But the translation and publication of the Scriptures was not the only object that occupied his thoughts. Among the plans he had devised for spreading abroad his views of truth, was the formation of a band of what he termed his "poor priests." Wiclif had assumed a plain coarse garb, and they were clad like him. Theirduty was to go about instructing the poor in the truths of the Gospel. They were to be unencumbered by worldly goods themselves, and they were not to acquire wealth for their order. They had no benefices, and the reasons for it he explained in a tract he promulgated, entitled 'Why poor priests have no benefices.' His principal reasons are—1. The fear of simony. 2. The danger of misspending the money of the poor. 3. The hope of doing more good by moving from place to place. Allowing for the difference of the times, they bear a strong resemblance to John Wesley's original "preachers;" and they were as effective. Wiclif was untiring in his labours; the amount of tracts he wrote is surprising, even allowing that he was much assisted in preparing them. His position and employment at this time were very similar to Luther's the years preceding his death. His pen was ever employed, and ever ready for fresh employment. But, important as were his own labours, it is probable that his poor priests did even more to diffuse his doctrines; and how widely they were diffused may be guessed from Knighton's angry assertion—taken as it may and ought to be with considerable abatement—that "his followers so increased that they everywhere filled the compass of the kingdom; insomuch that a man could not meet two people on the road, but one of them was a disciple of Wiclif." This, he affirms, arose from "the respect they always pretended for what they call 'Goddis Law,' to which they profess themselves to be in their opinions and actions strictly conformable."
While thus zealously employed in furthering the great purpose to which he had devoted himself, his life was an example of what he upheld as the character of a true priest. His conduct was unblameable, his attention to his pastoral duties unremitting. Three hundred of his sermons are said to be still remaining, and they fully prove his energy, fervour, and devotion—hewas no idle, careless priest. Like Milton—who in many respects greatly resembled him—he believed that he who attempts a great work must live a life worthy of his undertaking; and the whole of his own conduct, and the judgment heformed of others, were moulded by his exalted notion of the dignity of the priestly office.[23]
So long as Wiclif confined himself, in his attacks on the popes and their agents, to their political claims or their immoral conduct, he met with the support of the secular authorities; and also of the people, whose dislike of the papal supremacy was a national far more than a religious feeling. They could not endure that an Italian or a French priest should domineer over their country and their king, and they little liked that his representatives, though Englishmen, should usurp such power. They would not have a priest to rule over them. When Wiclif preached against the doctrinal errors of the popes, he was regarded with suspicion by those who had before most strenuously supported him, and soon indeed encountered from them strong opposition. In 1381 he published at Oxford his twelve "conclusions," in which he appears for the first time to have questioned the doctrine of transubstantiation. His view of it much resembled that of Luther, and which is still that of the Lutheran church. The Chancellor of Oxford immediately summoned a meeting of twelve doctors, who condemned the "conclusions" as heterodox, and adjudged that all who should teach them in the University should be placed under the ban of the greater excommunication, suspendedfrom all their offices and privileges, and imprisoned—and, that the chance of such errors spreading might be at once cut off, they condemned those who listened to them to a similar punishment. Wiclif was lecturing in the school of the Augustinians when their sentence was communicated to him. He appealed from them to the civil magistrate. Until the parliament, to which the matter was now referred, should meet, which was not till the next year, it is probable that Wiclif abstained from teaching his views at the University, but he developed them more clearly and fully in some tracts which he now published: one of them, entitled the 'Wicket,' has been three or four times printed, and is a powerful piece of controversial writing.
The year 1381 was signalized by the revolt of the commons under Wat Tyler, and many of Wiclif's enemies have with small success endeavoured to connect his name with that affair. It arose from causes sufficiently known to all acquainted with our history, and Wiclif is as little responsible for it, as Luther for the famous rise of the peasants after the publication of his doctrines. In May, 1382, Courtney, now Archbishop of Canterbury, summoned a council to consider the doctrines attributed to Wiclif. Eight bishops and fourteen doctors, with other learned persons, met on the 17th of May, at Grey Friars in London. The proceedings had scarcely commenced when the place in which they were assembled was shaken by an earthquake, to the great alarm of the doctors, who were disposed to attribute it to the Divine displeasure—an opinion in which Wiclif coincided. The archbishop, however, explained it differently, and the doctors, reassured, proceeded with their deliberations.[24]After three days' careful consideration they pronounced ten of the "conclusions" to be heretical, and the remaining fourteen to be erroneous. The heretical notions beingthose on the eucharist, his denial of the need of priestly absolution, his declaration that clerical endowments were unlawful, and his condemnation of the papal infallibility. Everything was done that appeared likely to impart force and solemnity to this decision. After an imposing procession through London, a friar was appointed to explain to the people from St. Paul's the enormity of the heresy. Copies of the sentence were forwarded to the leading bishops; and even to the clergy about Lutterworth. Messengers were dispatched to the king, and to the University of Oxford. Wiclif again appealed to the secular power. This appeal has been complained of as opposed to his principles: after all, it has been said, "the new apostle was in no haste to grasp the crown of martyrdom."[25]But Wiclif did not depart from his own principles. He held and taught that the secular power ought to preserve the lives and liberties of the subjects, and it does not seem that he asked the parliament to affirm the truth of his doctrines. The archbishop called on the king to put down by force the growing heresy; and the monarch readily answered the call, by issuing a writ to the Chancellor of Oxford, directing him to search out such as were suspected of holding these opinions, and to seize and imprison any who harboured Wiclif or his followers. In his appeal to the parliament Wiclif had somewhat more success. The king, at the instigation of the bishop, had promulgated an ordinance in the form of an act of parliament, directing all sheriffs, &c. to arrest any persons found preaching any of the doctrines condemned at the convocation; but on the meeting of parliament this ordinance was declared to be illegal, the parliament itself having had no share in framing it—and they would not, they said, subject themselves to the jurisdiction of the prelates in a manner unknown to theirfathers. It was, in fact, a bold attempt of the bishop to introduce something very like the Holy Office into England.
But Wiclif's success ended here. He was now left to sustain the unequal conflict alone. His principal supporters at Oxford had been summoned before a synod to answer for their own delinquencies, and had been compelled to retract or explain away their obnoxious sentiments. John of Gaunt no longer stood by him. Perhaps sincerely shocked at his venturing to question so sacred a doctrine as transubstantiation was then generally believed to be, he earnestly recommended Wiclif to submit to his diocesan—and left him to his fate. Wiclif was soon summoned to appear before a convocation at Oxford, at which the archbishop presided, and several bishops were present. He delivered in two statements of his sentiments on the eucharist; one in Latin, the other in English. The former is declared to be unintelligible—it is fenced about with all the forms of scholastic dialectics, and may be passed by; the other, as it is in English, was probably meant for the unlearned, and is plain and perfectly comprehensible. It is evident that his matured and deliberate views were the same as we have already stated them to be. His bearing before the assembly was firm and manly—his enemies say haughty and obstinate. He did not retract. The result was that his opinions were again condemned, and himself deprived of his professorship of divinity, and banished from the University.
