The place of his birth
was in all probability London.
was in all probability London.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v06 - Cal to Chr
He spent his spare time in poetizing, and
sent anonymously transcripts from professedly old poems to the local
papers. Their authorship being traced to him, he now claimed that
his father had found numerous old poems and other manuscripts
in a coffer of the muniment room at Redcliffe, and that he had tran-
scribed them. Under guise of this fiction he produced, within the
two years of his apprenticeship, a mass of pseudo-antique dramatic,
lyric, and descriptive poems, and fragments of local and general his-
tory, connected all with his romance of the clerk of Bristol. A
scholarly knowledge of Middle English was rare one hundred and
thirty years ago, and the self-taught boy easily gulled the local anti-
quaries. He even deceived Horace Walpole, who, dabbling in medi-
ævalism, had opened the way for prose romances with his 'Castle
of Otranto,' a spurious antique of the same time in which Chatter-
ton had placed his fiction. Walpole at first treated him courteously,
even offering to print some of the poems. But when Gray and Mason
## p. 3541 (#519) ###########################################
THOMAS CHATTERTON
3541
pronounced them modern, he at once gave Chatterton the cold shoul-
der, entirely forgetting his own imposition on a credulous public.
Chatterton now turned to periodical literature and the politics of
the day, and began to contribute to various London magazines. In
the spring of 1770 he finally came up to London, to start on the life
of a literary adventurer on a capital of less than five pounds. He
lived abstemiously and worked incessantly, literally day and night.
He had a wonderful versatility; he would write in the manner of any
one he chose to imitate, and he tried his hand at every species of
book-work. But even under the strain of this incessant productivity
he found time to turn back to his boyhood dreams, and produced
one of his finest poems, the 'Ballad of Charity. ' At first his contri-
butions were freely accepted, but he was poorly paid, and sometimes
not at all. Yet out of his scanty earnings he bought costly presents
for his mother and sister, as tokens of affection and an earnest of
what he hoped to do for them. After scarcely two months in Lon-
don he was at the end of his resources. He made an attempt to
gain a position as surgeon's assistant on board of an African trader,
but was unsuccessful. He now found himself face to face with
famine; and, too proud to ask for assistance or to accept even the
hospitality of a single meal, he on the night of August 25th, 1770,
locked himself into his garret, destroyed all his note-books and
papers, and swallowed a dose of arsenic. It is believed that he was
privately buried in the churchyard of St. Mary Redcliffe. There a
monument has been erected, with an inscription from his poem
Will':
"To the memory of Thomas Chatterton. Reader! judge not. If thou art
a Christian, believe that he shall be judged by a superior power. To that
power alone is he now answerable. »
His death attracted little notice, for he was regarded merely as
the transcriber of the Rowley' poems. They were collected after
his death, from the various persons to whom he had given the manu-
scripts, and occasioned a controversy that has lasted almost down
to the present generation. But only an age untrained in philological
research could ever have received them as genuine productions of
the fifteenth century: for Chatterton, who knew little of the old
authors antedating Spenser, constructed with the help of Bailey's and
Kersey's English dictionaries a lingo of his own; he strung together
old words of all periods and dialects, and even coined words himself
to suit the metre. His lingo resembles anything rather than Middle
English. It is supposed that he wrote first in modern English, and
then translated into his own dialect; for the poems do not suffer by
retranslation, on the contrary, they are more intelligible and often
-
## p. 3542 (#520) ###########################################
3542
THOMAS CHATTERTON
more rhythmical. Chatterton had a wonderful memory, and hav-
ing read enormously, there are frequent though perhaps unconscious
plagiarisms from Spenser, Shakespeare, Dryden, Pope, Gray, and
others.
Yet after all has been said against the spurious character of the
'Rowley' poems, Chatterton's two volumes of collected writings, pro-
duced under the most adverse circumstances, are a record of youth-
ful precocity unparalleled in literary history. He wrote spirited
satires at ten, and some of his best old verse before sixteen. 'Ella'
is a dramatic poem of sustained power and originality, and its songs
have the true lyric ring; the Ode to Liberty,' a fragment from the
tragedy of Goddwyn,' is with its bold imagery one of the finest
martial lyrics in the language; the 'Ballad of Charity,' almost the
last poem he wrote, comes in its objectivity and artistic complete-
ness near to some of Keats's best ballad work. But more wonderful
perhaps than this early blossoming of his genius is its absolute ori-
ginality. At a time when Johnson was the literary dictator of Lon-
don, and Pope's manner still paramount, Chatterton, unmindful of
their conventionalities and the current French influence, instinctively
turned to earlier models, and sought his inspiration at the true
source of English song. Bishop Percy's 'Reliques of Old English
Poetry,' published in 1765, first made the people acquainted with
their fine old ballads; but by that year Chatterton had already
planned the story of the monk of Bristol and written some of the
poems. Gifted with a rich vein of romance, he heralded the coming
revival of medieval literature. But he not only divined the new
movements of poetry-he was also responsible for one side of its
development. He had a poet's ear for metrical effects, and trans-
mitted this gift to the romantic poets through Coleridge; for the lat-
ter, deeply interested in the tragedy of the life of the Bristol boy,
studied his work; and traces of this study, resulting in freer rhythm
and new harmonies, are found in Coleridge's own verse. The influ-
ence of the author of 'Christabel' on his brother poets is indisputa-
ble; hence his indebtedness to Chatterton gives to the latter at once
his rightful position as the father of the New Romantic school.
Keats also shows signs of close acquaintance with Chatterton; and he
proves moreover by the dedication of his 'Endymion' that he cher-
ished the memory of the unfortunate young poet, with whom he had,
as far as the romantic temper on its objective side goes, perhaps the
closest spiritual kinship of any poet of his time.
But quite apart from his youthful precocity and his influence on
later poets, Chatterton holds no mean place in English literature
because of the intrinsic value of his performance. His work, on the
one hand, aside from the 'Rowley' poems, shows him a true poet of
## p. 3543 (#521) ###########################################
THOMAS CHATTERTON
3543
the eighteenth century, and the best of it entitles him to a fair place
among his contemporaries; but on the other hand he stands almost
alone in his generation in possessing the highest poetic endowments,
-originality of thought, a quick eye to see and note, the gift of ex-
pression, sustained power of composition, and a fire and intensity of
imagination. In how far he would have fulfilled his early promise it
is idle to surmise; yet what poet, in the whole range of English,
nay of all literature, at seventeen years and nine months of age, has
produced work of such excellence as this "marvelous boy," who,
unrecognized and driven by famine, took his own life in a London
garret ?
FINAL CHORUS FROM GODDWYN ›
HEN Freedom, dreste yn blodde-steyned veste,
To everie knyghte her warre-songe sunge,
Uponne her hedde wylde wedes were spredde;
A gorie anlace bye her honge.
She dauncèd onne the heathe;
She hearde the voice of deathe;
WHEN
Pale-eyned affryghte, hys harte of sylver hue,
In vayne assayled her bosomme to acale;
She hearde onflemed the shriekynge voice of woe,
And sadnesse ynne the owlette shake the dale.
She shooke the burled speere,
On hie she jeste her sheelde,
Her foemen all appere,
And flizze alonge the feelde.
Power, wythe his heafod straught ynto the skyes,
Hys speere a sonne-beame, and hys sheelde a starre,
Alyche twaie brendeynge gronfyres rolls hys eyes,
Chaftes with hys yronne feete and soundes to war.
She syttes upon a rocke,
She bendes before hys speere,
She ryses from the shocke,
Wieldynge her owne yn ayre.
Harde as the thonder dothe she drive ytte on,
Wytte scillye wympled gies ytte to hys crowne,
Hys longe sharpe speere, hys spreddynge sheelde ys gon,
He falles, and fallynge rolleth thousandes down.
War, goare-faced war, bie envie burld, arist,
Hys feerie heaulme noddynge to the ayre,
Tenne bloddie arrowes ynne hys streynynge fyste.
## p. 3544 (#522) ###########################################
THOMAS CHATTERTON
3544
THE FAREWELL OF SIR CHARLES BALDWIN TO HIS WIFE
From The Bristowe Tragedie
Α
ND nowe the bell beganne to tolle,
And claryonnes to sounde;
Syr Charles hee herde the horses' feete
A-prauncing onne the grounde:
And just before the officers
His lovynge wyfe came ynne,
Weepynge unfeigned teeres of woe,
Wythe loude and dysmalle dynne.
"Sweet Florence! nowe I praie forbere,
Ynne quiet lett mee die;
Praie Godde, thatt ev'ry Christian soule
May looke onne dethe as I.
"Sweet Florence! why these brinie teeres?
Theye washe my soule awaie,
And almost make mee wyshe for lyfe,
Wythe thee, sweete dame, to staie.
"Tys butt a journie I shalle goe
Untoe the lande of blysse;
Nowe, as a proofe of husbande's love,
Receive thys holie kysse. "
Thenne Florence, fault'ring ynne her saie,
Tremblynge these wordyès spoke :-
"Ah, cruele Edwarde! bloudie kynge!
My herte ys welle nyghe broke:
"Ah, sweete Syr Charles! why wylt thou goe,
Wythoute thye lovynge wyfe?
The cruelle axe thatt cuttes thye necke,
Ytte eke shall ende mye lyfe. "
And nowe the officers came ynne
To brynge Syr Charles awaie,
Whoe turnedd toe hys lovynge wyfe,
And thus to her dydd saie :—
"I goe to lyfe, and nott to dethe;
Truste thou ynne Godde above,
And teache thye sonnes to feare the Lorde,
And ynne theyre hertes hym love:
## p. 3545 (#523) ###########################################
THOMAS CHATTERTON
3545
"Teache them to runne the nobile race
Thatt I theyre fader runne:
Florence! shou'd dethe thee take adieu!
Yee officers, leade onne. "
-
Thenne Florence rav'd as anie madde,
And dydd her tresses tere;
"Oh! staie, mye husbande! lorde! and lyfe! "
Syr Charles thenne dropt a teare.
"Tyll tyrèdd oute wythe ravynge loud,
She fellen onne the flore;
Syr Charles exerted alle hys myghte,
And march'd fromme oute the dore.
Ο
Uponne a sledde hee mounted thenne,
Wythe lookes fulle brave and swete;
Lookes, thatt enshone ne more concern
Thanne anie ynne the strete.
MYNSTRELLES SONGE
! synge untoe mie roundelaie,
O! droppe the brynie teare wythe mee,
Daunce ne moe atte hallie daie,
Lycke a reynynge ryver bee;
Mie love ys dedde,
Gon to hys deathe-bedde,
Al under the wyllowe tree.
Blacke hys cryne as the wyntere nyghte,
Whyte hys rode as the sommer snowe,
Rodde hys face as the mornynge lyghte,
Cale he lyes ynne the grave belowe;
Mie love ys dedde,
Gon to hys deathe-bedde,
Al under the wyllowe tree.
Swote hys tyngue as the throstles note,
Quycke ynn daunce as thoughte canne bee,
Defte hys taboure, codgelle stote,
O! hee lyes bie the wyllowe tree;
Mie love ys dedde,
Gonne to hys deathe-bedde,
Alle underre the wyllowe tree.
