6o JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. 



the Crown, and from John of Gaunt, together with his daily 

 allowance of wine from the King, gave him several years 

 immunity from monetary cares. But the wheel of political 

 fortune turned, and forthwith came less pleasant times. With 

 the new Government he at once lost his ofhce in the customs, 

 and in 1388, his Court pension was taken from him. 



A further turn of the wheel of political fortune brought 

 Chaucer's party again in power, and he became Clerk of the 

 King's works at Westminster, Windsor, and at the Tower, 

 where costly alterations were made. In two vears more he 

 was again out of favour with the dominant power ; ousted 

 from office ; and though the King never quite forgot him, he 

 was in straightened circumstances so long as Richard II 

 reigned. When Henry IV became King, in 1399, Chaucer 

 addressed to him " a compleint to his purse," stating that it 

 was light, that he needed help : " For I am shave as nye as is 

 a frere." The King answered his application and granted him 

 a pension in October, 1399. Two months afterwards Chaucer 

 leased a tenement in the garden of St, Mary's Chapel, West- 

 minster, and on the 35th of October, 1400, he died. He was 

 buried in St. Benet's Chapel in Westminster Abbey. His 

 place of sepulture, the east aisle of poets' corner in the Abbey, 

 is to all who love English literature a hallowed spot. Near to 

 Chaucer's tomb rests Spencer, "the prince of poets of his time," 

 with Browning and Tennyson, princes of song in our time, 

 while surrounding are presentments in marble of that choir of 

 " singers silent long," whose " glorious music " is our heirloom 

 from the intervening centuries. 



Chaucer's manners were pleasing and attractive, and he 

 was a modest, cheerful companion, thoughtful indeed and 

 sometimes taciturn, but when he chose to be jocose, his humour 

 v\'as resistless. Reverential and religious at heart, his satire 

 could nevertheless sting, like a scourge of scorpions, hypocrisy 

 and deceit. The artistic faculty was dominant in his well 

 balanced mind, and was the central gem which gave refulgence 

 to the rich setting of graces which adorned his character. 

 That divine faculty found good in everything, and to it nothing 



