape and its color wheaten. His forehead is smooth and fair, and the expression of his face serene and sweet-tempered, with a lurking appearance of satire about the mouth; or, according to the host's description, he seemeth elvish by his countenance.' His manner is modest and taciturn; and he has a habit of always looking on the ground as if he would find a hare.' Such he was through life, except that as he advanced in age he became corpulent.

Then from my bed anon I leap,

Weening to have been at the feast;
But, when I woke, all was y-ceased;
For there ne was ne creature,
Save on the walls old portraiture
Of horsemen, hawkés, and of hounds,
And hurt deer all full of wounds,
Some like bitten, some hurt with shot,
And, as my dream, seemed what was not,
And when I woke and knew the truth,
An' ye had seen, of very ruth

I trow ye would have wept a week.' The calm tenor of the poet's life was interrupted in 1359, when, having accompa nied Edward III. into France, he was taken prisoner during the unfortunate campaign which ensued. His captivity in France. would appear to have been of considerable duration, as it is not till the year 1365 or 1366 that we find him in England, and married to Philippa Rouet. On the 12th of September, 1366, there is an entry of a pension of ten marks for life, granted by the king to Philippa Chaucer, as a lady in the queen's household; and on the 20th of June following, Chaucer himself, as filling the post of king's valet, received a grant of Of all the royal family, John of Gaunt twenty marks yearly, in consideration of his seems most to have attached himself to the services. The salaries of husband and poet. The young prince was in love with the wife together would be worth about £360 Lady Blanche, daughter of Henry, Duke of of our present money-a moderate income Lancaster; and the tradition is, that Chau- for the newly-married couple. Thus setcer was his confidant, and did him poet's tled in life, with good prospects for the fuservice by writing the Complaint of the ture, the poet seems to have resumed his

literary avocations; and during the four following years, several new performances were finished, including a version of the admired French poem, 'the Romaunt of the Rose,' and other original pieces of a descriptive and chivalrous cast.

that the first great English poet was a rich, descriptive genius-a man whose eye took notice of and received pleasure from the minutiæ of external appearances, the flowers and the arrangement of the plots in a garden, the paraphernalia of a feast, the Meanwhile, (to continue onr parallel of banners and scutcheons in a procession, the the two lives,) Wycliffe is becoming a per- dresses and armor of knights in a tournason of note in England, being already en- ment, the harnessing and caparisons of the gaged in what the Romanist historian Lin-horses. For assisting at the formation of gard calls, a fierce but ridiculous contro- a language and the compilation of a literaversy with the different orders of friars.' ry idiom, a poet with a genius for nomenHow different, now, the occupations of the clature and description like that of Chautwo men !—the one the pet of a luxurious cer, was most suitable; and for such a court, perusing romances or scientific trea- genius, a life of ease and luxurious courtiertises in quiet privacy, attending jousts and ship was the proper training. pageants, if not, as seems probable from his delight in heraldic description, assisting in arranging them, composing songs and ballads of chivalry, and in praise and dispraise of women; the other a devout and calumniated priest, looking from his Bible to society, and from society back to his Bible again, and at every glance between the fair page of the one and the foul face of the other, growing more earnest, more bitter and out-spoken against those friars who 'visiten rich men, and by hypocrisy getten falsely their alms, and withdraw from poor men; but they visiten rich widows for their muck, and maken them to be buried in the Friars, but poor men come not there;ture may appear, and paltry the occasions those friars, who be worse enemies and slayers of man's soul than is the cruel fiend of hell himself; for they, under the habit of holiness, lead men and nourish them in sins, and be special helpers of the fiend to strangle men's souls.'

But Chaucer was more than a mere descriptive poet, with a powerful faculty of language and a taste for rich and luscious imagery; he was a man of extensive culture, a keen and original thinker, whose feelings were all healthy and genial, and whose aspirations were all for social progress and the diffusion of sound opinion. Even those compositions of love and chivalry which he, had already produced long be fore he had commenced his great work, in which he was to display his ripe, autumnal nature, and perform for the age the function of a satirist and dramatist; even those compositions, frivolous as their tex