## p. 3546 (#524) ###########################################
3546
THOMAS CHATTERTON
Harke! the ravenne flappes hys wynge,
In the briered delle belowe;
Harke! the dethe-owle loude dothe synge,
To the nyghte-mares as heie goe;
Mie love ys dedde,
Gonne to hys deathe-bedde,
Al under the wyllowe tree.
See! the whyte moone sheenes onne hie;
Whyterre ys mie true loves shroude;
Whyterre yanne the mornynge skie,
Whyterre yanne the evenynge cloude;
Mie love ys dedde,
Gon to hys deathe-bedde,
Al under the wyllowe tree.
Heere, uponne mie true loves grave,
Schalle the baren fleurs be layde;
Nee one hallie Seyncte to save
Al the celness of a mayde.
Mie love ys dedde,
Gonne to hys deathe-bedde,
Alle under the wyllowe tree.
Wythe mie hondes I'll dente the brieres
Rounde his hallie corse to gre;
Ouphante fairie, lyghte youre fyres;
Heere mie boddie stylle schalle bee.
Mie
ys dedde,
Gon to hys deathe-bedde,
Al under the wyllowe tree.
Comme, wythe acorne-coppe and thorne,
Drayne mie hartys blodde awaie;
Lyfe and all yttes goode I scorne,
Daunce bie nete, or feaste by daie.
Mie love ys dedde,
Gon to hys deathe-bedde,
Al under the wyllowe tree.
Waterre wytches, crownede wythe reytes,
Bere mee to yer leathalle tyde.
I die! I come! mie true love waytes.
Thus the damselle spake, and died.
## p. 3547 (#525) ###########################################
THOMAS CHATTERTON
3547
AN EXCELENTE BALADE OF CHARITIE
AS WROTEN BIE THE GODE PRIESTE THOMAS ROWLEIE, 1464.
IN VIRGYNE the sweltrie sun gan sheene,
IN
And hotte upon the mees did caste his raie:
The apple rodded from its palie greene,
And the mole peare did bende the leafy spraie;
The peede chelandri sunge the livelong daie;
'Twas nowe the pride, the manhode of the yeare,
And eke the grounde was dighte in its mose defte aumere.
The sun was glemeing in the midde of daie,
Deadde still the aire, and eke the welken blue,
When from the sea arist in drear arraie
A hepe of cloudes of sable sullen hue,
The which full fast unto the woodlande drewe,
Hiltring attenes the sunnis fetyve face,
And the blacke tempeste swolne and gatherd up apace.
Beneathe an holme, faste by a pathwaieside,
Which dyde unto Seyncte Godwine's covent lede,
A hapless pilgrim moneynge dyd abide;
Pore in his viewe, ungentle in his weede,
Longe bretful of the miseries of neede,
Where from the hail-stone coulde the almer flie?
He had no housen theere, ne anie covent nie.
Look in his gloomed face, his sprighte there scanne;
Howe woe-be-gone, how withered, forwynd, deade!
Haste to thie church-glebe-house, asshrewed manne!
Haste to thie kiste, thie onlie dortoure bedde.
Cale, as the claie whiche will gre on thie hedde,
Is Charitie and Love aminge highe elves;
Knightis and Barons live for pleasure and themselves.
The gatherd storme is rype; the bigge drops falle;
The forswat meadowes smethe, and drenche the raine;
The comyng ghastness do the cattle pall,
And the full flockes are drivynge ore the plaine;
Dashde from the cloudes the waters flott againe;
The welkin opes; the yellow levynne flies;
And the hot fierie smothe in the wide lowings dies.
Liste! now the thunder's rattling clymmynge sound
Cheves slowlie on, and then embollen clangs;
## p. 3548 (#526) ###########################################
3548
THOMAS CHATTERTON
Shakes the hie spyre, and losst, dispended, drown'd,
Still on the gallard eare of terroure hanges;
The windes are up; the lofty elmen swanges;
Again the levynne and the thunder poures,
And the full cloudes are braste attenes in stones showers.
Spyrreynge his palfrie oere the watrie plaine,
The Abbote of Seyncte Godwynes convente came;
His chapournette was drented with the reine,
And his pencte gyrdle met with mickle shame;
He aynewarde tolde his bederoll at the same;
The storme encreasen, and he drew aside,
With the mist almes-craver neere to the holme to bide.
His cope was all of Lyncolne clothe so fyne,
With a gold button fasten'd neere his chynne;
His autremete was edged with golden twynne,
And his shoone pyke a loverds mighte have binne;
Full well it shewn he thoughten coste no sinne:
The trammels of the palfrye pleasde his sighte,
For the horse-millanare his head with roses dighte.
An almes, sir prieste! the droppynge pilgrim saide:
O! let me waite within your covente dore,
Till the sunne sheneth hie above our heade,
And the loude tempeste of the aire is oer;
Helpless and ould am I, alas! and poor:
No house, ne friend, ne moneie in my pouche;
All yatte I calle my owne is this my silver crouche.
Varlet, replyd the Abbatte, cease your dinne;
This is no season almes and prayers to give;
Mie porter never lets a faitour in;
None touch mie rynge who not in honour live.
And now the sonne with the blacke cloudes did stryve,
And shettynge on the grounde his glairie raie,
The Abbatte spurrde his steede, and eftsoones roadde awaie.
Once moe the skie was blacke, the thounder rolde;
Faste reyneynge oer the plaine a prieste was seen;
Ne dighte full proude, ne buttoned up in golde;
His cope and jape were graie, and eke were clene;
A Limitoure he was of order seene;
And from the pathwaie side then turned hee,
Where the pore almer laie binethe the holmen tree.
## p. 3549 (#527) ###########################################
THOMAS CHATTERTON
An almes, sir priest! the droppynge pilgrim sayde,
For sweete Seyncte Marie and your order sake.
The Limitoure then loosen'd his pouche threade,
And did thereoute a groate of silver take;
The mister pilgrim dyd for halline shake.
Here, take this silver, it maie eathe thie care;
We are Goddes stewards all, nete of oure owne we bare.
But ah! unhailie pilgrim, lerne of me,
Scathe anie give a rentrolle to their Lorde.
Here, take my semecope, thou arte bare I see;
Tis thyne; the Seynctes will give me mie rewarde.
He left the pilgrim, and his waie aborde.
Virgynne and hallie Seyncte, who sitte yn gloure,
Or give the mittee will, or give the gode man power!
THE RESIGNATION
O
GOD! whose thunder shakes the sky,
Whose eye this atom-globe surveys,
To thee, my only rock, I fly,—
Thy mercy in thy justice praise.
The mystic mazes of thy will,
The shadows of celestial night,
Are past the power of human skill;
But what the Eternal acts is right.
O teach me, in the trying hour-
When anguish swells the dewy tear-
To still my sorrows, own thy power,
Thy goodness love, thy justice fear.
If in this bosom aught but thee,
Encroaching, sought a boundless sway,
Omniscience could the danger see,
And Mercy look the cause away.
Then why, my soul, dost thou complain
Why drooping seek the dark recess?
Shake off the melancholy chain;
For God created all to bless.
But ah! my breast is human still;
The rising sigh, the falling tear,
3549
## p. 3550 (#528) ###########################################
THOMAS CHATTERTON
3550
My languid vitals' feeble rill,
The sickness of my soul declare.
But yet, with fortitude resigned,
I'll thank the Inflictor of the blow—
Forbid the sigh, compose my mind,
Nor let the gush of misery flow.
The gloomy mantle of the night,
Which on my sinking spirit steals,
Will vanish at the morning light,
Which God, my East, my Sun, reveals.
## p. 3550 (#529) ###########################################
## p. 3550 (#530) ###########################################
GEOFFREY CHAUCER.
## p. 3550 (#531) ###########################################
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## p. 3551 (#533) ###########################################
3551
GEOFFREY CHAUCER
(13-2-1400)
BY THOMAS R. LOUNSBURY
NGLISH literature, in the strict sense of the word, dates its
beginning from the latter half of the fourteenth century.
Not but an English literature had existed long previous to
that period. Furthermore, it reckoned among its possessions works of
value, and a few which in the opinion of some display genius. But
though the name was the same, the thing was essentially different.
A special course of study is required for any comprehension what-
ever of the productions of that earliest literature; and for the easy
understanding of those written even but a half-century or so before
the period indicated, a mastery of many peculiar syntactical construc-
tions is demanded and an acquaintance with a vocabulary differing
in a large number of words from that now in use.
But by the middle of the fourteenth century this state of things
can hardly be said to exist any longer for us. Everything by that
time had become ripe for the creation of a literature of a far higher
type than had yet been produced. Furthermore, conditions prevailed
which, though their results could not then be foreseen, were almost
certain to render the literature thus created comparatively easy of
comprehension to the modern reader. The Teutonic and Romanic
elements that form the groundwork of our present vocabulary had
at last become completely fused. Of the various dialects prevailing,
the one spoken in the vicinity of the capital had gradually lifted
itself up to a pre-eminence it was never afterwards to lose. In this
parent of the present literary speech, writers found for the first time
at their command a widely accepted and comparatively flexible
instrument of expression. As a consequence, the literature then
produced fixed definitely for all time the main lines upon which
both the grammar and the vocabulary of the English speech were to
develop. The result is that it now presents few difficulties for its
full comprehension and appreciation that are not easily surmounted.
The most effective deterrent to its wide study is one formidable
only in appearance. This is the unfamiliar way in which its words
are spelled; for orthography then sought to represent pronunciation,
and had not in consequence crystallized into fixed forms with con-
stant disregard of any special value to be attached to the signs by
which sounds are denoted.
## p. 3552 (#534) ###########################################
3552
GEOFFREY CHAUCER
Of the creators of this literature - Wycliffe, Langland, Chaucer,
and Gower-Chaucer was altogether the greatest as a man of letters.
This is no mere opinion of the present time: there has never been a
period since he flourished in which it has not been fully conceded.
In his own day, his fame swept beyond the narrow limits of country
and became known to the outside world. At home his reputation
was firmly established, and seems to have been established early.
All the references to him by his contemporaries and immediate suc-
cessors bear witness to his universally recognized position as the
greatest of English poets, though we are not left by him in doubt
that he had even then met detractors. Still the general feeling of
the men of his time is expressed by his disciple Occleve, who terms
him
"The firste finder of our fair langage. »
Yet not a single incident of his life has come down to us from the
men who admired his personality, who enrolled themselves as his
disciples, and who celebrated his praises. With the exception of a
few slight references to himself in his writings, all the knowledge
we possess of the events of his career is due to the mention made of
him in official documents of various kinds and of different degrees of
importance. In these it is taken for granted that whenever Geoffrey
Chaucer is spoken of, it is the poet who is meant, and not another
person of the same name. The assumption almost approaches abso-
lute certainty; it does not quite attain to it. In those days it is clear
that there were numerous Chaucers. Still, no one has yet risen to
dispute his being the very person spoken of in these official papers.