He was not further molested,—at least for the next two years. This interval was busily employed. A host of opponents sprung up against him after the adjudication at Oxford, and he was not of a temper to let them pass unanswered. His intense energy was little impaired by age or anxiety, and his opponents still found him a ready antagonist. Bowed down by persecution, his life by illness made a living death, he wavered not, nor ceased from his labours. During his last years Wiclif suffered much from paralysis—the effect, no doubt, of his anxious and stormy life. His first attack was in 1379. Perhapsthe knowledge of his weak state prevented his enemies from pressing for the infliction of physical punishment. But a few months before his death he was cited by Urban II. to appear before him at Rome, to answer for his heresies. Wiclif was unable from illness to go, but he addressed a letter to his holiness in which he "tells his belief." The main points of it are his declaration of his entire dependence on Christ as the Son of God, and of his assurance of the supreme authority of Scripture. He acknowledges the pope to be Christ's chief vicar on earth—but adds, that he ought to follow the example of his master, who was the poorest of men when in this world. "This I take as wholesome counsel that the pope leave his worldly lordship to worldly lords, as Christ gave (charged) him, and move speedily all his clerks (clergy) to do so: for thus did Christ, and taught thus his disciples, till the fiend had blinded this world." He declares that if he were able he would go to the pope; but as he cannot, he supposes the pope will not show himself open anti-Christ by commanding him again to do that which God had rendered him unable to do. If his opinions can be prayed to be wrong, he is ready to recant; if it be necessary to die for them, he is willing, "for that I hope were good for me."
As he was assisting at the celebration of mass by his curate in his parish church of Lutterworth, on the 29th of December, 1384, another and more fatal stroke of paralysis deprived him of the use of speech and of motion. He lingered two days, when his spirit ascended to that world where misapprehension and strife are alike unknown. His corpse was buried in the church; and there it rested, till forty years afterwards the Council of Constance, at the same time that it crowned itself with eternal infamy by its treacherous murder of John Huss and of Jerome, condemned Wiclif's doctrines, and directed that his corpse should be exhumed and burnt, "if it could be discerned from those of the faithful." The order was obeyed. Richard Fleming, bishop of Lincoln, in whose diocese Lutterworth was situated, directed the process. The reformer's remains weretaken up, burnt, and the ashes cast into the Swift, a little stream that runs at the foot of the hill on which the town is built. "Thus this brook," says Fuller, "hath conveyed his ashes into Avon, Avon into Severn, Severn into the narrow seas, they into the main ocean. And thus the ashes of Wiclif are the emblem of his doctrine, which now is dispersed all the world over."
We have endeavoured, as far as our limits would allow us, to exhibit Wiclif according to his own principles. It remains for us to add a few words on his sentiments, and express our own impression of his character. His opinions have been the subject of much disputation, and it is often said that they are so enwrapped in explanations and mystifications, that it is difficult to make out what they really were. But to one desirous to understand them, the difficulty soon disappears. The contemporary notices of him do not imply that there was any obscurity: the charges brought against him; his own defences; the references his followers make to him, do not suggest it. That his opinions will appear contradictory to one who extracts from his different writings, without regard to the circumstances and the time in which each was written, there can be no doubt; but if it be borne in mind that his creed, like that of every reformer, and especially of every religious reformer, was progressive—that his opinions were slowly formed, often forced upon his conviction after a long struggle against them—so that he would more than any other lament the necessity imposed upon him to admit, and especially to diffuse them,—if this gradual formation of his creed be remembered, the difficulty of reconciling the articles of it with the statements and reasonings to be found in others of his writings, will not surprise any candid inquirer, whether he admit the truth of the opinions or not. To us it appears he might truly be called the first Protestant—the first who boldly and firmly protested against the papal domination, both in relation to society and to individual man. His doctrinal views were in the main those afterwards adopted by Luther and the reformed churches—in others, he went far beyond them,verging closely upon Puritanism; while to the last he held many things now only retained by the Romish church.
His moral character was unimpeached. His sincerity has been questioned, but to us it seems to stand firm and unshaken. His faults, however, are manifest. Living up to the lofty character he set before him, he stooped not to one who was unable to attain to the same elevation. A fierce polemic, he is unmeasured in the expression of his wrath against all whom he opposed. But we must not let our dislike of such violence lead us too far. A wise man has told us "not to condemn bitter and earnest writing." In truth, a man cannot beat down idols with a feather broom: and Wiclif's task was not merely to sweep the dust off those about the holy place. After all, Wiclif was abundantly repaid in his own coin. For every handful of mud he flung, a cart-load was thrown back upon him. Let him not be condemned for a fault common to every one who has undertaken so apparently hopeless a task as the destruction of a mighty system of evil. It is a fault that seems to spring out of the vehemence of temper natural and almost necessary to the character of a reformer. The vehemence of his language in some instances, and its cautiousness at other times, appear to have arisen from the fact that,seeingpalpably the evil practices of the religious orders about him, and the consequences that resulted from them, he attacked them with an overflowing asperity—while in matters ofdoctrinehe formed his opinions deliberately, was conscious of all the difficulties of the question, and spoke cautiously, moderately, and with an honest desire not to obtrude extreme opinions. This, at least, appears to us the true explanation.
We regard Wiclif as one of the noblest of our Worthies; and as long as true manly earnestness and Christian worth are honoured by his countrymen, his name will live in their remembrance, and be cherished with devout gratitude, A true, honest, noble-hearted man, he recognised the divinity within him, and followed its bidding—through evil and through good report. With him worldly honours were nought; the fear of man he knew not; he had a work to accomplish, and he turnednot aside from it. As long as he had a hand or a tongue to labour with, he ceased not to labour. Wiclif was the pioneer in the great struggle to release man from spiritual thraldom. He stood forth and proclaimed the forgotten truth, that the soul of man is responsible alone to its Creator; that no man can stand between his fellowman and his Divine Master. The welcome with which his doctrine was met showed that the hollowness of the ground upon which men stood was felt. He died, but his work survived him. In this country a goodly band remained, and carried on what he had begun; and when they were silenced, his opinions were cherished in private, till on the introduction of the reformed doctrines they were lost in the broader stream. It is probable, indeed, that these secret dissentients within the English church largely contributed to the easy introduction of the reformed opinions here. On the Continent, too, his views found a home and a welcome. Carried into Bohemia immediately after his death, they there spread widely; nor did the martyrdom of John Huss stop their progress. The result was their accomplishment in the great Reformation.