which called them forth, what versatility of talent do they not display, and what a civilizing influence were they not calculated to exert over English society in the fourteenth century. Forgetting the florid beauty of the diction of some of them, omitting, also, Let us not, however, do injustice to our all consideration of their value as historical poet. He, also, is doing a great work, if pictures, what an amount of information not, morally, so noble a one as Wycliffe's. and varied thinking do they not contain, Even these love ditties, and ballads in the metrical dissemination of which would praise and dispraise of women, and heral-be a boon to any age or nation; what dic descriptions of jousts and tournaments -poems, mostly of the fancy, and from which, by themselves, it would be unfair to infer the real nature of the man Chaucer -what a grand result are they helping to accomplish! Not a quip, not a jest, not a simile, not a new jingle of sounds and syllables, let the intrinsic value of the sentiment of which they are the foliage and efflorescence be ever so small, but in the act of originating that quip or jest, or simile or jingle, Chaucer is struggling successfully with the tough element of an unformed language, and assisting to render it plastic for future speakers and writers. When we consider this we ought to be glad that it so happened

strong, good sense, what touches, nay bursts, of the truest humor, what distant reaches of reflection and sentiment; and, above all, what deep, sweet, sobbing pathos! And although the assertion of Foxe the martyrologist, that Chaucer was a right Wicklivian, or else there never was any,' is undoubtedly an exaggeration, yet it is evident that, like his great Italian contemporaries and predecessors, Chaucer was an antagonist of the corrupt Romish system, and that as far as was compatible with his Epicurean temperament as a poet, he sympathized with such ideas and efforts as those of the more earnest Wycliffe.

Indeed, the age was one in which the

literary avocations; and during the four following years, several new performances were finished, including a version of the admired French poem, the Romaunt of the Rose,' and other original pieces of a descriptive and chivalrous cast.

that the first great English poet was a rich, descriptive genius-a man whose eye took notice of and received pleasure from the minutiæ of external appearances, the flowers and the arrangement of the plots in a garden, the paraphernalia of a feast, the banners and scutcheons in a procession, the dresses and armor of knights in a tournament, the harnessing and caparisons of the

a language and the compilation of a literary idiom, a poet with a genius for nomenclature and description like that of Chaucer, was most suitable; and for such a genius, a life of ease and luxurious courtiership was the proper training.

Meanwhile, (to continue our parallel of the two lives,) Wycliffe is becoming a person of note in England, being already engaged in what the Romanist historian Lin-horses. For assisting at the formation of gard calls, a fierce but ridiculous controversy with the different orders of friars.' How different, now, the occupations of the two men !—the one the pet of a luxurious court, perusing romances or scientific treatises in quiet privacy, attending jousts and pageants, if not, as seems probable from his delight in heraldic description, assisting in arranging them, composing songs and ballads of chivalry, and in praise and dispraise of women; the other a devout and calumniated priest, looking from his Bible to society, and from society back to his Bible again, and at every glance between the fair page of the one and the foul face of the other, growing more earnest, more bitter and out-spoken against those friars who 'visiten rich men, and by hypocrisy getten falsely their alms, and withdraw from poor men; but they visiten rich widows for their muck, and maken them to be buried in the Friars, but poor men come not there;ture may appear, and paltry the occasions those friars, who be worse enemies and slayers of man's soul than is the cruel fiend of hell himself; for they, under the habit of holiness, lead men and nourish them in sins, and be special helpers of the fiend to strangle men's souls.'

But Chaucer was more than a mere descriptive poet, with a powerful faculty of language and a taste for rich and luscious imagery; he was a man of extensive culture, a keen and original thinker, whose feelings were all healthy and genial, and whose aspirations were all for social progress and the diffusion of sound opinion. Even those compositions of love and chivalry which he, had already produced long before he had commenced his great work, in which he was to display his ripe, autumnal nature, and perform for the age the function of a satirist and dramatist; even those compositions, frivolous as their tex

which called them forth, what versatility of talent do they not display, and what a civilizing influence were they not calculated to exert over English society in the fourteenth century. Forgetting the florid beauty of the diction of some of them, omitting, also, Let us not, however, do injustice to our all consideration of their value as historical poet. He, also, is doing a great work, if pictures, what an amount of information not, morally, so noble a one as Wycliffe's. and varied thinking do they not contain, Even these love ditties, and ballads in the metrical dissemination of which would praise and dispraise of women, and heral-be a boon to any age or nation; what dic descriptions of jousts and tournaments strong, good sense, what touches, nay -poems, mostly of the fancy, and from bursts, of the truest humor, what distant which, by themselves, it would be unfair to infer the real nature of the man Chaucer -what grand result are they helping to accomplish! Not a quip, not a jest, not a simile, not a new jingle of sounds and syllables, let the intrinsic value of the sentiment of which they are the foliage and efflorescence be ever so small, but in the act of originating that quip or jest, or simile or jingle, Chaucer is struggling successfully with the tough element of an unformed language, and assisting to render it plastic for future speakers and writers. When we consider this we ought to be glad that it so happened

reaches of reflection and sentiment; and, above all, what deep, sweet, sobbing pathos! And although the assertion of Foxe the martyrologist, that Chaucer was a right Wicklivian, or else there never was any,' is undoubtedly an exaggeration, yet it is evident that, like his great Italian contemporaries and predecessors, Chaucer was an antagonist of the corrupt Romish system, and that as far as was compatible with his Epicurean temperament as a poet, he sympathized with such ideas and efforts as those of the more earnest Wycliffe.