From these documents we discover that Chaucer, besides being a
poet, was also a man of affairs. He was a soldier, a negotiator, a
diplomatist. He was early employed in the personal service of the
king. He held various positions in the civil service. It was a conse-
quence that his name should appear frequently in the records. It is
upon them, and the references to him in documents covering trans-
actions in which he bore a part, that the story of his life, so far as
it exists for us at all, has been mainly built. It was by them also
that the series of fictitious events which for so long a time did duty
as the biography of the poet had their impossibility as well as their
absurdity exposed.
The exact date of Chaucer's birth we do not know. The most
that can be said is that it must have been somewhere in the early
years of the reign of Edward III. (1327-77).
The place of his birth
was in all probability London. His father, John Chaucer, was a
vintner of that city, and there is evidence to indicate that he was to
1 Poet.
## p. 3553 (#535) ###########################################
GEOFFREY CHAUCER
3553
some extent connected with the court. In a deed dated June 19th,
1380, the poet released his right to his father's former house, which
is described as being in Thames Street. The spot, however unsuit-
able for a dwelling-place now, was then in the very heart of urban
life, and in that very neighborhood it is reasonable to suppose that
Chaucer's earliest years were spent.
The first positive information we have, however, about the poet
himself belongs to 1356. In that year we find him attached to the
household of Lionel, Duke of Clarence, the third son of Edward III.
He is there in the service of the wife of that prince, but in what
position we do not know. It may have been that of a page. He
naturally was in attendance upon his mistress during her various
journeyings; but most of her time was passed at her residence in
Hatfield, Yorkshire. Chaucer next appears as having joined the
army of Edward III. in his last invasion of France. This expedition
was undertaken in the autumn of 1359, and continued until the peace
of Bretigny, concluded in May, 1360. During this campaign he was
captured somewhere and somehow. we have no knowledge of any-
thing beyond the bare fact. It took place, however, before the first
of March, 1360; for on that date the records show that the King per-
sonally contributed sixteen pounds towards his ransom.
From this last-mentioned date Chaucer drops entirely out of our
knowledge till June, 1367, when he is mentioned as one of the valets
of the King's chamber. In the document stating this fact he is
granted a pension - the first of several he received-for services
already rendered or to be rendered. It is a natural inference from
the language employed, that during these years of which no record.
exists he was in some situation about the person of Edward III.
After this time his name occurs with considerable frequency in the
rolls, often in connection with duties to which he was assigned. His
services were varied; in some instances certainly they were of impor-
tance. From 1370 to 1380 he was sent several times abroad to share
in the conduct of negotiations. These missions led him to Flanders,
to France, and to Italy. The subjects were very diverse. One of
the negotiations in which he was concerned was in reference to the
selection of an English port for a Genoese commercial establishment;
another was concerning the marriage of the young monarch of Eng-
land with the daughter of the king of France. It is on his first
journey to Italy of which we have any record - the mission of
1372-73 to Genoa and Florence—that everybody hopes and some suc-
ceed in having an undoubting belief that Chaucer visited Petrarch
at Padua, and there heard from him the story of Griselda, which
the Clerk of Oxford in the 'Canterbury Tales' states that he learned
from the Italian poet.
-
VI-223
## p. 3554 (#536) ###########################################
3554
GEOFFREY CHAUCER
But Chaucer's activity was not confined to foreign missions or to
diplomacy; he was as constantly employed in the civil service. In
1374 he was made controller of the great customs-that is, of wool,
skins, and leather of the port of London. In 1382 he received also
the post in the same port of controller of the petty customs - that
is, of wines, candles, and other articles. The regulations of the office
required him to write the records with his own hand; and it is this
to which Chaucer is supposed to refer in the statement he makes
about his official duties in the House of Fame. ' In that poem the
messenger of Jupiter tells him that though he has done so much in
the service of the God of Love, yet he has never received for it any
compensation. He then goes on to add the following lines, which
give a graphic picture of the poet and of his studious life:—
"Wherfore, as I said ywis,¹
Jupiter considereth this,
And also, beau sir, other things;
That is, that thou hast no tidíngs
Of Lovès folk, if they be glad,
Ne of nought ellès, that God made;
And nought only from far countree
That there no tiding cometh to thee,
But of the very neighèboúrs,
That dwellen almost at thy doors,
Thou hearest neither that nor this;
But when thy labor all done is,
And hast made all thy reckonings,
Instead of rest and newè things,
Thou goest home to thine house anon,
And also dumb as any stone,
Thou sittest at another book,
Till fully dazèd is thy look.
And livest thus as an eremite,
Although thine abstinence is lyte. 3»
In 1386 Chaucer was elected to Parliament as knight of the shire
for the county of Kent. In that same year he lost or gave up both
his positions in the customs. The cause we do not know. It may
have been due to mismanagement on his own part; it is far more
likely that he fell a victim to one of the fierce factional disputes that
were going on during the minority of Richard II.
At any rate, from
this time he again disappears for two years from our knowledge. But
in 1389 he is mentioned as having been appointed clerk of the
King's
works at Westminster and various other places; in 1390 clerk of the
works for St. George's chapel at Windsor. Both of these places he
1 Certainly.
2 As.
3 Little.
## p. 3555 (#537) ###########################################
GEOFFREY CHAUCER
3555
held until the middle of 1391. In that last year he was made one of
the commissioners to repair the roadway along the Thames, and at
about the same time was appointed forester of North Petherton Park
in Somerset, a post which he held till his death. After 1386 he
seems at times to have been in pecuniary difficulties. To what cause
they were owing, or how severe they were, it is the emptiest of
speculations to form any conjectures in the obscurity that envelops
this portion of his life. Whatever may have been his situation, on
the accession of Henry IV. in September, 1399, his fortunes revived.
The father of that monarch was John of Gaunt, the fourth son of
Edward III. That nobleman had pretty certainly been from the out-
set the patron of Chaucer; it is possible as the evidence fails on
one side, it cannot be regarded as proved-that by his marriage
with Katharine Swynford he became the poet's brother-in-law. What-
ever may have been the relationship, if any at all, it is a fact that
one of the very first things the new king did was to confer upon
Chaucer an additional pension. But the poet did not live long to
enjoy the favor of the monarch. On the 24th of December, 1399, he
leased for fifty-three years or during the term of his life a tenement
in the garden of St. Mary's Chapel, Westminster. But after the 5th
of June, 1400, his name appears no longer on any rolls. There is
accordingly no reason to question the accuracy of the inscription on
his tombstone which represents him as having died October 25th,
1400. He was buried in Westminster Abbey. He was the first, and
still remains perhaps the greatest, of the English poets whose bones
have there found their last resting-place.
This comprises all the facts of importance we know of Chaucer's
life. Before leaving this branch of the subject, however, it may be
well to say that many fuller details about his career can be found in
all older accounts of the poet, and in spite of the repeated exposure
of their falsity still crop up occasionally in modern books of refer-
ence. Some are objectionable only upon the ground of being untrue.
Of these are such statements as that he was born in 1328; that he
was a student of Oxford, to which Cambridge is sometimes added;
that he was created poet-laureate; and that he was knighted. But
others are objectionable not only on the ground of being false, but
of being slanderous besides. Of these the most offensive is the
widely circulated and circumstantial story that he was concerned
in the conflict that went on in 1382 between the city of London and
the court in regard to the election of John of Northampton to the
mayoralty; that in consequence of his participation in this contest he
was compelled to seek refuge in the island of Zealand; that there he
remained for some time, but on his return to England was arrested
and thrown into the Tower; and that after having been imprisoned
## p. 3556 (#538) ###########################################
3556
GEOFFREY CHAUCER
for two or three years he was released at last on the condition of
betraying his associates, which he accordingly did. All these details
are fictitious. They were made up from inferences drawn from
obscure passages in a prose work entitled 'The Testament of Love. '
This was once attributed to the poet, but is now known not to have
been written by him. Even had it been his, the statements derived
from it and applied to the life of the poet would have been entirely
unwarranted, as they come into constant conflict with the official
records. Not being his, this piece of spurious biography has the
additional discredit of constituting an unnecessary libel upon his
character.
From Chaucer the man, and the man of affairs, we proceed now
to the consideration of Chaucer the writer. He has left behind a
body of verse consisting of more than thirty-two thousand lines, and
a smaller but still far from inconsiderable quantity of prose. The
latter consists mainly if not wholly of translations—one a version
of that favorite work of the Middle Ages, the treatise of Boëtius on
the 'Consolation of Philosophy'; another the tale of Melibeus in the
'Canterbury Tales,' which is taken directly from the French; thirdly,
the Parson's Tale, derived probably from the same quarter, though
its original has not as yet been discovered with certainty; and
fourthly, an unfinished treatise on the Astrolabe, undertaken for the
instruction of his son Lewis. The prose of any literature always lags
behind, and sometimes centuries behind, its poetry. It is therefore
not surprising to find Chaucer displaying in the former but little of
the peculiar excellence which distinguishes his verse. In the latter
but little room is found for hostile criticism. In the more than thirty
thousand lines of which it is composed there occur of course inferior
passages, and some positively weak; but taking it all in all, there is
comparatively little in it, considered as a whole, which the lover of
literature as literature finds it advisable or necessary to skip. In this
respect the poet holds a peculiar position, which makes the task of
representation difficult. As Southey remarked, Chaucer with the
exception of Shakespeare is the most various of all English authors.
He appeals to the most diversified tastes. He wrote love poems,
religious poems, allegorical poems, occasional poems, tales of com-
mon life, tales of chivalry. His range is so wide that any limited
selection from his works can at best give but an inadequate idea of
the variety and extent of his powers.
The canon of Chaucer's writings has now been settled with a rea-
sonable degree of certainty. For a long time the fashion existed of
imputing to him the composition of any English poem of the century
following his death which was floating about without having attached
to it the name of any author. The consequence is that the older
## p. 3557 (#539) ###########################################
GEOFFREY CHAUCER
3557
editions contain a mass of matter which it would have been distinctly
discreditable for any one to have produced, let alone a great poet.
This has now been gradually dropped, much to the advantage of
Chaucer's reputation; though modern scholarship also refuses to admit
the production by him of two or three pieces, such as The Court
of Love,' 'The Flower and the Leaf,' 'The Cuckoo and the Nightin-
gale,' none of which was unworthy of his powers. It is possible
indeed that the poet himself may have had some dread of being
saddled with the responsibility of having produced pieces which he
did not care to father. It is certainly suggestive that he himself took
the pains on one occasion to furnish what it seems must have been
at the time a fairly complete list of his writings. In the prologue to
the 'Legend of Good Women' he gave an idea of the work which up
to that period he had accomplished. The God of Love, in the inter-
view which is there described as having taken place, inveighs against
the poet for having driven men away from the service due to his
deity, by the character of what he had written.
He says:
'Commentary.
5 Little.
"Thou mayst it not deny:
For in plain text, withouten need of glose,¹
Thou hast translated the Romance of the Rose;
That is an heresy agains my law,
And makest wisè folk fro me withdraw.
And of Cressid thou hast said as thee list;
That makest men to women lessè trist,2
That be as true as ever was any steel. "
Against this charge the queen Alcestis is represented as interpos-
ing to the god a defense of the poet, in which occurs the following
account of Chaucer's writings:-
"Albeit that he cannot well endite,
Yet hath he makèd lewèd folk delight
To serve you, in praising of your name.
