758 



C H A U C E R. 



Chaucer, though his writings testify that his subsequent exile 

 ** "V"*' and misfortunes arose from it, yet we find him, in 1385, 

 permitted to execute his office by deputy, at a time 

 when there is reason to believe that he was in exile 

 on account of his politics. It is certain, however, 

 that he was arrested and committed to the Tower on 

 his return to England. When obliged to fly, he 

 escaped first to Hainault, then to France, and finally 

 to Zealand. While in Zealand, he maintained some 

 of his countrymen who had fled thither on the same 

 account, a liberality which soon exhausted his money. 

 In the mean time, the partizans of his cause whom 

 he left at home, contrived to make their peace, not 

 only without endeavouring to procure him a pardon, 

 but without aiding him in his poverty abroad. On 

 his return home, he suffered a temporary confinement, 

 and in 1386 he was deprived of his two comptroller- 

 ships. The coincidence of this date with that of the 

 Duke of Glocester's usurpation of power, would lead 

 us to suppose that Glocester was personally more 

 hostile to the poet than the king himself was, whose 

 asperity was probably softened by the good offices 

 of his queen, Anne of Bohemia, the friend of Chaucer, 

 and the subject of his warmest panegyric. In 1388, 

 he was obliged to dispose of his two pensions, which 

 were all the resources left to him by his persecutors. 

 From 1 386 to 1 389, Richard the Second had been stript 

 of his authority. The latter year was propitious to 

 Chaucer. Before its conclusion, John of Gaunt, now 

 Duke of Lancaster, who afterwards married his sister- 

 in-law, returned from Spain, and from that date he 

 had a more steady protector. Before Lancaster's ar- 

 rival, he had procured his liberation from prison, on 

 terms which have been alleged to be disgraceful to 

 his memory. He made a confession of his coadjutors 

 in what was called Northampton's conspiracy. But 

 in naming them, he implicated no innocent person ; 

 and it is evident that they had behaved towards him 

 in the most unprincipled manner. 



In the same year, 1389, he was appointed to be 

 clerk of the works at Westminster, and in the year fol- 

 lowing to the same office at Westminster. His salary 

 amounted to 36, 10s. per annum, a sum (consider- 

 ing the price of provisions in those days,) probably 

 equal in effect to seven hundred pounds of our pre- 

 sent paper currency. His resignation of this office 

 brings us to the sixty-third year of the poet's life. 

 He then retired most probably to Woodstock, and 

 devoted the repose and evening of his life to writing 

 his immortal Canterbury Talcs, among those beauti- 

 ful scenes which had inspired his youthful genius. 

 In 139-t, he obtained a pension for life of '2.0. One 

 of the most curious particulars in the concluding part 

 of his life is, the patent of protection granted to him 

 by Richard the Second, in the year 1398, which has 

 been generally supposed to be a protection against 

 his creditors. But this protection proves, upon ex- 

 amination, to contain no mention of the poet's debts 

 or creditors ; and though it is difficult to suppose 

 what other sort of protection a man of peaceable 

 pursuits could require, yet it is one of the many pro- 

 blems in his history which remain yet to be solved. 

 The record shows, however, that Chaucer, though 

 now seventy years of age, had once more embarked 



in public business, although the nature of his era- Chaucer, 

 ployment is not specified. In the autumn of the same s " 1 "' "V*"' 

 year, he received a grant of a yearly ton of wine, we 

 may suppose in lieu of the daily pitcher which had 

 been stopped during his misfortunes. The place ap- 

 pointed for this delivery seems to imply, that his re- 

 sidence was then in London. 



The succeeding year, 1399, was marked by the de- 

 position of Richard the Second, and the ascension of 

 Bolingbroke, the son of his patron John of Gaunt, to 

 the English throne. It is creditable to the memory 

 of Henry IV., although he abandoned so many of 

 his father's friends, that he did not suffer the poeti- 

 cal ornament of the age to be depressed by the revo- 

 lution. Chaucer's grants of the annuity and pipe of 

 wine were renewed in the first year of the new reign, 

 and an additional pension of forty merks a year waa 

 conferred on him. But he did not live long to enjoy 

 them. He died, according to the inscription on his 

 tomb- stone, in the beginning of the second year of 

 Henry IV., at London, on the 25th of October 

 1400, and was interred in Westminster Abbey, south- 

 cross aisle. The monument to his memory was erect- 

 ed above a century and a half after his decease, by 

 Nicholas Brigham, a gentleman of Oxford, and a 

 warm admirer of his poetry. It stands at the north 

 end of a magnificent recess, formed by four obtuse 

 foliaged arches, and is a plain altar, with three qua- 

 trefoils and the same number of shields. The inscrip- 

 tion and figures on the back are almost obliterated. 



Chaucer, it will be hardly necessary to inform any 

 of our readers, found the poetry of England (if the 

 metrical romances and rhyming chronicles of the Nor- 

 man school deserve that name) in the rudest state. 

 Of the measures of verse which had been established 

 by his predecessors, he deigned only to adopt one, 

 the eight syllable measure, and another still shorter 

 and more imperfect ; but the latter he introduces in 

 his Canterbury Tales only as a specimen of the com- 

 mon minstrel style, in derision. He introduced the 

 majestic ten syllable iambic into our language, which, 

 although it may be sometimes found among the hob- 

 bling and indetermined measure of older versifiers, 

 evidently occurs only by accident. He found, how- 

 ever, the numbers of the language more defective 

 than its stores of fancy and fiction. Fable and ima- 

 ginary characters had been already engrafted on Eng- 

 lish minstrelsy, through the joint influence of the 

 troubadours, and of the expansion of intercourse among 

 nations, among whom England had taken a distinguish- 

 ed lead since the period of the first Richard. This 

 increasing intercourse and diffusion of taste and fancy, 

 as well as knowledge, throughout Europe, is to be 

 remarked in the influence which the Italian poets pos- 

 sessed upon Chaucer's character as a poet, both as it 

 tuned his versification and enriched him with sub- 

 jects. 



Chaucer's earliest production, The Court of Love, 

 was written at eighteen years of age. There yet 

 existed, as we have already noticed, no form of ver- 

 sification in English that could direct his ear in the 

 stately and regular measure of the prolonged iam- 

 bic. * It was reserved for the youthful hand of our 

 poet first to array them in English, and to ornament 



* To prevent obscurity, we notice to those who may not know the classical names of metres, that long iambic means oUv 

 common heroic measure, such as the line, 



" Sweet Auburn, loreliest village of the plain." 