The number of writings attributed to Wiclif, from tracts of a page up to large and elaborate works, which remain in MS. scattered through public libraries, is very great. Few of them have been printed, and it is not creditable to our literature that while the various societies established for the republication of the works of our earlier writers are loading their shelves with much worthless rubbish, only one work attributed to Wiclif (and that not known to be his) should have been printed. The Religious Tract Society, a few years back, published a volume of selections from his writings; but the language is modernized with very little judgment, and the work is of course of no value.
The authorities we have consulted for this sketch are Wiclif's own writings, so far as accessible to us; Walsingham, Knighton, and Wilkins; the Lives by Lewis and Vaughan; the Introduction to the 'Hexapla;' the various ecclesiastical histories; and the papers and prefaces by Dr. Todd.
CHAUCER
Top
Two undertakings of more than ordinary importance mark the second half of the fourteenth century, and suggest on various grounds an interesting and useful parallel. Pursuing one of these undertakings, the chief actor in it collected vast sums of treasure by the taxation of the people of England, drew from the peaceful and profitable avocations of industry the materials for army after army of English citizens, and poured them upon the soil of a neighbouring country, which he was determined at all costs to conquer. To found for England a new empire on the Continent, was the undertaking on which the brave, able, accomplished, but grasping and unscrupulous Edward III. concentrated the energies of a life. About the very same time that Edward began in earnest to prosecute this undertaking, there was a youth, buried in the seclusion of study, not less actively engaged in the promotion of another undertaking; that—too gigantic in its character probably to be determined upon, or even rightly estimated then—was doubtless dawninglittle by little upon his mind. For this undertaking, he too drew supplies from all quarters, but his levies were of books, his treasure the accumulated stores of thought that time had bequeathed to the world. And when he had mastered all that could thus be obtained, he went forth into the world to study men, as well as man, before he attempted the conquest of the empirehemeditated, over the hearts and minds of his fellows. And how fared these respective undertakings? Failures of course affected the ambitious student as well as the ambitious warrior, but we have not in the one case, as in the other, a record of them; let us therefore look simply at the successes of both, and the results. The battle of Creci, the first great encounter between the two nations, was won in 1346, and in the same year the first important poem of the first great English poet is understood to have been produced. Ten years later, Creci had been followed by Poitiers; the 'Court of Love,' by the noble 'Troilus and Cressida;' and by an announcement contained in the concluding lines of that work, which showed the poet had essayed and was satisfied as to his powers, and was preparing to give to England a work that should rival the divine comedy of the illustrious Italian (Dante) lately deceased. "Go, little book," wrote the poet—
"go, little tragedy,Where God my maker, yet ere that I die.So send me might to make some comedy."
Sixteen or seventeen years more elapse, and the iron-willed sovereign bends beneath a fiat even more potent than his own, and in deep humiliation feels that he is utterly defeated; about the same time the poet is receiving from the lips of an illustrious contemporary an addition to the materials for the work that is to form the culminating point of his life and fame, the last of a long series of productions destined to be as permanent as the language itself which they have done so much to create, the 'Comedy,' in short, of which he has so long dreamed;—he is hearing from Petrarch the exquisitely pathetic story of Griselda. Edward dies in 1377, a broken-heartedman; deserted, even on his palace-hearth, at the last hour, by those he had fed and clothed and honoured; he who would have conquered France cannot even now command the presence of a single lackey: when Chaucer dies, it is amidst the profound regrets of all who knew him personally or through his works; and as he goes "home" and takes his "wages," it is with the conviction that he has indeed done his "worldly task," in the foundation of what, all things considered, it is no national vanity to call the mightiest of Literatures. The parallel we have thus ventured to draw does not even end here. Whilst we still drink refreshing draughts from Chaucer's "well of English undefiled," and wonder to see how little of essentially differing qualities his greatest successors have infused into the national literature, the only effect, if there be any one now perceptible, of Edward's unjust attempt, or of his brilliant victories, is in the unhappy jealousy which these and similar events have left in the minds of the people who most suffered from them. Truly if the sword in its day is honoured at the expense of the pen, the pen in the long run repays itself with sweeping interest. We have said nothing in these remarks of the connexion between the two personages whose respective undertakings we have placed in juxtaposition with each other, but that connexion is not the least interesting or least important portion of the biography of either: we do not know whether Edward intentionally forwarded Chaucer's poetical undertakings, but it is clear that by his patronage theywereforwarded—and greatly; whilst Chaucer, on the other hand, was one of the most trusted and valued of the king's servants; promoting Edward's views by his personal services in the field as a soldier, and still more influentially by his experience and wisdom in the cabinet as a diplomatist.
It is a curious though a very common characteristic of certain biographers, in dealing with cases where information is as desirable as it is meagre, to make the little less, by throwing all sorts of doubts upon the facts that we thought had been settled and realized. They have, in short, a horror of all speculations but those whichmay tend to disturb existing beliefs. Unable to build themselves, they would deny to others the use of the necessary foundations. Why, for instance, must there be a doubt excited as to the date of Chaucer's birth? Most of the old writers say it took place in the second year of the reign of Edward III., 1328, and their statement is supported by a host of indirect evidences, which show that it must have been about the time they mention. But it is urged, that when Chaucer, in 1386, gave his deposition in the controversy between Lord Scrope and Sir Robert Grosvenor relative to the right of using a certain coat-of-arms (an important part of Chaucer's biography, to which we shall subsequently refer), he described himself "of the age of forty and upwards," and as having borne arms for twenty-seven years. Do the doubters therefore abide by their own necessary inference that he was born in 1345, and became a soldier at the ripe age of thirteen? Not a whit; they acknowledge that such a date cannot be correct; it has even been pointed out that other persons who were examined at the same time are known to have been from ten to twenty years older than the depositions make them. Whatever, therefore, the explanation of the phrase "forty and upwards," it is clear that it is not to be received in contradiction of the date that makes the poet to have been in his fifty-fifth year. Yet the doubt is raised just the same! So again as to the place of Chaucer's birth. In his prose work, the 'Testament of Love,' where the poet is as evidently and avowedly referring to himself as poet well can, he speaks of the City of London that is "to me so dear and sweet, in which I was forth grown; and more kindly love have I to that place, than to any other in earth; as every kindly creature hath full appetite to that place of his kindly engendure, and to wiln [wish] rest and peace in that stead [place] to abide." But then as some biographers have mistaken various other passages in that work, this passage also is to be doubted, nay, the whole production laid aside as one that cannot be relied on. It is true, that for a comprehensive and trustworthy Life of Chaucer greater care must be shown inthe use of the somewhat perplexing materials that wait the biographer's disposal than ever yet has been shown, but it is not by a system of wholesale negation that the work will be accomplished. Nothing can come of nothing, and, trite as the observation may be, there are some few for whom it still seems requisite to be asserted. Not simply useless, but mischievous, is that kind of biography which delights to reduce what at all events looks like flesh and blood to a pure skeleton, and has no objection to take away even a bone or two from that.