4
He made the book that hight the House of Fame,
And eke the Death of Blanche the Duchess,
And the Parliament of Fowlès, as I guess,
And all the love of Palamon and Arcite
Of Thebes, though the story is knowen lyte 5;
And many an hymnè for your holy days
That highten ballades, roundels, virelays;
And for to speak of other holiness,
He hath in prosè translatéd Boece,
And made the Life also of Saint Cecile;
He made also, gone sithen a great while,'
2 Trust.
6 Are called.
3
³ Ignorant.
'Is called.
A great while ago.
## p. 3558 (#540) ###########################################
3558
GEOFFREY CHAUCER
Origenes upon the Maudelain':
Him oughtè now to have the lessè pain;
He hath made many a lay and many a thing. "
This prologue is generally conceded to have been written between
1382 and 1385. Though it does not profess to furnish a complete list
of Chaucer's writings, it can fairly be assumed that it included all
which he then regarded as of importance either on account of their
merit or their length. If so, the titles given above would embrace
the productions of what may be called the first half of his literary
career. In fact, his disciple Lydgate leads us to believe that 'Troi-
lus and Cressida' was a comparatively early production, though it
may have undergone and probably did undergo revision before
assuming its present form. The Legend of Good Women'in dis-
tinction from its prologue-would naturally occupy the time of the
poet during the opening period of what is here termed the second
half of his literary career. The prologue is the only portion of it,
however, that is of distinctly high merit. The work was never com-
pleted, and Chaucer pretty certainly came soon to the conclusion
that it was not worth completing. It was in the taste of the times:
but it did not take him long to perceive that an extended work
dealing exclusively with the sorrows of particular individuals was as
untrue to art as it was to life. It fell under the ban of that criti-
cism which in the Canterbury Tales' he puts into the mouth of the
Knight, who interrupts the doleful recital of the tragical tales told by
the Monk with these words:-
«Ho,' quoth the knight, good sir, no more of this:
That ye have said is right enow, ywis,²
And muchel³ more; for little heaviness
Is right enow to muchel folk, I guess.
I say for me it is a great disease,
Where-as men have been in great wealth and ease,
To hearen of hir sudden fall, alas!
And the contráry is joy and great solas,³
As when a man hath been in poor estate,
And climbeth up and waxeth fortunate,
And there abideth in prosperity.
Such thing is gladsome, as it thinketh me,
And of such thing were goodly for to tell. >>
Accordingly, from the composition of pieces of the one-sided and
unsatisfactory character of those contained in the 'Legend of Good
1 Origen upon Mary Magdalen.
2 Certainly.
3 Much.
* Discomfort.
5 Solace.
6 Seems.
## p. 3559 (#541) ###########################################
GEOFFREY CHAUCER
3559
Women,' Chaucer turned to the preparation of his great work, the
( Canterbury Tales. ' This gave him the fullest opportunity to display
all his powers, and must have constituted the main literary occupa-
tion of his later life.
It will be noticed that two of the works mentioned in the prologue
to the 'Legend of Good Women' are translations, and are so avowed.
One is of the Roman de la Rose,' and the other of the philo-
sophical treatise of Boëtius. In regard to the version of the former
which has come down, it is sufficient to say that there was not long
ago a disposition to deny the genuineness of all of it.
This now
contents itself with denying the genuineness of part of it. The
question cannot be considered here: it is enough to say that in the
opinion of the present writer, while the subject is attended with
certain difficulties, the evidence is strongly in favor of Chaucer's
composition of the whole. But setting aside any discussion of this
point, there can scarcely be any doubt that Chaucer began his career
as a translator. At the period he flourished he could hardly have
done otherwise. It was an almost inevitable method of procedure on
the part of a man who found neither writers nor writings in his own
tongue worthy of imitation, and who could not fail to be struck not
merely by the excellence of the Latin classic poets but also by the
superior culture of the Continent. In the course of his literary
development he would naturally pass from direct translation to adapt-
ation. To the latter practice he assuredly resorted often. He took
the work of the foreign author as a basis, discarded what he did not
need or care for, and added as little or as much as suited his own
convenience. In this way the 5704 lines of the 'Filostrato' of Boc-
caccio became 8246 in the Troilus and Cressida' of Chaucer; but
even of the 5704 of the Italian poet, 2974 were not used by the
English poet at all, and the 2730 that were used underwent consid-
erable compression. In a similar way he composed the Knight's
Tale,' probably the most perfect narrative poem in our tongue. It
was based upon the Theseide' of Boccaccio. But the latter has
9896 lines, while the former comprises but 2250; and of these 2250
fully two-thirds are entirely independent of the Italian poem.
With such free treatment of his material, Chaucer's next step
would be to direct composition, independent of any sources, save in
that general way in which every author is under obligation to what
has been previously produced. This finds its crowning achievement
in the Canterbury Tales'; though several earlier pieces—such as
the 'House of Fame,' the 'Parliament of Fowls,' and the prologue to
the 'Legend of Good Women,'-attest that long before he had
shown his ability to produce work essentially original. But though in
his literary development Chaucer worked himself out of this exact
## p. 3560 (#542) ###########################################
3560
GEOFFREY CHAUCER
reproduction of his models, through a partial working over of them
till he finally attained complete independence, the habits of a
translator clung to him to the very end. Even after he had fully
justified his claim to being a great original poet, passages occur
in his writings which are nothing but the reproduction of passages
found in some foreign poem in Latin, or French, or Italian, the three
languages with which he was conversant. His translation of them
was due to the fact that they had struck his fancy; his insertion of
them into his own work was to please others with what had previ-
ously pleased himself. Numerous passages of this kind have been
pointed out; and doubtless there are others which remain to be
pointed out.
There is another important thing to be marked in the history of
Chaucer's artistic development. Not only was poetic material lacking
in the tongue at the time of his appearance, but also poetic form.
The measures in use, while not inadequate for literary expression,
were incapable of embodying it in its highest flights. Consequently
what Chaucer did not find, he had either to borrow or to invent.
He did both. In the lines which have been quoted he speaks of the
"ballades, roundels, and virelayes" which he had composed. These
were all favorite poetical forms in that Continental country with
whose literature Chaucer was mainly conversant. There can be little
question that he tried all manner of verse which the ingenuity of
the poets of Northern France had devised. As many of his shorter
pieces have very certainly disappeared, his success in these various
attempts cannot be asserted with positiveness. Still, what have sur-
vived show that he was a great literary artist as well as a great
poet. His feats of rhyming, in particular in a tongue so little fitted
for it as is ours, can be seen in his unfinished poem of 'Queen
Anelida and False Arcite,' in the 'Complaint to Venus,' and in the
envoy which follows the Clerk's Tale. In this last piece, though
there are thirty-six lines, the rhymes are only three; and two of
these belong to fifteen lines respectively.
But far more important than such attempts, which prove interest
in versification rather than great poetic achievement, are the two
measures which he introduced into our tongue. The first was the
seven-line stanza. The rhyming lines in it are respectively the first
and third; the second, fourth, and fifth; and the sixth and seventh.
At a later period this was frequently called "rhyme royal," because
the Kingis Quair' was written in it. For fully two centuries it was
one of the most popular measures in English poetry. Since the six-
teenth century, however, it has been but little employed. Far dif-
ferent has been the fate of the line of ten syllables, or rather of five
accents. On account of its frequent use in the 'Canterbury Tales' it
## p. 3561 (#543) ###########################################
GEOFFREY CHAUCER
3561
was called for a long period "riding rhyme"; but it now bears the
title of "heroic verse. " As employed by Chaucer it varies in slight
particulars from the way it is now generally used. With him the
couplet character was never made prominent. The sense was not apt
to end at the second line, but constantly tended to run over into the
line following. There was also frequently with him an unaccented
eleventh syllable; and this, though not unknown to modern verse, is
not common. Still, the difference between the early and the later
form are mere differences of detail, and of comparatively unimpor-
tant detail. The introduction of this measure into English may be
considered Chaucer's greatest achievement in the matter of versifi-
cation. The heroic verse may have existed in the tongue before he
himself used it. If so, it lurked unseen and uninfluential.
He was
the first to employ it on a grand scale, if not to employ it at all,
and to develop its capabilities. Much the largest proportion of his
greatest work is written in that measure. Yet in spite of his exam-
ple, it found for two centuries comparatively few imitators.
It was
not till the end of the sixteenth century that the measure started on
a new course of life, and entered upon the great part it has since
played in English versification.
The most important of what are sometimes called the minor
works of Chaucer are the 'Parliament of Fowls,' the 'House of
Fame,' 'Troilus and Cressida,' and the 'Legend of Good Women. '
These are all favorable examples of his genius. But however good
they may be in particular portions and in particular respects, in gen-
eral excellence they yield place unquestionably to the Canterbury
Tales. ' It seems to have been very clearly the intention of the poet
to embody in this crowning achievement of his literary life every-
thing in the shape of a story he had already composed or was pur-
posing to compose. Two of the pieces, the love of Palamon and
Arcite and the Life of St. Cecilia, as we know from the words of
his already quoted, had appeared long before. The plan of the work
itself was most happily conceived; and in spite of most painstaking
efforts to find an original for it or suggestion of it somewhere else,
there seems no sufficient reason for doubting that the poet himself
was equal to the task of having devised it. No one certainly can
question the felicity with which the framework for embodying the
tales was constructed. All ranks and classes of society are brought
together in the company of pilgrims who assemble at the Tabard
Inn at Southwark to ride to the shrine of the saint at Canterbury.
The military class is represented By the Knight, belonging to the
highest order of the nobility, his son the Squire, and his retainer the
Yeoman; the church by the Abbot, the Friar, the Parson, the Pri-
oress with her attendant Nun, and the three accompanying Priests,
## p. 3562 (#544) ###########################################
3562
GEOFFREY CHAUCER
and less distinctly by the Scholar, the Clerk of Oxford, and by the
Pardoner and the Summoner. For the other professions are the
Doctor of Physic and the Serjeant of Law; for the middle-class land-
holders the Franklin; and for the various crafts and occupations the
Haberdasher, the Carpenter, the Weaver, the Dyer, the Upholsterer,
the Cook, the Ploughman, the Sailor, the Reeve, the Manciple, and
(joining the party in the course of the pilgrimage) the assistant of
the alchemist, who is called the Canon's Yeoman. Into the mouths
of these various personages were to be put tales befitting their char-
acter and condition. Consequently there was ample space for stories
of chivalry, of religion, of love, of magic, and in truth of every
aspect of social life in all its highest and lowest manifestations.
