princes. In his poems and romances he treats of the favourite courtly topic, the all-engrossing subject, of love. In his Chronicles, as in the Iliad, we have but a variety of the Knight ; and that, rather the hero of poetical chivalry, than the true historical Knight of Chaucer. In his sentiments he is true to the old heroic and feudal principle expressed by Horace, when speaking of the Iliad; and he accounts the blood of churls as of no value, when weighed in the scale with the honour of knighthood. In Chaucer we find depicted the rural dwelling of the Reve, and the lonely cottage, of the "poure widowe," who is described as a "maner dey," the lowest class of labourers: "ful sooty was hire hall, and eke hire bower." But Froissart never condescends to smoky rafters; he dwells always in the tapestried halls of princes, and delights to describe their unlimited power and their costly magnificence.

On a general review of the history of Chaucer's reputation, we may say that his language, which seems chiefly to have attracted the notice of his

* Delirant reges plectuntur Achivi.

immediate successors, rude as it now appears, was with reference to his own age in itself a marvel. How just were the grounds upon which the critics of the days of Henry the Eighth extolled his learning, will be more fully shown in the following chapter. His pathetic powers, which engaged the admiration of the poets and critics of the age of Elizabeth, continue even now to rival his genuine comic humour. Without, therefore, attempting to defend the ribaldry of some of his ludicrous tales, the homeliness of his diction, or the occasional lameness of his versification (on all of which failings he himself, with his usual candour and modesty, I had almost said naïveté *, observes), in all the sterling and substantial qualities of a true poet, he may well bear a comparison with the master-spirits of all ages. The vigorous yet finished painting-both of scenes and characters, serious as well as ludicrous-with which his works abound, are still, notwithstanding the roughness of their clothing, beauties of a highly poetical The ear may not always be satisfied,

nature.

Prologue to Cant. Tales," "Man of Lawe's Prologue," and "House of Fame," Book III.

but the mind of the reader is always filled; and even the roughness of his verse, which may offend some readers, is in many instances—at least in the case of his earlier poems-rather to be attributed to the errors of transcribers (that mis-writing and "misse-metring" against which he warns* his copyists) than to his own negligence.

"Troilus and Cresseide," in fine.

81

CHAPTER III.

REMARKS ON THE BIOGRAPHY OF CHAUCER.

AUTHENTIC materials for a Life of Chaucer can be derived from two sources only: first, from public documents (i. e. for the most part royal patents, appointing him to various state employments or pensions); secondly, from the testimony of his own works, or of those of his immediate contemporaries.

The short account of his earliest biographer, Leland, written more than a century after the latest possible date of Chaucer's death, is full of inconsistencies, and is in some instances at variance with the testimony of the poet himself. In the "Testament of Love," Chaucer speaks of London as

This account seems to have led Warton (Hist. of Engl. Poetry, vol. ii.) into the numerous errors with regard to Chaucer's early life, which he has embodied in the short view which he has given of the poet's character. To these errors of Leland, he has also added that of making Alain Chartier a predecessor of Chaucer.

the place of his "kindly engendrure," and calls himself a Londoner; notwithstanding which,

or

Leland declares that he was of Oxfordshire * Berkshire perhaps because Thomas Chaucer (by some supposed to be a son of the poet), Speaker of the House of Commons in the reign of Henry the Fourth, possessed residences in those two counties-in Berkshire, at Donnington; and in Oxfordshire, at Ewelm: where he was buried, according to the inscription on his tomb, in the year 1414.

The outline of Chaucer's education at Cambridge, Oxford, Paris, and the Inns of Courtwhich Leland, upon no apparent authority, has given us has been amplified and particularised

* "Nam quibusdam argumentis adducor ut credam, Isiacam vel Berochansem provinciam illius natale solum fuisse." What these proofs or evidences were, the biographer does not inform us. He makes no mention of Thomas Chaucer, but affirms that the poet left his fortune (which he says was an ample one) to his son Lewis, including his country house at Woodstock. Perhaps, therefore, the reasons which I have adduced in my text, as influencing Leland in his decisions as to the birth-place of Chaucer, are rather those which have induced succeeding biographers to support his opinions. To those who have read the "Testament of Love," I need not observe, that the ample fortune, and the country house at Woodstock, existed only in the imagination of Leland.