Chaucer then was born in 1328, in London; and there doubtless he spent his earliest years, until, as he says, he was "forth-grown." Of his parents we know nothing direct. A long list of persons has been collected, who during the period in question bore the name of Chaucer, which was derived from the old Norman word Chaucier or Chaussier, signifying a shoemaker; and used in that sense during the poet's life by Richard of Hampole, a hermit, who translated the Gospel of St. Mark, and died in 1394. The passage, "There cometh one mightier than I after me, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose," is thus rendered by Richard: "A stalworthier man than I shall come after me, of whom I am not worthy, downfalling or kneeling, to loose the thong of his chawcers." But that the poet's parents were certainly persons of wealth, probably also of consideration, may be assumed from the excellence of the education given to their son, and from the ready access which he found, on entering into public life, to the very person and favour of the sovereign. Chaucer, in a word, was born a gentleman; and the fact is of importance, not only for the incalculable benefit that it involved through the instrumentality of that education, but as showing us still more plainly than otherwise could have been shown the true nobility of the poet's mind. It is Chaucer who tells us, in the 'Wife of Bath's' tale, that he who ever intendeth to perform all kinds of gentle deeds is the greatest gentleman, and that he who will perform none of them—
"He is not gentle, be he duke or earl;"and that the poet here speaks his own sentiments, while relating the sentiments of the knight's apparently aged and hideous bride, is clear from his ballad on the same subject, where it is inculcated that unless a man love virtue and fly vice,
"He is not gentle, though he riche seem,All wear he mitre, crown, or diademe."
Where Chaucer was educated is uncertain; but the assertions of the older biographers that he was both at Cambridge and Oxford, and that he subsequently went to Paris, then the most famous and flourishing of all the European universities, is supported by the known facts in the lives of other eminent men, who became, like him, distinguished by their scholastic attainments. Grostête, Roger Bacon, and Michael Scott, all pursued the exact route ascribed to Chaucer. The poet is supposed to refer to himself under the designation of "Philogenet of Cambridge, clerk," in the 'Court of Love,' and the indications of a correct knowledge of the locality exhibited in the Reve's Tale are referred to as an additional corroboration of his residence in the neighbourhood. Even the very college is named—Clare Hall—at which he studied, and where he may have written his earlier poems, including the 'Court of Love.' Clare Hall, Speght says, is the same with that mentioned in the Reve's Tale, under the denomination of the Soleres or Scholars'. It is to be hoped the licentious freaks of the scholars, as described in that tale, are not to be received as characteristic of the order at the period that Chaucer was a member.
Two of Chaucer's most intimate friends appear to have been the "moral Gower" and the "philosophical Strode," whose names he has thus embalmed in his verse; and both were members of the University of Oxford at the time that all three must have been engaged in the business of mental culture. To them he dedicated his 'Troilus and Cressida;' and the poem itself, which is said to have been written at Oxford, may have been composed while in the daily enjoyment of their society.But whether it was Oxford, or some other place, that the poet left at the termination of his English academical studies, we may rest assured that Leland was essentially correct in his general statement when he wrote, "At the period of his leaving Oxford, he was already an acute dialectician, a persuasive orator, an eloquent poet, a grave philosopher, an able mathematician, and an accomplished divine. These no doubt are lofty appellations; but whoever shall examine his works with a curious eye, will admit that I have sufficient ground for my panegyric." But the touches of the "finishing school," it appears, from the same authority, were still requisite, and were obtained. Chaucer went to Paris, where "he imbibed all the beauties, elegance, charms, wit, and grace of the French tongue, to a degree that is scarcely credible." And thus accomplished, and possessing a handsome person, which must have been trained and developed into strength and activity by martial exercises, the young poet returned to England, and prepared to enter into the ordinary business of life, from which alone, it is probable, he thenceforward derived his chief or entire support. At first he entered into the study of the law, and became a member of the Inner Temple; but the only result was, an affair in which he became subject to the law, instead of an expounder of it. Some friar having offended the poet in Fleet Street, he is said to have given him a beating, and to have been fined five shillings for the offence. But it was not in the time of the Third Edward that a young ambitious man, in the possession of all that nature could possibly confer upon her greatest favourites—whether of personal or mental advantages, and whose acquisitions were as remarkable as his endowments,—it was not then such a man could shut himself up in the dusty solitudes of the Temple chambers, and pore over legal treatises from morn to noon—from noon to dewy eve. It was not the moths of fashion that the dazzling radiance of the court of King Edward attracted, but England's bravest and ablest men, her noblest and most virtuous women, whose beauty, however conspicuous, formed the least of their qualifications. It was with such as thesethat the palace halls of Windsor were thronged. To mention but two names, each sufficient to immortalize any court—there were then among the brilliant groups that surrounded Edward, his queen Philippa, the saviour of the illustrious citizens of Calais, and the Countess of Salisbury, the heroine of Froissart's charming narration, who not only resisted the king's unlawful love, but so purified the heart of the lover, that when the well-known accident happened at a ball, he founded the order of the Garter in her eternal honour: an act, all things considered, unequalled for its combination of chivalrous, poetical, and lover-like feeling.
It was among such personages the young poet desired to be, and his wishes were speedily gratified. And it is evident that he was at least as much admired as he could admire, notwithstanding his modest and retiring, if not even reserved habits. A pleasant tradition tells us that the Countess of Pembroke, the king's daughter, one of his patronesses, told him his silence created more mirth than his conversation; for he was very bashful and reserved in company, notwithstanding that life and spirit which appeared in his writings. But Chaucer had no desire to play the courtier—and he was understood. More than one of his poems are believed to have originated in conversations between the poet and the noble women who honoured themselves and him by taking an interest in his career. Thus, to appease them generally, when they professed to be offended by the strictures contained in some of his writings, he produced, at the command of Queen Philippa, 'The Legend of Good Women,' which, it has been pointedly observed, should rather be called 'The Legend of Bad Men.' Lydgate says—
"The poet wrote, at the réquest of the queen,A Legendè of perfect holiness;Of good women to findè out nineteenThat did excel in bounty and fairèness;"and the sly monk adds, for all his labour he found it impossible
"In all this world to find so great a number."