Between the tales themselves were connecting links, in which the
poet had the opportunity to give an account of the incidents that
took place on the pilgrimage, the critical opinions expressed by the
hearers of what had been told, and the disputes and quarrels that
went on between the various members of the party. So far as this
portion of his plan was finished, these connecting links furnish some
of the most striking passages in the work. In one of them - the
prologue to the Wife of Bath's Tale- the genius of the poet reaches
along certain lines its highest development; while the general pro-
logue describing the various personages of the party, though not
containing the highest poetry of the work as poetry, is the most
acute, discriminating, and brilliant picture of men and manners that
can be found in our literature.
sent anonymously transcripts from professedly old poems to the local
papers. Their authorship being traced to him, he now claimed that
his father had found numerous old poems and other manuscripts
in a coffer of the muniment room at Redcliffe, and that he had tran-
scribed them. Under guise of this fiction he produced, within the
two years of his apprenticeship, a mass of pseudo-antique dramatic,
lyric, and descriptive poems, and fragments of local and general his-
tory, connected all with his romance of the clerk of Bristol. A
scholarly knowledge of Middle English was rare one hundred and
thirty years ago, and the self-taught boy easily gulled the local anti-
quaries. He even deceived Horace Walpole, who, dabbling in medi-
ævalism, had opened the way for prose romances with his 'Castle
of Otranto,' a spurious antique of the same time in which Chatter-
ton had placed his fiction. Walpole at first treated him courteously,
even offering to print some of the poems. But when Gray and Mason
## p. 3541 (#519) ###########################################
THOMAS CHATTERTON
3541
pronounced them modern, he at once gave Chatterton the cold shoul-
der, entirely forgetting his own imposition on a credulous public.
Chatterton now turned to periodical literature and the politics of
the day, and began to contribute to various London magazines. In
the spring of 1770 he finally came up to London, to start on the life
of a literary adventurer on a capital of less than five pounds. He
lived abstemiously and worked incessantly, literally day and night.
He had a wonderful versatility; he would write in the manner of any
one he chose to imitate, and he tried his hand at every species of
book-work. But even under the strain of this incessant productivity
he found time to turn back to his boyhood dreams, and produced
one of his finest poems, the 'Ballad of Charity. ' At first his contri-
butions were freely accepted, but he was poorly paid, and sometimes
not at all. Yet out of his scanty earnings he bought costly presents
for his mother and sister, as tokens of affection and an earnest of
what he hoped to do for them. After scarcely two months in Lon-
don he was at the end of his resources. He made an attempt to
gain a position as surgeon's assistant on board of an African trader,
but was unsuccessful. He now found himself face to face with
famine; and, too proud to ask for assistance or to accept even the
hospitality of a single meal, he on the night of August 25th, 1770,
locked himself into his garret, destroyed all his note-books and
papers, and swallowed a dose of arsenic. It is believed that he was
privately buried in the churchyard of St. Mary Redcliffe. There a
monument has been erected, with an inscription from his poem
Will':
"To the memory of Thomas Chatterton. Reader! judge not. If thou art
a Christian, believe that he shall be judged by a superior power. To that
power alone is he now answerable. »
His death attracted little notice, for he was regarded merely as
the transcriber of the Rowley' poems. They were collected after
his death, from the various persons to whom he had given the manu-
scripts, and occasioned a controversy that has lasted almost down
to the present generation. But only an age untrained in philological
research could ever have received them as genuine productions of
the fifteenth century: for Chatterton, who knew little of the old
authors antedating Spenser, constructed with the help of Bailey's and
Kersey's English dictionaries a lingo of his own; he strung together
old words of all periods and dialects, and even coined words himself
to suit the metre. His lingo resembles anything rather than Middle
English. It is supposed that he wrote first in modern English, and
then translated into his own dialect; for the poems do not suffer by
retranslation, on the contrary, they are more intelligible and often
-
## p. 3542 (#520) ###########################################
3542
THOMAS CHATTERTON
more rhythmical. Chatterton had a wonderful memory, and hav-
ing read enormously, there are frequent though perhaps unconscious
plagiarisms from Spenser, Shakespeare, Dryden, Pope, Gray, and
others.
Yet after all has been said against the spurious character of the
'Rowley' poems, Chatterton's two volumes of collected writings, pro-
duced under the most adverse circumstances, are a record of youth-
ful precocity unparalleled in literary history. He wrote spirited
satires at ten, and some of his best old verse before sixteen. 'Ella'
is a dramatic poem of sustained power and originality, and its songs
have the true lyric ring; the Ode to Liberty,' a fragment from the
tragedy of Goddwyn,' is with its bold imagery one of the finest
martial lyrics in the language; the 'Ballad of Charity,' almost the
last poem he wrote, comes in its objectivity and artistic complete-
ness near to some of Keats's best ballad work. But more wonderful
perhaps than this early blossoming of his genius is its absolute ori-
ginality. At a time when Johnson was the literary dictator of Lon-
don, and Pope's manner still paramount, Chatterton, unmindful of
their conventionalities and the current French influence, instinctively
turned to earlier models, and sought his inspiration at the true
source of English song. Bishop Percy's 'Reliques of Old English
Poetry,' published in 1765, first made the people acquainted with
their fine old ballads; but by that year Chatterton had already
planned the story of the monk of Bristol and written some of the
poems. Gifted with a rich vein of romance, he heralded the coming
revival of medieval literature. But he not only divined the new
movements of poetry-he was also responsible for one side of its
development. He had a poet's ear for metrical effects, and trans-
mitted this gift to the romantic poets through Coleridge; for the lat-
ter, deeply interested in the tragedy of the life of the Bristol boy,
studied his work; and traces of this study, resulting in freer rhythm
and new harmonies, are found in Coleridge's own verse. The influ-
ence of the author of 'Christabel' on his brother poets is indisputa-
ble; hence his indebtedness to Chatterton gives to the latter at once
his rightful position as the father of the New Romantic school.
Keats also shows signs of close acquaintance with Chatterton; and he
proves moreover by the dedication of his 'Endymion' that he cher-
ished the memory of the unfortunate young poet, with whom he had,
as far as the romantic temper on its objective side goes, perhaps the
closest spiritual kinship of any poet of his time.
But quite apart from his youthful precocity and his influence on
later poets, Chatterton holds no mean place in English literature
because of the intrinsic value of his performance. His work, on the
one hand, aside from the 'Rowley' poems, shows him a true poet of
## p. 3543 (#521) ###########################################
THOMAS CHATTERTON
3543
the eighteenth century, and the best of it entitles him to a fair place
among his contemporaries; but on the other hand he stands almost
alone in his generation in possessing the highest poetic endowments,
-originality of thought, a quick eye to see and note, the gift of ex-
pression, sustained power of composition, and a fire and intensity of
imagination. In how far he would have fulfilled his early promise it
is idle to surmise; yet what poet, in the whole range of English,
nay of all literature, at seventeen years and nine months of age, has
produced work of such excellence as this "marvelous boy," who,
unrecognized and driven by famine, took his own life in a London
garret ?
FINAL CHORUS FROM GODDWYN ›
HEN Freedom, dreste yn blodde-steyned veste,
To everie knyghte her warre-songe sunge,
Uponne her hedde wylde wedes were spredde;
A gorie anlace bye her honge.
She dauncèd onne the heathe;
She hearde the voice of deathe;
WHEN
Pale-eyned affryghte, hys harte of sylver hue,
In vayne assayled her bosomme to acale;
She hearde onflemed the shriekynge voice of woe,
And sadnesse ynne the owlette shake the dale.
She shooke the burled speere,
On hie she jeste her sheelde,
Her foemen all appere,
And flizze alonge the feelde.
Power, wythe his heafod straught ynto the skyes,
Hys speere a sonne-beame, and hys sheelde a starre,
Alyche twaie brendeynge gronfyres rolls hys eyes,
Chaftes with hys yronne feete and soundes to war.
She syttes upon a rocke,
She bendes before hys speere,
She ryses from the shocke,
Wieldynge her owne yn ayre.
Harde as the thonder dothe she drive ytte on,
Wytte scillye wympled gies ytte to hys crowne,
Hys longe sharpe speere, hys spreddynge sheelde ys gon,
He falles, and fallynge rolleth thousandes down.
War, goare-faced war, bie envie burld, arist,
Hys feerie heaulme noddynge to the ayre,
Tenne bloddie arrowes ynne hys streynynge fyste.
## p. 3544 (#522) ###########################################
THOMAS CHATTERTON
3544
THE FAREWELL OF SIR CHARLES BALDWIN TO HIS WIFE
From The Bristowe Tragedie
Α
ND nowe the bell beganne to tolle,
And claryonnes to sounde;
Syr Charles hee herde the horses' feete
A-prauncing onne the grounde:
And just before the officers
His lovynge wyfe came ynne,
Weepynge unfeigned teeres of woe,
Wythe loude and dysmalle dynne.
"Sweet Florence! nowe I praie forbere,
Ynne quiet lett mee die;
Praie Godde, thatt ev'ry Christian soule
May looke onne dethe as I.
"Sweet Florence! why these brinie teeres?
Theye washe my soule awaie,
And almost make mee wyshe for lyfe,
Wythe thee, sweete dame, to staie.
"Tys butt a journie I shalle goe
Untoe the lande of blysse;
Nowe, as a proofe of husbande's love,
Receive thys holie kysse. "
Thenne Florence, fault'ring ynne her saie,
Tremblynge these wordyès spoke :-
"Ah, cruele Edwarde! bloudie kynge!
My herte ys welle nyghe broke:
"Ah, sweete Syr Charles! why wylt thou goe,
Wythoute thye lovynge wyfe?
The cruelle axe thatt cuttes thye necke,
Ytte eke shall ende mye lyfe. "
And nowe the officers came ynne
To brynge Syr Charles awaie,
Whoe turnedd toe hys lovynge wyfe,
And thus to her dydd saie :—
"I goe to lyfe, and nott to dethe;
Truste thou ynne Godde above,
And teache thye sonnes to feare the Lorde,
And ynne theyre hertes hym love:
## p. 3545 (#523) ###########################################
THOMAS CHATTERTON
3545
"Teache them to runne the nobile race
Thatt I theyre fader runne:
Florence! shou'd dethe thee take adieu!
Yee officers, leade onne. "
-
Thenne Florence rav'd as anie madde,
And dydd her tresses tere;
"Oh! staie, mye husbande! lorde! and lyfe! "
Syr Charles thenne dropt a teare.
"Tyll tyrèdd oute wythe ravynge loud,
She fellen onne the flore;
Syr Charles exerted alle hys myghte,
And march'd fromme oute the dore.
Ο
Uponne a sledde hee mounted thenne,
Wythe lookes fulle brave and swete;
Lookes, thatt enshone ne more concern
Thanne anie ynne the strete.
MYNSTRELLES SONGE
! synge untoe mie roundelaie,
O! droppe the brynie teare wythe mee,
Daunce ne moe atte hallie daie,
Lycke a reynynge ryver bee;
Mie love ys dedde,
Gon to hys deathe-bedde,
Al under the wyllowe tree.
Blacke hys cryne as the wyntere nyghte,
Whyte hys rode as the sommer snowe,
Rodde hys face as the mornynge lyghte,
Cale he lyes ynne the grave belowe;
Mie love ys dedde,
Gon to hys deathe-bedde,
Al under the wyllowe tree.
Swote hys tyngue as the throstles note,
Quycke ynn daunce as thoughte canne bee,
Defte hys taboure, codgelle stote,
O! hee lyes bie the wyllowe tree;
Mie love ys dedde,
Gonne to hys deathe-bedde,
Alle underre the wyllowe tree.
