4:70 
«¢ The circumstances here recited may fur- 
ther shew us, what were the motives which 
so longdelayed the accomplishment of Chau - 
cer’s wishes. The lady who was honoured 
with his addresses may be presumed not to 
have been entirely indifferent to his person, 
his character, or accomplishments. But she 
could not resolve to quit the service of her 
royal mistress. This seems to be highly ho- 
ncurable to the queen. Chaucer, however, 
no doubt still promised himself, that he 
should be able to induce her to surmount 
this scruple of delicacy ; especially as his 
addresses are said (and he has insinuated as 
much in the poem of the Dream) to have 
been countenanced by the Duke and Duchess 
of Lancaster, and perhaps by the queen her- 
self. ‘The lady, however, though mild (it 
may be, a little encouraging in Ker refusal,) 
still continued to elude the conclusion of his 
suit. At length, the main topic of her ob- 
jections having been removed by the Jament- 
ed death of the queen, we may naturally in- 
fer that their nuptials were eclebrated, as soon 
as the general laws of decorum, and the ideas 
of female delicacy would allow: and we 
shail see reason hereafier to believe, that 
Chaucer's marriage could not have taken 
place later than the year 1370.” 
Pursuing these * workings of fancy,’ 
the philosophic biographer informs us, 
that though Chaucer was ‘¢a ten years 
suitor, we may be well assured that this 
circumstance was in him no indication 
of a whining and feeble temper, defec- 
tive in discrimination, or nerveless and 
impotent to resolve.”? ‘This is a pattern 
of the fine fustian which Mr. Gedwin has 
introduced in his patch.work,. 
We pass over the intermediate chap- 
ters of ecclesiastical history. ‘Ihe next 
point of importance in the life of Chau- 
cer is his mission to Genoa and visit to 
Petrarca. Here we have move workings 
of fancy ! 
** Tt is not possible for us at this distance 
of time, to ascertain whether Chaucer travel- 
Jed across the northern part of Ttaly, from the 
Mediterranean Sea to the Adriatic, princi- 
pally to visit the great Jaureated poet of that 
country, whose fame during his own life- 
time was perhaps louder and more awe-inspir- 
ing than ever fell to the lot of any other mos- 
tal; or whether he was partly moved by the 
desire of beholding the other great maritime 
state of the fourteenth century ; the rival of 
Genoa the proud, Venice, which +/as only 
twenty-two miles disiant from the residence 
of Petrarea. On the road, also, he mieht 
visit Mantua, the birth-place of Virgil; Ve- 
rona, which had given existence to Claudian ; 
and many other places profusely adorned 
with the witchery of nature, or rendered 
mysteriously interesting by the association of 
former times. ‘The visit to Petrarca, how- 
BIOGRAPHY. 
ever, is the only incident of this jouracy 
which Chaucer has thought fit to transnus 
to posterity. 
‘* Petrarca was at this time nearly seventy 
years of age, and he survived only by twelve 
months the yisit of the English poet. It 
must have been a striking object to Chaucer 
to behold this grey-headed, yet impassioned, 
poet, in aperiod when the gift of poetry was 
so exceedingly rare; this correspondent of 
popes, of states, and of emperors; this’ poet 
who had been crewned by Paris ald Rome, 
and from whose compositions Chaucer's in- 
fant lips had perhaps first drunk in the nu- 
mecrousness of verse. Petrarca was interests 
ing to Chaueer, because Chauger saw in 
him as it were the lineal descendant of th¢ 
Ciceros, the Virgils, and the Oyids of Italy, 
in the days of its classical greatness., Chau: 
cer was interesting to Petsarea for a different 
reason. He came from the w/tima Theale, the 
penitus toto divisos orte Brilannos; that 
country which the wantonness of more 
genial climates among the antients had re- 
presented as perpetually enveloped in fogs 
aud darkness. “To later times the literature 
and poetical gens of Britain is, familiar 
no tongue so barbarous, as not to confess us 
the equals, while in reality we are in intellec- 
tual eminence the masters, of mankind.—- 
But this was a spectacle altogether unknown 
in the times of, Petrarca. ‘The discovery he 
made was scarcely less astonishing than that 
of Columbus, when he reconnoitred the 
shores of the western world. He interro- 
gated his guest; he proposed to him his 
most trying and difficult criterions ; be ex- 
changed with him the glances of mind, and 
the flashes of a poet’s eye. Chaucer had al- 
ready written bis Troilus and Creseide, and 
wany of his most meritorfous produetions ; 
he was more than forty years of ase: we may 
imagine how he answered the ordeal of the 
Itatian, and stoed up to him with the sober 
and matly conseiousness of a poet to a 
oct. Petrarga hesitated, suspected, and at 
abe hecame wholly a convert; he em- 
braced the wondrous stranger from a frozen” 
clime, and foresaw, with that sort ef inspira- 
tion which attends the closing period of de- 
parting genius, the future glories of a Spen- 
Lp) 
ser, a Shakespear, and a Milton.” 
From his grant of a pitcher of wine 
per day, Mr. Godwin argues that Chau- 
cer was a man of-gay and convivial tem- 
per, ‘* who, it may be presumed, seldom 
sat down to the principal refreshment of. 
the day, without the society of two or 
three chosen-friends, whose manners and 
topics of conversation were congenial to 
his own!’”? From this fact he also de- 
duces the following calculation of the 
poet’s income. 
. “ The cireumstance of Chaucer's receiv= 
ing his allowance of wine daily, seems to 
: 