How the poet obtained admittance to the court we know not. In the absence of any facts tending to show that he was by birth entitled to expect as a matter of course the remarkable favour that was accorded to him, we do not see why we may not fall back upon the agreeable hypothesis that it was not social rank (though he had as much of it as was indispensable), but intellectual merit that really introduced him there. At all events such a supposition is supported in a remarkable manner by the known nature of his connexion with the man who, next to Edward and his son the Black Prince, occupied in his time the largest share of the attention of the people of England: we refer to John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, the fourth son of Edward, and of course, therefore, the brother of the prince just named.
Among the poems of Chaucer there are three which have been looked upon, and no doubt correctly, as illustrating the personal history of the duke as a lover and a husband. In the first of these, 'The Complaint of the Black Knight,' the poet, in a charming passage, describes himself as walking forth on a May morning, and meeting in an arbour the Black Knight, who is bewailing the cruelty of his mistress. It is worthy of observation, that the poem shows how much better the poet felt what did concern him, the beauty of the time and season, than what did not touch very deeply his sympathies, the love-distresses of his friend and patron John of Gaunt. The second work of the series, 'Chaucer's Dream,' shows that the lady's obduracy was, as usual, more apparent than real. The royal lover has married the lady of his heart, Blanche, daughter of the Duke of Lancaster. The third poem, the 'Book of the Duchess,' records the premature death of Blanche in 1369, and the profound grief of her husband. The historical facts relating to John of Gaunt, "time-honoured Lancaster," harmonize so completely with the poetical ones contained in this trio of poems, that there can be no reasonable doubt as to the scope and origin of the latter. And this conviction is of greatervalue than may be at first apparent. The 'Complaint of the Black Knight,' referring to the duke's courtship, and 'Chaucer's Dream,' referring to the duke's marriage, must have been written—the one a little before and the other a little after that marriage, which took place at Reading, in May, 1359, and was solemnized with great splendour. Knowing then the period and the circumstances of the production of these poems, we shall find, on looking at the one named 'Chaucer's Dream,' that we also know the essential history of the poet's own courtship and marriage. In the other two poems he is thinking chiefly of his friend and patron; in this one he makes all turn toward the expression of his own heartfelt wishes. In the 'Dream' he imagines himself in a lodge, beside a well in the forest, reposing after the fatigues of a hunt. The difficulties attending the courtship of the duke and duchess are then shadowed forth by an account of their death, and revival, ending in their union. Then follows a long and highly important passage, evidently, up to a certain point, narrating facts. After the marriage was determined upon, the royal lovers sent out messengers in all directions
"To kinges, queenes, and duchésses,To divers princes, and princesses,"inviting them to be present at the solemnity. Then, says the poet, they ordered that certain knights and squires and officers—
"In manner of an embassade,With certain letters clos'd and made,Should take the bargè and depart,And seekmy ladyevery partTill they her found."
The duke and duchess[26](Blanche) tell them to charge her to be there at the day; again and again Blanche desiresto be commended to her, and she is to be told that, unless she come, all will be wasted,
"And the feast but a business,Withouten joy or lustiness."
The embassy departs, and, after fourteen days, returns with the object of their search in the barge. The duchess, in her delight, cannot wait for her arrival at the court, but, says the poet, she met my lady on the sand, and clasped her in her arms. And for twelve hours after they parted not, but wandered alone, talking of their joys and troubles, with the pleasure natural to their young and tender years. And when night came, they still remained together. On the morrow the prince of lords
"Came, and unto my lady saidOf her coming glad, and well apaid[27]He was, and full right cunninglyHer thankèd, and full heartily,And laugh'd and smil'd, and said, 'YwisThat[28]was in doubt, in safety is.'"
The marriage takes place, and then, continues the poet,
"The prince, the queen,[29]and all the restUnto my lady made requestAnd her besought oftén, and pray'dTo me-wards to be well apaidAnd cónsider mine olde truth,And on my paines haven ruth,And me accept to her servíceIn suche form and in such wiseThat we both mighten be as one;Thus pray'd the queen and every one,And, for there should ne be no Nay,They stinten jousting all a dayTo pray my lady, and requereTo be content and out of fear,And with good heart make friendly cheer,And said it was a happy year;At which she smiled, and said 'YwisI trow well he my servant is,And wouldmywelfare, as I trist,[30]So would Ihis; and would he wistHow; and I knewe that his truthContinue would, withouten sloth,And be such as ye here report.Restraining both couráge and sport,I could consent at your requestTo be ynamèd of your feast,And doen after your usánceIn obeying of your pleäsance.At your request this I consent,To pleasen you in your intent:And eke the sovèreign above,Commanded hath me for to love,And before others him prefer;Against which prince may be no wer;[31]For his power o'er all reigneth,That other would for nought him paineth;And sith his will and yours is one,Contráry in me shall be none.'"
Here we have passed the boundaries of fact. That the lady had not yet said what the poet so delicately tells her she should say, much less that the marriage had taken place amidst all the ceremonies and gladness and splendour that he next so picturesquely describes, the poet presently proceeds to tell us. The sounds
"Round about, and in all the tents,With thousandès of instruments,"
trouble him in his sleep; he wakes, and finds no lady, alas! And now the mask, assumed for the moment, is dropped; he avows his prayer that his lady will accept of his service in such a manner that the substance of his dream may prove true, or that he may return into the same pleasant isle of fancy. And then, in direct appeal to her for grace (under the title of L'Envoy), he concludes the poem.
If we need any other evidence of the correctness of the idea that this poem records the poet's own feelings and position, and the position of the lady loved by him, we have only to inquire who it was that is known to have inspired such sentiments in his breast. She was the daughter of Sir Payne Roet, Guienne, king-of-arms, who is supposed to have come over from Hainault with Queen Philippa, after whom she may have been named, and in whose service she remained up to the day of the queen's death. This lady therefore was a member, and, as we know, a highly favoured one, of the household of the wife of John of Gaunt's brother. But the connexion may be traced still closer. Philippa Roet's sister Katherine, widow of Sir Hugh Swynford, was in the household of the duchess Blanche herself, the queen of Chaucer's dream, and it was that Katherine whom the great duke, later in life, married.
And what did the lady say, on the receipt of this poem, so exquisitely contrived and carried out? We know not, but may guess from subsequent circumstances that it was not very unfavourable. Suddenly, however, the sound of war rouses the lovers from all such dreamy delights. Edward, like a losing gamester, growing only the more desperate, is fitting out a new army for the conquest of France. The poet must accompany him. It is Chaucer's first military expedition. We must for a while forget the poet in the soldier.