## p. 3546 (#524) ###########################################
3546
THOMAS CHATTERTON
Harke! the ravenne flappes hys wynge,
In the briered delle belowe;
Harke! the dethe-owle loude dothe synge,
To the nyghte-mares as heie goe;
Mie love ys dedde,
Gonne to hys deathe-bedde,
Al under the wyllowe tree.
See! the whyte moone sheenes onne hie;
Whyterre ys mie true loves shroude;
Whyterre yanne the mornynge skie,
Whyterre yanne the evenynge cloude;
Mie love ys dedde,
Gon to hys deathe-bedde,
Al under the wyllowe tree.
Heere, uponne mie true loves grave,
Schalle the baren fleurs be layde;
Nee one hallie Seyncte to save
Al the celness of a mayde.
Mie love ys dedde,
Gonne to hys deathe-bedde,
Alle under the wyllowe tree.
Wythe mie hondes I'll dente the brieres
Rounde his hallie corse to gre;
Ouphante fairie, lyghte youre fyres;
Heere mie boddie stylle schalle bee.
Mie
ys dedde,
Gon to hys deathe-bedde,
Al under the wyllowe tree.
Comme, wythe acorne-coppe and thorne,
Drayne mie hartys blodde awaie;
Lyfe and all yttes goode I scorne,
Daunce bie nete, or feaste by daie.
Mie love ys dedde,
Gon to hys deathe-bedde,
Al under the wyllowe tree.
Waterre wytches, crownede wythe reytes,
Bere mee to yer leathalle tyde.
I die! I come! mie true love waytes.
Thus the damselle spake, and died.
## p. 3547 (#525) ###########################################
THOMAS CHATTERTON
3547
AN EXCELENTE BALADE OF CHARITIE
AS WROTEN BIE THE GODE PRIESTE THOMAS ROWLEIE, 1464.
IN VIRGYNE the sweltrie sun gan sheene,
IN
And hotte upon the mees did caste his raie:
The apple rodded from its palie greene,
And the mole peare did bende the leafy spraie;
The peede chelandri sunge the livelong daie;
'Twas nowe the pride, the manhode of the yeare,
And eke the grounde was dighte in its mose defte aumere.
The sun was glemeing in the midde of daie,
Deadde still the aire, and eke the welken blue,
When from the sea arist in drear arraie
A hepe of cloudes of sable sullen hue,
The which full fast unto the woodlande drewe,
Hiltring attenes the sunnis fetyve face,
And the blacke tempeste swolne and gatherd up apace.
Beneathe an holme, faste by a pathwaieside,
Which dyde unto Seyncte Godwine's covent lede,
A hapless pilgrim moneynge dyd abide;
Pore in his viewe, ungentle in his weede,
Longe bretful of the miseries of neede,
Where from the hail-stone coulde the almer flie?
He had no housen theere, ne anie covent nie.
Look in his gloomed face, his sprighte there scanne;
Howe woe-be-gone, how withered, forwynd, deade!
Haste to thie church-glebe-house, asshrewed manne!
Haste to thie kiste, thie onlie dortoure bedde.
Cale, as the claie whiche will gre on thie hedde,
Is Charitie and Love aminge highe elves;
Knightis and Barons live for pleasure and themselves.
The gatherd storme is rype; the bigge drops falle;
The forswat meadowes smethe, and drenche the raine;
The comyng ghastness do the cattle pall,
And the full flockes are drivynge ore the plaine;
Dashde from the cloudes the waters flott againe;
The welkin opes; the yellow levynne flies;
And the hot fierie smothe in the wide lowings dies.
Liste! now the thunder's rattling clymmynge sound
Cheves slowlie on, and then embollen clangs;
## p. 3548 (#526) ###########################################
3548
THOMAS CHATTERTON
Shakes the hie spyre, and losst, dispended, drown'd,
Still on the gallard eare of terroure hanges;
The windes are up; the lofty elmen swanges;
Again the levynne and the thunder poures,
And the full cloudes are braste attenes in stones showers.
Spyrreynge his palfrie oere the watrie plaine,
The Abbote of Seyncte Godwynes convente came;
His chapournette was drented with the reine,
And his pencte gyrdle met with mickle shame;
He aynewarde tolde his bederoll at the same;
The storme encreasen, and he drew aside,
With the mist almes-craver neere to the holme to bide.
His cope was all of Lyncolne clothe so fyne,
With a gold button fasten'd neere his chynne;
His autremete was edged with golden twynne,
And his shoone pyke a loverds mighte have binne;
Full well it shewn he thoughten coste no sinne:
The trammels of the palfrye pleasde his sighte,
For the horse-millanare his head with roses dighte.
An almes, sir prieste! the droppynge pilgrim saide:
O! let me waite within your covente dore,
Till the sunne sheneth hie above our heade,
And the loude tempeste of the aire is oer;
Helpless and ould am I, alas! and poor:
No house, ne friend, ne moneie in my pouche;
All yatte I calle my owne is this my silver crouche.
Varlet, replyd the Abbatte, cease your dinne;
This is no season almes and prayers to give;
Mie porter never lets a faitour in;
None touch mie rynge who not in honour live.
And now the sonne with the blacke cloudes did stryve,
And shettynge on the grounde his glairie raie,
The Abbatte spurrde his steede, and eftsoones roadde awaie.
Once moe the skie was blacke, the thounder rolde;
Faste reyneynge oer the plaine a prieste was seen;
Ne dighte full proude, ne buttoned up in golde;
His cope and jape were graie, and eke were clene;
A Limitoure he was of order seene;
And from the pathwaie side then turned hee,
Where the pore almer laie binethe the holmen tree.
## p. 3549 (#527) ###########################################
THOMAS CHATTERTON
An almes, sir priest! the droppynge pilgrim sayde,
For sweete Seyncte Marie and your order sake.
The Limitoure then loosen'd his pouche threade,
And did thereoute a groate of silver take;
The mister pilgrim dyd for halline shake.
Here, take this silver, it maie eathe thie care;
We are Goddes stewards all, nete of oure owne we bare.
But ah! unhailie pilgrim, lerne of me,
Scathe anie give a rentrolle to their Lorde.
Here, take my semecope, thou arte bare I see;
Tis thyne; the Seynctes will give me mie rewarde.
He left the pilgrim, and his waie aborde.
Virgynne and hallie Seyncte, who sitte yn gloure,
Or give the mittee will, or give the gode man power!
THE RESIGNATION
O
GOD! whose thunder shakes the sky,
Whose eye this atom-globe surveys,
To thee, my only rock, I fly,—
Thy mercy in thy justice praise.
The mystic mazes of thy will,
The shadows of celestial night,
Are past the power of human skill;
But what the Eternal acts is right.
O teach me, in the trying hour-
When anguish swells the dewy tear-
To still my sorrows, own thy power,
Thy goodness love, thy justice fear.
If in this bosom aught but thee,
Encroaching, sought a boundless sway,
Omniscience could the danger see,
And Mercy look the cause away.
Then why, my soul, dost thou complain
Why drooping seek the dark recess?
Shake off the melancholy chain;
For God created all to bless.
But ah! my breast is human still;
The rising sigh, the falling tear,
3549
## p. 3550 (#528) ###########################################
THOMAS CHATTERTON
3550
My languid vitals' feeble rill,
The sickness of my soul declare.
But yet, with fortitude resigned,
I'll thank the Inflictor of the blow—
Forbid the sigh, compose my mind,
Nor let the gush of misery flow.
The gloomy mantle of the night,
Which on my sinking spirit steals,
Will vanish at the morning light,
Which God, my East, my Sun, reveals.
## p. 3550 (#529) ###########################################
## p. 3550 (#530) ###########################################
GEOFFREY CHAUCER.
## p. 3550 (#531) ###########################################
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## p. 3551 (#533) ###########################################
3551
GEOFFREY CHAUCER
(13-2-1400)
BY THOMAS R. LOUNSBURY
NGLISH literature, in the strict sense of the word, dates its
beginning from the latter half of the fourteenth century.
Not but an English literature had existed long previous to
that period. Furthermore, it reckoned among its possessions works of
value, and a few which in the opinion of some display genius. But
though the name was the same, the thing was essentially different.
A special course of study is required for any comprehension what-
ever of the productions of that earliest literature; and for the easy
understanding of those written even but a half-century or so before
the period indicated, a mastery of many peculiar syntactical construc-
tions is demanded and an acquaintance with a vocabulary differing
in a large number of words from that now in use.
But by the middle of the fourteenth century this state of things
can hardly be said to exist any longer for us. Everything by that
time had become ripe for the creation of a literature of a far higher
type than had yet been produced. Furthermore, conditions prevailed
which, though their results could not then be foreseen, were almost
certain to render the literature thus created comparatively easy of
comprehension to the modern reader. The Teutonic and Romanic
elements that form the groundwork of our present vocabulary had
at last become completely fused. Of the various dialects prevailing,
the one spoken in the vicinity of the capital had gradually lifted
itself up to a pre-eminence it was never afterwards to lose. In this
parent of the present literary speech, writers found for the first time
at their command a widely accepted and comparatively flexible
instrument of expression. As a consequence, the literature then
produced fixed definitely for all time the main lines upon which
both the grammar and the vocabulary of the English speech were to
develop. The result is that it now presents few difficulties for its
full comprehension and appreciation that are not easily surmounted.
The most effective deterrent to its wide study is one formidable
only in appearance. This is the unfamiliar way in which its words
are spelled; for orthography then sought to represent pronunciation,
and had not in consequence crystallized into fixed forms with con-
stant disregard of any special value to be attached to the signs by
which sounds are denoted.
## p. 3552 (#534) ###########################################
3552
GEOFFREY CHAUCER
Of the creators of this literature - Wycliffe, Langland, Chaucer,
and Gower-Chaucer was altogether the greatest as a man of letters.
This is no mere opinion of the present time: there has never been a
period since he flourished in which it has not been fully conceded.
In his own day, his fame swept beyond the narrow limits of country
and became known to the outside world. At home his reputation
was firmly established, and seems to have been established early.
All the references to him by his contemporaries and immediate suc-
cessors bear witness to his universally recognized position as the
greatest of English poets, though we are not left by him in doubt
that he had even then met detractors. Still the general feeling of
the men of his time is expressed by his disciple Occleve, who terms
him
"The firste finder of our fair langage. »
Yet not a single incident of his life has come down to us from the
men who admired his personality, who enrolled themselves as his
disciples, and who celebrated his praises. With the exception of a
few slight references to himself in his writings, all the knowledge
we possess of the events of his career is due to the mention made of
him in official documents of various kinds and of different degrees of
importance. In these it is taken for granted that whenever Geoffrey
Chaucer is spoken of, it is the poet who is meant, and not another
person of the same name. The assumption almost approaches abso-
lute certainty; it does not quite attain to it. In those days it is clear
that there were numerous Chaucers. Still, no one has yet risen to
dispute his being the very person spoken of in these official papers.