Indeed, the age was one in which the

strictest poet whould have refused to take full of abuses, to permit the ideal calmness shelter under the poet's admitted privilege of spirit which ought to belong to a poet. of non-interference in politics or controver- Accordingly, even in Chaucer, although sy. The jousts and tournaments, the splen- his habitual manner of writing is certainly dors of chivalry, the French campaigns, that of an artist, and not that of a moralist, the tented fields of Creci and Poictiers- we detect occasional outbreaks of what apthese things, the delights of the historian pears to be personal zeal and feeling. and the novelist, were but the gilded sur- Wycliffe, as every one knows, was, in all face of an age, the inside of which was respects, a moralist—the great spiritual rerottenness and confusion. Underneath all former of his age. There was, however, a this jousting and tourneying, and clanging of third man then alive in England, a coarser arms and flaunting of pennons, constituting and rougher genius than either Chaucer or the holiday life of but a few hundreds of Wycliffe; but, perhaps, more truly a hero the community, history is but too apt to of the people than either, a crazy priest' forget that there was a whole English peo- of the name of John Ball, and probably ple, most of them belonging to the class of about the same age as Wycliffe. Peramserfs or villains, and descended from the bulating Middlesex and the adjoining counAnglo-Saxons whom the Conquest had ties, this singular and notorious personage, crushed, engaged in essentially the same of whom we learn far too little from the Occupations as the mass of the English courtly historians of the period, Knighton population of the present day, earning their and Walsingham, used to preach to the livelihood by the sweat of their brow, till- poorer sort of people after mass, attacking ing the ground, baking the bread, weaving the civil and ecclesiastical abuses of the the cloth, hammering the iron necessary for time, and flinging abroad, in the form of the support of the entire commonwealth. rhymes and proverbs, the wildest demoThis hum of labor, the true ground-tone cratic abstractions. The well-known of human life in all ages, it seems the cus- couplettom of historians to suppress, taking it too readily for granted that the reader will, of his own accord, supply such details. Yet, just as we should pronounce that biography is one of John Ball's rhymes; and was deficient which did not contrive, somehow probably in effective circulation among or other, to convey the idea that part of the the serfs of Kent and Essex, at the very hero's life was occupied in ordinary and common actions; so the historian, even of a chivalrous age, ought to condescend, now and then, from the lists of the knights and the galleries of the ladies those upon day functions of the body-politic-bread-ba- a public nuisance. king, weaving, building, and such like, a In the year 1369, Blanche, the wife of simultaneous cessation of which, occasion- John of Gaunt, died; and Chaucer's poem, ed by a simultaneous revolt of the function-The Book of the Duchess,' is a lament aries, would have handed knights and la- composed on that occasion. In the foldies into polite annihilation, and have snap-lowing year the poet went abroad on the ped, prematurely short, the historian's own precious lineage.

every

When Adam delved and Eve span,
Where was then the gentleman?'

time that Chaucer was writing his exquisite
descriptive poem of The Flower and the
Leaf.' By the year 1368, Chaucer may
have heard John Ball the crazy priest'
mentioned many
times in conversation as

king's service; and again, in 1372, he was sent on a mission to Genoa. It was while It is the nature of the poet to be inter- at Padua during this visit to Italy that he ested in events only as they furnish him saw Petrarch, then in his sixty-ninth year; with pictures. Even the woes of society and, no doubt, according to the allusion in are viewed by him with an unagitated the Canterbury Pilgrimage,' the English spirit; and the earnestness of other people poet was one of those who were privileged to relieve them, is to him simply one of to hear from the lips of the aged lover of the phenomena of the case. Laura his own Latin version, which he was It is only in very extraordinary circum-so fond of repeating, of Boccaccio's beautistances, although then with astounding ful tale of Griselda. Chaucer returned effects, that the spirit of the poet becomes from his Genoese embassy in 1374, and on enraged or tempestuous. The state of so- the 8th of June in that year, the king conciety in England, during the reign of Ed-ferred on him the lucrative office of compward III., was, however, too perplexed, too troller of the customs for wool and hides,