Our knowledge of this important incident in the poet's career is derived from the deposition before mentioned, and forms the chief value of that document. Though delivered, therefore, many years subsequent to the period in question, we may here fitly transcribe it. Chaucer, among a host of other witnesses, was called by Richard, Lord Scrope, to bear testimony to his right to certain arms, in opposition to a similar claim on the part of Sir Robert Grosvenor.
"Geoffrey Chaucer, Esquire, of the age of forty and upwards, armed for twenty-seven years, produced on behalf of Sir Richard Scrope, sworn and examined: Asked, whether the arms 'Azure, a bend Or' belonged orought to belong to the said Sir Richard? Said yes, for he saw him so armed in France, before the town of Retters [apparently the village of Retiers, near Rennes, in Brittany], and Sir Henry Scrope armed in the same arms with a white label, and with a banner; and the said Sir Richard armed in the entire arms 'Azure, with a bend Or,' and so he had seen him armed during the whole expedition, until the said Geoffrey was taken. Asked, how he knew that the said arms appertained to the said Sir Richard? Said that he had heard say from old knights and esquires, that they had been reputed to be their arms, as common fame and the public voice proved; and he also said that they had continued their possession of the said arms; and that all his time he had seen the said arms in banners, glass, paintings, and vestments, and commonly called the arms of Scrope. Asked, if he had heard anyone say who was the first ancestor of the said Sir Richard who first bore the said arms? Said no, nor had he ever heard otherwise than that they were come of ancient ancestry, and of old gentry, and used the said arms. Asked if he had heard any one say how long a time the ancestors of the said Sir Richard had used the said arms? Said no, but he had heard say that it passed the memory of man. Asked, whether he had ever heard of any interruption or challenge made by Sir Robert Grosvenor, or by his ancestors, or by any one in his name, to the said Sir Richard, or to any of his ancestors? Said no; but he said that he was once in Friday Street, in London, and as he was walking in the street, he saw hanging a new sign made of the said arms, and he asked what inn that was that had hung out these arms of Scrope, and one answered him and said, No Sir, they are not hung out for the arms of Scrope, nor painted there for those arms, but they are painted and put there by a knight of the county of Chester, whom men call Sir Robert Grosvenor; and that was the first time he ever heard speak of Sir Robert Grosvenor, or of his ancestors, or of any other bearing the name of Grosvenor."
Chaucer says he had been armed twenty-seven years;this means, according to the then prevalent mode of speaking of such matters, that in 1359, twenty-seven years before the date of the deposition, 1386, Chaucer hadfirstborne arms. He says also, he was in France, in one of the military expeditions of the time. Now as 1359 is the very year in which Edward took a great army into that country, and as for three years before and for ten years after, there was no other such expedition set on foot, and as when fresh ones were despatched we know the poet was not concerned in them, but was differently engaged—why, on the whole, the inference is irresistible, that it was in Edward's expedition of 1359 that Chaucer first became a soldier.
And that expedition was one calculated to test most searchingly his possession of the soldier's best quality, fortitude, though not at all calculated to make him enamoured of the vocation. The expedition throughout exhibited to him only the shades of military life, without a glimpse of its sunshine. A more formidable army had never perhaps left the English shores—certainly had never left it to meet so melancholy a fate; it comprised a hundred thousand men, and filled a thousand ships during the passage from coast to coast. And if for a time it seemed as irresistible as it had promised to be, that was because no army came forth to meet it. From Calais Edward moved on through Artois to Picardy; and thence to Rheims, which he besieged with the intention, it is said, of having himself crowned king of France in the cathedral, the usual place of coronation for the sovereigns of the country. But the garrison was brave, the place strong, and the season winter. In the end he raised the siege, and marched into Burgundy, and then, turning towards Paris, he moved forwards till the dismayed Parisians beheld an English army encamped without their walls. The French, however, had learned wisdom from the success with which they had often defended their fortified places, and from the failure that attended their efforts in the open field. So they were not to be drawn outside the walls of the capital, not even by a challenge; and at the same time Edward wasquite unable to force his way in; so, harassed by insufficient supplies of provisions, he presently retreated towards Brittany. Every step of his way was marked by falling horses and men, who died from hunger or the intolerable fatigue to which they were subjected. No wonder that the spirits of the troops sank, and that Edward's own mind was so affected that he became superstitious, and yielded, beneath the terror of a great storm, the peace that not all the miseries of his own subjects, and the infinitely greater miseries they had inflicted on the French people, could wring from him. On the 8th of May, 1360, the treaty of Bretigny was concluded; Bretigny being a village near to Chartres. Of the greater part of the horrors of the expedition Chaucer was an eyewitness and participator, with the additional pang added that, as he himself tells, he was "taken" prisoner. How long he remained in captivity it is impossible to say; but there is reason to fear that the period may have even extended to five or six years. From 1359-60 to a little before 1366 his history is a blank to us; and the next circumstance we find related of him looks very like the greetings of his friends and of his sovereign after a prolonged and painful absence. In or before 1366 he received the hand of Philippa Roet, who, on the 12th of September in that year, was granted, by Edward, a pension of ten marks for life, by the name of Philippa Chaucer; and on the 20th of June in the following year, we find her husband holding a post (that of valet) in the king's household, corresponding to hers in the queen's, and enjoying that king's especial favour, as expressed by a grant of twenty marks yearly, in consideration of his former and future services. It is tolerably evident from all this, that it was not through the exertions of his own friend and patron John of Gaunt, or through the existence of any particular private desire to aid him in the minds of the still more influential friends and patrons of his wife, that the poet thus succeeded in establishing a position for himself in the world. The reward looks as though it were apportioned simply to the amount of the desert; and through all Chaucer's subsequentand highly distinguished career we shall find the same characteristic prevailing in the treatment of him. Or if there be any discrepancy, it is that the rewards on the whole seem to fall short rather than to exceed what might be supposed the legitimate amount. The king's grant to Chaucer was to last for life, or until he should be otherwise provided for. The promise here held out to the poet was not long left unredeemed. In 1370 he was sent abroad on the king's service; and—having been raised to the rank of one of the king's own squires—again in 1372, when he went to Genoa, to treat on the subject of the choice of a port in England where the Genoese might form an establishment. In 1376 a secret mission, and the nature of which still remains secret, was intrusted to him and Sir John Burley. In 1377 he accompanied Sir Thomas Percy on another secret mission to Flanders, and in the same year is supposed to have been concerned in the negotiations for peace with France; all missions of an important nature, and all comprised within the period of the life of Edward. But change of monarchs made no change in this respect; the poet's abilities, character, and services were sufficient to command the respect and attention of Edward's successor. One of the earliest events of the new reign was the appointment of an embassy to treat of the marriage of Richard II. with the daughter of the king of France: Chaucer was one of the ambassadors. This was in January, 1378, and the poet could scarcely have fulfilled his duty and returned, before he was again despatched, in May of the same year, to Lombardy, to treat with the lord of Milan and the famous free commander Sir John Hawkwood. An interesting circumstance marks this embassy. Gower was one of the two representatives who acted for the poet in England during his absence. This is one of the numerous valuable facts that Sir Harris Nicholas has made known for the first time in his (as yet unpublished) 'Life of Chaucer.'