From these documents we discover that Chaucer, besides being a
poet, was also a man of affairs. He was a soldier, a negotiator, a
diplomatist. He was early employed in the personal service of the
king. He held various positions in the civil service. It was a conse-
quence that his name should appear frequently in the records. It is
upon them, and the references to him in documents covering trans-
actions in which he bore a part, that the story of his life, so far as
it exists for us at all, has been mainly built. It was by them also
that the series of fictitious events which for so long a time did duty
as the biography of the poet had their impossibility as well as their
absurdity exposed.
The exact date of Chaucer's birth we do not know. The most
that can be said is that it must have been somewhere in the early
years of the reign of Edward III. (1327-77).
The place of his birth
was in all probability London. His father, John Chaucer, was a
vintner of that city, and there is evidence to indicate that he was to
1 Poet.
## p. 3553 (#535) ###########################################
GEOFFREY CHAUCER
3553
some extent connected with the court. In a deed dated June 19th,
1380, the poet released his right to his father's former house, which
is described as being in Thames Street. The spot, however unsuit-
able for a dwelling-place now, was then in the very heart of urban
life, and in that very neighborhood it is reasonable to suppose that
Chaucer's earliest years were spent.
The first positive information we have, however, about the poet
himself belongs to 1356. In that year we find him attached to the
household of Lionel, Duke of Clarence, the third son of Edward III.
He is there in the service of the wife of that prince, but in what
position we do not know. It may have been that of a page. He
naturally was in attendance upon his mistress during her various
journeyings; but most of her time was passed at her residence in
Hatfield, Yorkshire. Chaucer next appears as having joined the
army of Edward III. in his last invasion of France. This expedition
was undertaken in the autumn of 1359, and continued until the peace
of Bretigny, concluded in May, 1360. During this campaign he was
captured somewhere and somehow. we have no knowledge of any-
thing beyond the bare fact. It took place, however, before the first
of March, 1360; for on that date the records show that the King per-
sonally contributed sixteen pounds towards his ransom.
From this last-mentioned date Chaucer drops entirely out of our
knowledge till June, 1367, when he is mentioned as one of the valets
of the King's chamber. In the document stating this fact he is
granted a pension - the first of several he received-for services
already rendered or to be rendered. It is a natural inference from
the language employed, that during these years of which no record.
exists he was in some situation about the person of Edward III.
After this time his name occurs with considerable frequency in the
rolls, often in connection with duties to which he was assigned. His
services were varied; in some instances certainly they were of impor-
tance. From 1370 to 1380 he was sent several times abroad to share
in the conduct of negotiations. These missions led him to Flanders,
to France, and to Italy. The subjects were very diverse. One of
the negotiations in which he was concerned was in reference to the
selection of an English port for a Genoese commercial establishment;
another was concerning the marriage of the young monarch of Eng-
land with the daughter of the king of France. It is on his first
journey to Italy of which we have any record - the mission of
1372-73 to Genoa and Florence—that everybody hopes and some suc-
ceed in having an undoubting belief that Chaucer visited Petrarch
at Padua, and there heard from him the story of Griselda, which
the Clerk of Oxford in the 'Canterbury Tales' states that he learned
from the Italian poet.
-
VI-223
## p. 3554 (#536) ###########################################
3554
GEOFFREY CHAUCER
But Chaucer's activity was not confined to foreign missions or to
diplomacy; he was as constantly employed in the civil service. In
1374 he was made controller of the great customs-that is, of wool,
skins, and leather of the port of London. In 1382 he received also
the post in the same port of controller of the petty customs - that
is, of wines, candles, and other articles. The regulations of the office
required him to write the records with his own hand; and it is this
to which Chaucer is supposed to refer in the statement he makes
about his official duties in the House of Fame. ' In that poem the
messenger of Jupiter tells him that though he has done so much in
the service of the God of Love, yet he has never received for it any
compensation. He then goes on to add the following lines, which
give a graphic picture of the poet and of his studious life:—
"Wherfore, as I said ywis,¹
Jupiter considereth this,
And also, beau sir, other things;
That is, that thou hast no tidíngs
Of Lovès folk, if they be glad,
Ne of nought ellès, that God made;
And nought only from far countree
That there no tiding cometh to thee,
But of the very neighèboúrs,
That dwellen almost at thy doors,
Thou hearest neither that nor this;
But when thy labor all done is,
And hast made all thy reckonings,
Instead of rest and newè things,
Thou goest home to thine house anon,
And also dumb as any stone,
Thou sittest at another book,
Till fully dazèd is thy look.
And livest thus as an eremite,
Although thine abstinence is lyte. 3»
In 1386 Chaucer was elected to Parliament as knight of the shire
for the county of Kent. In that same year he lost or gave up both
his positions in the customs. The cause we do not know. It may
have been due to mismanagement on his own part; it is far more
likely that he fell a victim to one of the fierce factional disputes that
were going on during the minority of Richard II.
At any rate, from
this time he again disappears for two years from our knowledge. But
in 1389 he is mentioned as having been appointed clerk of the
King's
works at Westminster and various other places; in 1390 clerk of the
works for St. George's chapel at Windsor. Both of these places he
1 Certainly.
2 As.
3 Little.
## p. 3555 (#537) ###########################################
GEOFFREY CHAUCER
3555
held until the middle of 1391. In that last year he was made one of
the commissioners to repair the roadway along the Thames, and at
about the same time was appointed forester of North Petherton Park
in Somerset, a post which he held till his death. After 1386 he
seems at times to have been in pecuniary difficulties. To what cause
they were owing, or how severe they were, it is the emptiest of
speculations to form any conjectures in the obscurity that envelops
this portion of his life. Whatever may have been his situation, on
the accession of Henry IV. in September, 1399, his fortunes revived.
The father of that monarch was John of Gaunt, the fourth son of
Edward III. That nobleman had pretty certainly been from the out-
set the patron of Chaucer; it is possible as the evidence fails on
one side, it cannot be regarded as proved-that by his marriage
with Katharine Swynford he became the poet's brother-in-law. What-
ever may have been the relationship, if any at all, it is a fact that
one of the very first things the new king did was to confer upon
Chaucer an additional pension. But the poet did not live long to
enjoy the favor of the monarch. On the 24th of December, 1399, he
leased for fifty-three years or during the term of his life a tenement
in the garden of St. Mary's Chapel, Westminster. But after the 5th
of June, 1400, his name appears no longer on any rolls. There is
accordingly no reason to question the accuracy of the inscription on
his tombstone which represents him as having died October 25th,
1400. He was buried in Westminster Abbey. He was the first, and
still remains perhaps the greatest, of the English poets whose bones
have there found their last resting-place.
This comprises all the facts of importance we know of Chaucer's
life. Before leaving this branch of the subject, however, it may be
well to say that many fuller details about his career can be found in
all older accounts of the poet, and in spite of the repeated exposure
of their falsity still crop up occasionally in modern books of refer-
ence. Some are objectionable only upon the ground of being untrue.
Of these are such statements as that he was born in 1328; that he
was a student of Oxford, to which Cambridge is sometimes added;
that he was created poet-laureate; and that he was knighted. But
others are objectionable not only on the ground of being false, but
of being slanderous besides. Of these the most offensive is the
widely circulated and circumstantial story that he was concerned
in the conflict that went on in 1382 between the city of London and
the court in regard to the election of John of Northampton to the
mayoralty; that in consequence of his participation in this contest he
was compelled to seek refuge in the island of Zealand; that there he
remained for some time, but on his return to England was arrested
and thrown into the Tower; and that after having been imprisoned
## p. 3556 (#538) ###########################################
3556
GEOFFREY CHAUCER
for two or three years he was released at last on the condition of
betraying his associates, which he accordingly did. All these details
are fictitious. They were made up from inferences drawn from
obscure passages in a prose work entitled 'The Testament of Love. '
This was once attributed to the poet, but is now known not to have
been written by him. Even had it been his, the statements derived
from it and applied to the life of the poet would have been entirely
unwarranted, as they come into constant conflict with the official
records. Not being his, this piece of spurious biography has the
additional discredit of constituting an unnecessary libel upon his
character.
From Chaucer the man, and the man of affairs, we proceed now
to the consideration of Chaucer the writer. He has left behind a
body of verse consisting of more than thirty-two thousand lines, and
a smaller but still far from inconsiderable quantity of prose. The
latter consists mainly if not wholly of translations—one a version
of that favorite work of the Middle Ages, the treatise of Boëtius on
the 'Consolation of Philosophy'; another the tale of Melibeus in the
'Canterbury Tales,' which is taken directly from the French; thirdly,
the Parson's Tale, derived probably from the same quarter, though
its original has not as yet been discovered with certainty; and
fourthly, an unfinished treatise on the Astrolabe, undertaken for the
instruction of his son Lewis. The prose of any literature always lags
behind, and sometimes centuries behind, its poetry. It is therefore
not surprising to find Chaucer displaying in the former but little of
the peculiar excellence which distinguishes his verse. In the latter
but little room is found for hostile criticism. In the more than thirty
thousand lines of which it is composed there occur of course inferior
passages, and some positively weak; but taking it all in all, there is
comparatively little in it, considered as a whole, which the lover of
literature as literature finds it advisable or necessary to skip. In this
respect the poet holds a peculiar position, which makes the task of
representation difficult. As Southey remarked, Chaucer with the
exception of Shakespeare is the most various of all English authors.
He appeals to the most diversified tastes. He wrote love poems,
religious poems, allegorical poems, occasional poems, tales of com-
mon life, tales of chivalry. His range is so wide that any limited
selection from his works can at best give but an inadequate idea of
the variety and extent of his powers.
The canon of Chaucer's writings has now been settled with a rea-
sonable degree of certainty. For a long time the fashion existed of
imputing to him the composition of any English poem of the century
following his death which was floating about without having attached
to it the name of any author. The consequence is that the older
## p. 3557 (#539) ###########################################
GEOFFREY CHAUCER
3557
editions contain a mass of matter which it would have been distinctly
discreditable for any one to have produced, let alone a great poet.
This has now been gradually dropped, much to the advantage of
Chaucer's reputation; though modern scholarship also refuses to admit
the production by him of two or three pieces, such as The Court
of Love,' 'The Flower and the Leaf,' 'The Cuckoo and the Nightin-
gale,' none of which was unworthy of his powers. It is possible
indeed that the poet himself may have had some dread of being
saddled with the responsibility of having produced pieces which he
did not care to father. It is certainly suggestive that he himself took
the pains on one occasion to furnish what it seems must have been
at the time a fairly complete list of his writings. In the prologue to
the 'Legend of Good Women' he gave an idea of the work which up
to that period he had accomplished. The God of Love, in the inter-
view which is there described as having taken place, inveighs against
the poet for having driven men away from the service due to his
deity, by the character of what he had written.
He says:
'Commentary.
5 Little.
"Thou mayst it not deny:
For in plain text, withouten need of glose,¹
Thou hast translated the Romance of the Rose;
That is an heresy agains my law,
And makest wisè folk fro me withdraw.
And of Cressid thou hast said as thee list;
That makest men to women lessè trist,2
That be as true as ever was any steel. "
Against this charge the queen Alcestis is represented as interpos-
ing to the god a defense of the poet, in which occurs the following
account of Chaucer's writings:-
"Albeit that he cannot well endite,
Yet hath he makèd lewèd folk delight
To serve you, in praising of your name.