It was in the embassy to Genoa, of 1372, that Chaucer is supposed to have met Petrarch, and to have heard from him the story of Griselda. This supposition, thetruth of which one would be glad to be satisfied of, rests upon the following evidence:—Chaucer, in the prologue to the Clerk's Tale, makes the clerk say,
"I will you tell a talè, which that ILearned at Padua, of a worthy clerk,As proved by his wordès and his work.He is now dead and nailèd in his chest;I pray to God so give his soule rest.Francis Petrarch, the laureate poéte,Highte this clerk, whose rhetóric sweetIllumined all Itaille of poetry."
Now Boccaccio was the author, in the Italian language, of the story in question, 'Griselda;' and why did Chaucer, if he is not referring to an actual and highly interesting incident of his own history, make the clerk go out of his way to speak of Petrarch, who only translated, in Latin, Boccaccio's work? No one supposes that Chaucer was ignorant of the existence or nature of the writings of Boccaccio; and the only answer given to Godwin, who put the foregoing question, is, that Chaucer may not have been acquainted with the Italian language, and therefore preferred acknowledging an obligation to Petrarch, whose translation alone had enabled him to become familiar with the tale. It might be so; though it is not very likely. Not only was Chaucer, as we have seen, distinguished in youth for the depth and universality of his attainments, but had been at least twice an ambassador to Italy. The strong probability therefore is, that he did know the language, and was perfectly well acquainted with the 'Decameron' (the exemplar of his own Canterbury Tales) in its mother tongue, but that having met Petrarch,who was at Arquà near Paduaat the very time that Chaucer was in the neighbourhood, he could not tell the tale he had then heard, under such remarkable circumstances, without a passing record of them.
That same Genoese embassy involved important consequences as regarded the fortunes of the poet. On the 8th of June, 1374, only a few months after his return, Edward conferred upon him the lucrative and distinguishedoffice of comptroller of the customs for wool, &c. But the king had not waited until that time to show what he thought of Chaucer's conduct; he had already conferred upon him a marked testimony of his approbation; and at a time and under circumstances that make the blood stir, and the imagination busy itself in a thousand vain attempts to picture what might have been from the knowledge of what was. On St. George's day, the 23rd of April, 1374, when the king would be sitting in high and solemn festival, surrounded by all the chief nobility of the land, and when Chaucer, as one of his own squires, would, as a matter of duty and office, be in attendance on him, Edward conferred upon the poet the grant of a pitcher of wine to be supplied to him daily for life. In the very same year, and after the appointment to the customs, John of Gaunt, as if desiring to show how deeply he sympathised in the poet's prosperity, still further swelled his income by a grant of ten pounds for life. The following year, 1375, brought also its own good gifts, in the shape of two wardships, granted by Edward; from one of which Chaucer received 104l., equivalent, according to Godwin's estimate of the comparative value of money then and now, to about some eighteen hundred pounds of the nineteenth century.
And now for some years the poet's life appears to have rolled on smoothly, usefully, happily. And although it was a condition expressly made by Edward, that the poet should keep the accounts of the comptrollership with his own hand, and not put off his duties upon a deputy (a wise provision, and fitly made by a king who knew so well how to pay for real services), it is supposed that it was during these busy years that Chaucer produced some of his best miscellaneous poems. The 'Romaunt of the Rose,' a translation from the French work that enjoyed so long a period of popularity, had probably been written long before, in the days when the poet imitated previous writers rather than drew from himself; the dates of the 'Cuckoo and the Nightingale' and some others are unknown; but the 'House of Fame,' a noble poem, and worthy of its suggestive title, bears internal evidence that it was writtenwhile its author held the office of comptroller: and some very agreeable information it gives to us of the poet's habits. Jupiter, who addresses the poet personally, tells him he is aware he attends nothing now to tidings of love, nor of nothing else—not even
"of thy very neigheboursThat dwellen almost at thy doors,Thou hearest neither that nor thisFor when thy labour all done is,And hast made all thy reckonings,Instead of rest, and of new things,Thou goest home to thine house anon,And all so dumbe as a stoneThou sittest at another book,Till fully dazèd is thy look,And livest thus as a hermíte,Although thine abstinence is lite,"[32]&c.
In the love of good living, here acknowledged, we may see the origin of that goodly bulk upon which Harry Bailley, in the 'Canterbury Tales,' banters the poet. "Now," he calls out to the pilgrims,
"'Ware yon, sirs, and let this man have place;He in the waist is shapen as well as I:This were a poppet in an arme to embraceFor any woman."
Through the same medium the poet describes himself as accustomed to look on the ground, to be "elvish" of countenance, silent, and reserved. We need only add to these traits another, also on the best of authorities—his own—namely, the love of walking, and enjoyment of all the sights and sounds of natural phenomena. In his 'Legend of Good Women' he writes—
"And as for me, though that I can but lite,[33]On bookes for to read, I me delight,And to them give I faith and full credénceAnd in mine heart have them in reverence,So heartily, that there is gamè noneThat from my bookes maketh me to gone;But it be seldom on the holyday,Save certainly when that the month of MayIs comen, and that I hear the fowles[34]sing,And that the flowres 'ginnen for to spring,Farewell my book and my devotïon."