4
He made the book that hight the House of Fame,
And eke the Death of Blanche the Duchess,
And the Parliament of Fowlès, as I guess,
And all the love of Palamon and Arcite
Of Thebes, though the story is knowen lyte 5;
And many an hymnè for your holy days
That highten ballades, roundels, virelays;
And for to speak of other holiness,
He hath in prosè translatéd Boece,
And made the Life also of Saint Cecile;
He made also, gone sithen a great while,'
2 Trust.
6 Are called.
3
³ Ignorant.
'Is called.
A great while ago.
## p. 3558 (#540) ###########################################
3558
GEOFFREY CHAUCER
Origenes upon the Maudelain':
Him oughtè now to have the lessè pain;
He hath made many a lay and many a thing. "
This prologue is generally conceded to have been written between
1382 and 1385. Though it does not profess to furnish a complete list
of Chaucer's writings, it can fairly be assumed that it included all
which he then regarded as of importance either on account of their
merit or their length. If so, the titles given above would embrace
the productions of what may be called the first half of his literary
career. In fact, his disciple Lydgate leads us to believe that 'Troi-
lus and Cressida' was a comparatively early production, though it
may have undergone and probably did undergo revision before
assuming its present form. The Legend of Good Women'in dis-
tinction from its prologue-would naturally occupy the time of the
poet during the opening period of what is here termed the second
half of his literary career. The prologue is the only portion of it,
however, that is of distinctly high merit. The work was never com-
pleted, and Chaucer pretty certainly came soon to the conclusion
that it was not worth completing. It was in the taste of the times:
but it did not take him long to perceive that an extended work
dealing exclusively with the sorrows of particular individuals was as
untrue to art as it was to life. It fell under the ban of that criti-
cism which in the Canterbury Tales' he puts into the mouth of the
Knight, who interrupts the doleful recital of the tragical tales told by
the Monk with these words:-
«Ho,' quoth the knight, good sir, no more of this:
That ye have said is right enow, ywis,²
And muchel³ more; for little heaviness
Is right enow to muchel folk, I guess.
I say for me it is a great disease,
Where-as men have been in great wealth and ease,
To hearen of hir sudden fall, alas!
And the contráry is joy and great solas,³
As when a man hath been in poor estate,
And climbeth up and waxeth fortunate,
And there abideth in prosperity.
Such thing is gladsome, as it thinketh me,
And of such thing were goodly for to tell. >>
Accordingly, from the composition of pieces of the one-sided and
unsatisfactory character of those contained in the 'Legend of Good
1 Origen upon Mary Magdalen.
2 Certainly.
3 Much.
* Discomfort.
5 Solace.
6 Seems.
## p. 3559 (#541) ###########################################
GEOFFREY CHAUCER
3559
Women,' Chaucer turned to the preparation of his great work, the
( Canterbury Tales. ' This gave him the fullest opportunity to display
all his powers, and must have constituted the main literary occupa-
tion of his later life.
It will be noticed that two of the works mentioned in the prologue
to the 'Legend of Good Women' are translations, and are so avowed.
One is of the Roman de la Rose,' and the other of the philo-
sophical treatise of Boëtius. In regard to the version of the former
which has come down, it is sufficient to say that there was not long
ago a disposition to deny the genuineness of all of it.
This now
contents itself with denying the genuineness of part of it. The
question cannot be considered here: it is enough to say that in the
opinion of the present writer, while the subject is attended with
certain difficulties, the evidence is strongly in favor of Chaucer's
composition of the whole. But setting aside any discussion of this
point, there can scarcely be any doubt that Chaucer began his career
as a translator. At the period he flourished he could hardly have
done otherwise. It was an almost inevitable method of procedure on
the part of a man who found neither writers nor writings in his own
tongue worthy of imitation, and who could not fail to be struck not
merely by the excellence of the Latin classic poets but also by the
superior culture of the Continent. In the course of his literary
development he would naturally pass from direct translation to adapt-
ation. To the latter practice he assuredly resorted often. He took
the work of the foreign author as a basis, discarded what he did not
need or care for, and added as little or as much as suited his own
convenience. In this way the 5704 lines of the 'Filostrato' of Boc-
caccio became 8246 in the Troilus and Cressida' of Chaucer; but
even of the 5704 of the Italian poet, 2974 were not used by the
English poet at all, and the 2730 that were used underwent consid-
erable compression. In a similar way he composed the Knight's
Tale,' probably the most perfect narrative poem in our tongue. It
was based upon the Theseide' of Boccaccio. But the latter has
9896 lines, while the former comprises but 2250; and of these 2250
fully two-thirds are entirely independent of the Italian poem.
With such free treatment of his material, Chaucer's next step
would be to direct composition, independent of any sources, save in
that general way in which every author is under obligation to what
has been previously produced. This finds its crowning achievement
in the Canterbury Tales'; though several earlier pieces—such as
the 'House of Fame,' the 'Parliament of Fowls,' and the prologue to
the 'Legend of Good Women,'-attest that long before he had
shown his ability to produce work essentially original. But though in
his literary development Chaucer worked himself out of this exact
## p. 3560 (#542) ###########################################
3560
GEOFFREY CHAUCER
reproduction of his models, through a partial working over of them
till he finally attained complete independence, the habits of a
translator clung to him to the very end. Even after he had fully
justified his claim to being a great original poet, passages occur
in his writings which are nothing but the reproduction of passages
found in some foreign poem in Latin, or French, or Italian, the three
languages with which he was conversant. His translation of them
was due to the fact that they had struck his fancy; his insertion of
them into his own work was to please others with what had previ-
ously pleased himself. Numerous passages of this kind have been
pointed out; and doubtless there are others which remain to be
pointed out.
There is another important thing to be marked in the history of
Chaucer's artistic development. Not only was poetic material lacking
in the tongue at the time of his appearance, but also poetic form.
The measures in use, while not inadequate for literary expression,
were incapable of embodying it in its highest flights. Consequently
what Chaucer did not find, he had either to borrow or to invent.
He did both. In the lines which have been quoted he speaks of the
"ballades, roundels, and virelayes" which he had composed. These
were all favorite poetical forms in that Continental country with
whose literature Chaucer was mainly conversant. There can be little
question that he tried all manner of verse which the ingenuity of
the poets of Northern France had devised. As many of his shorter
pieces have very certainly disappeared, his success in these various
attempts cannot be asserted with positiveness. Still, what have sur-
vived show that he was a great literary artist as well as a great
poet. His feats of rhyming, in particular in a tongue so little fitted
for it as is ours, can be seen in his unfinished poem of 'Queen
Anelida and False Arcite,' in the 'Complaint to Venus,' and in the
envoy which follows the Clerk's Tale. In this last piece, though
there are thirty-six lines, the rhymes are only three; and two of
these belong to fifteen lines respectively.
But far more important than such attempts, which prove interest
in versification rather than great poetic achievement, are the two
measures which he introduced into our tongue. The first was the
seven-line stanza. The rhyming lines in it are respectively the first
and third; the second, fourth, and fifth; and the sixth and seventh.
At a later period this was frequently called "rhyme royal," because
the Kingis Quair' was written in it. For fully two centuries it was
one of the most popular measures in English poetry. Since the six-
teenth century, however, it has been but little employed. Far dif-
ferent has been the fate of the line of ten syllables, or rather of five
accents. On account of its frequent use in the 'Canterbury Tales' it
## p. 3561 (#543) ###########################################
GEOFFREY CHAUCER
3561
was called for a long period "riding rhyme"; but it now bears the
title of "heroic verse. " As employed by Chaucer it varies in slight
particulars from the way it is now generally used. With him the
couplet character was never made prominent. The sense was not apt
to end at the second line, but constantly tended to run over into the
line following. There was also frequently with him an unaccented
eleventh syllable; and this, though not unknown to modern verse, is
not common. Still, the difference between the early and the later
form are mere differences of detail, and of comparatively unimpor-
tant detail. The introduction of this measure into English may be
considered Chaucer's greatest achievement in the matter of versifi-
cation. The heroic verse may have existed in the tongue before he
himself used it. If so, it lurked unseen and uninfluential.
He was
the first to employ it on a grand scale, if not to employ it at all,
and to develop its capabilities. Much the largest proportion of his
greatest work is written in that measure. Yet in spite of his exam-
ple, it found for two centuries comparatively few imitators.
It was
not till the end of the sixteenth century that the measure started on
a new course of life, and entered upon the great part it has since
played in English versification.
The most important of what are sometimes called the minor
works of Chaucer are the 'Parliament of Fowls,' the 'House of
Fame,' 'Troilus and Cressida,' and the 'Legend of Good Women. '
These are all favorable examples of his genius. But however good
they may be in particular portions and in particular respects, in gen-
eral excellence they yield place unquestionably to the Canterbury
Tales. ' It seems to have been very clearly the intention of the poet
to embody in this crowning achievement of his literary life every-
thing in the shape of a story he had already composed or was pur-
posing to compose. Two of the pieces, the love of Palamon and
Arcite and the Life of St. Cecilia, as we know from the words of
his already quoted, had appeared long before. The plan of the work
itself was most happily conceived; and in spite of most painstaking
efforts to find an original for it or suggestion of it somewhere else,
there seems no sufficient reason for doubting that the poet himself
was equal to the task of having devised it. No one certainly can
question the felicity with which the framework for embodying the
tales was constructed. All ranks and classes of society are brought
together in the company of pilgrims who assemble at the Tabard
Inn at Southwark to ride to the shrine of the saint at Canterbury.
The military class is represented By the Knight, belonging to the
highest order of the nobility, his son the Squire, and his retainer the
Yeoman; the church by the Abbot, the Friar, the Parson, the Pri-
oress with her attendant Nun, and the three accompanying Priests,
## p. 3562 (#544) ###########################################
3562
GEOFFREY CHAUCER
and less distinctly by the Scholar, the Clerk of Oxford, and by the
Pardoner and the Summoner. For the other professions are the
Doctor of Physic and the Serjeant of Law; for the middle-class land-
holders the Franklin; and for the various crafts and occupations the
Haberdasher, the Carpenter, the Weaver, the Dyer, the Upholsterer,
the Cook, the Ploughman, the Sailor, the Reeve, the Manciple, and
(joining the party in the course of the pilgrimage) the assistant of
the alchemist, who is called the Canon's Yeoman. Into the mouths
of these various personages were to be put tales befitting their char-
acter and condition. Consequently there was ample space for stories
of chivalry, of religion, of love, of magic, and in truth of every
aspect of social life in all its highest and lowest manifestations.
Between the tales themselves were connecting links, in which the
poet had the opportunity to give an account of the incidents that
took place on the pilgrimage, the critical opinions expressed by the
hearers of what had been told, and the disputes and quarrels that
went on between the various members of the party. So far as this
portion of his plan was finished, these connecting links furnish some
of the most striking passages in the work. In one of them - the
prologue to the Wife of Bath's Tale- the genius of the poet reaches
along certain lines its highest development; while the general pro-
logue describing the various personages of the party, though not
containing the highest poetry of the work as poetry, is the most
acute, discriminating, and brilliant picture of men and manners that
can be found in our literature.