In 1386 the people emphatically marked their approbation of him whom kings had delighted to honour, by electing Chaucer to parliament as a knight of the shire for Kent. But, in all probability, that honour destroyed the poet's peace. Misfortunes began from this time to fall thickly upon him. Within two months after the meeting of parliament he was deprived of the comptrollership, as well as the comptrollership of the petty customs, that had been conferred by Richard II. four years before; and we are utterly in the dark as to the cause. Tyrwhitt, Godwin, and others have built up an elaborate hypothesis, as to his connexion with the civic commotion in London in 1384, when John of Northampton stood for the office of mayor in opposition to the court candidate; and which ended, they say, as concerned the poet, in his expatriation to Zealand, in his enduring great sufferings there, in his return to England in 1386, and in his committal to the Tower, until 1389. All these presumptions, founded on various passages of the 'Testament of Love,' the right key to which has evidently not yet been found, have been utterly set at rest by Sir Harris Nicholas's discovery of records showing that from 1380 to 1388 Chaucer received his pension regularly as it became due, in London,with his own hands. And, indeed, we have only to weigh for a moment the character and doings of the parliament to which he was elected, to satisfy us that there need be no surprise excited at the treatment experienced by Chaucer. Legislation, in the dictionary of the leading politicians of the day, meant intrigues for the possession of power. The parliament was divided into two parties; one supporting the king, and the king's favourites, De la Pole and De Vere, and the other determined to drive those favourites from power. The oppositionwas headed by the Duke of Gloucester, a brother of John of Gaunt, and it succeeded; De la Pole was dismissed, impeached, and imprisoned; and, finally, the successful party demanded and obtained from Richard a council for the government of the nation. There would be little relish then for the advice, little sympathy with the conduct of a man who in his writings was accustomed, whilst bidding the people to obey the king and the law, also to say to their governors—
"Knight, let thydeedes worship détermine,"and"Go forth, king, and rule thee by sapience;"and who was in religion a Wickliffite.
In struggles between ambitious nobles and a king who desired to be despotic, a man of independent character might easily give deep offence to those against whom he acted, and without particularly pleasing those who might look upon him generally as their supporter; and that Chaucer appears to have done. He was made the victim of the one, and received no compensating benefits from the other. So, in 1388, he was compelled to sell two of his pensions, which were accordingly assigned to John Scalby. His wife's pension had ceased with the life of her to whom it had been granted. The last payment to Philippa Chaucer took place in June, 1387. She died therefore within a twelvemonth after the events that plunged them both in adversity.
In 1389, Richard, then in his twenty-second year, suddenly dismissed Gloucester, and confided the administration to another uncle, the Duke of York, and to a cousin, Henry of Bolingbroke, the son of John of Gaunt, who during all these changes was on the Continent endeavouring to establish for himself a Spanish sovereignty. Within two months after that change, Chaucer was appointed Clerk of the Works at the king's chief palaces, at a salary of two shillings a day, and in the course of his duties he had to superintend the onerous but honourable and gratifying task of repairing St. George's Chapel, Windsor. But again he was dismissed, after about two years' service; unless, indeed, which is possiblerather than probable, that he, in order to carry out his literary views, had himself determined to retire finally from all public employment. He was now sixty-three years old; the "Comedy" over which he had so long pondered, and which was to contain the accumulated wealth of his genius, wisdom, and experience, was still unwritten, except in parts, and he had evidently long desired to abstract himself from mere worldly avocation. Thus in 1384 he had obtained from Richard a relaxation of Edward's stringent regulation, that he should not nominate a deputy, and in the very year that he ceased to hold his architectural appointments he had caused John Elmhurst to officiate for him. At all events, the years 1393, 1394, 1395, are supposed to have been those of the production of the 'Canterbury Tales' (which are known to have been produced after Jack Straw's insurrection, as that occurrence is mentioned in them), and we see no reason to disturb the supposition. Woodstock, a royal seat, was, according to tradition, the scene of the poet's labours on this his greatest work, as well as of others of an earlier date. In the scientific treatise addressed by Chaucer to one of his two sons, Lewis, who appears to have died young, there does appear something like evidence that Chaucer was living in the neighbourhood of Oxford when he composed that piece, which contains the date of 1391. Chaucer there speaks of the astrolabe he has "compounded after the latitude of Oxford." But there is really so little tangible knowledge concerning the poet's residence either at Woodstock or at Donnington Castle, that it is best to rest content with the fact that tradition does say Chaucer resided at both, and that at Donnington he planted the three oaks known respectively as Chaucer's oak, the king's oak, and the queen's. But then tradition must not be too exacting—must not also ask us to believe that the poet wrote several of his poems beneath the shade of one of the trees he had planted. It must have been a most precocious tree else.
In deep gloom, much we fear, the poet spent the latter hours of his day of life, though not without a sudden lighting up of the horizon ere the close, as if to surround his passage into the grave with something of the glorythat should attend the sunset of such a life. Sir Harris Nicholas has collected together in his work (to which we must refer for the particulars) facts of the deepest interest, as showing that he was in poverty, sheer unmistakeable poverty, from 1394 to 1398. And yet John of Gaunt had not only returned to England, but had married the sister of the poet's wife, through which marriage therefore Chaucer became connected with the royal family of England. Was the poet too proud to make known the real state of his affairs? In 1398 Richard, with whom sympathy and admiration for Chaucer seem to have been the mere occasionally recurring whim of the moment, did again so far remember the poet as to confer on him another grant of wine, more valuable than the first, to be delivered by the poet's own son, Thomas, who had then risen to the rank of chief butler. In 1399 Richard was deposed, and Bolingbroke became king of England; and withinfourdays the pension of twenty marks that Richard had granted to Chaucer in 1394 (six years after the sale of the two pensions formerly possessed by him) wasdoubled, leaving him, on the whole, the recipient of an income from the crown amply sufficient for all his wants. He now took a lease of a house situated in a garden adjoining Westminster Abbey, and there probably he died, on the 25th of October, 1400. He was buried in Westminster Abbey, and it is only fitting that Poets' Corner, like English poetry itself, should date its foundation from Geoffrey Chaucer. As a poet, he needs no epitaph, but whenever we do—what has been often talked of—rebuild his monument in the Abbey, we need desire no nobler testimony of his character as a man to be inscribed on it, than the ballad with which we conclude, and which was written by him, as the affecting title states, when he lay upon his death-bed in "great anguish:"—
"Fly from the press,[35]and dwell with soothfastness,[36]Suffice unto thy good, though it be small,For hoard hath hate, and climbing tickleness;Praise hath envý, and weal is blent over all;Savour[37]no more than thee behovè shall;Rede[38]well thyself that other folk canst redeAnd truth thee shall delíver, it is no drede.Paine thee not each crookèd to redress,In trust of her that turneth as a ball,Great rest standeth in little business;Beware also to spurn against a nall,[39]Strive not as doth a crocke with a wall;Doomé thyself that doomest others dede,And truth thee shall deliver, it is no drede.That[40]thee is sent, receive in buxomness,[41]The wrestling of this world asketh a fall;Here is no home, here is but wilderness;Forthe pilgrim, forthe beast out of thy stall,Look up on high, and thanke God of all,Waivè thy lusts, and let thy ghost[42]thee lead,And truth thee shall deliver, it is no drede."