THE LIFE OF CHAUCER.

In the beginning of the eleventh century, our vernacular poetry received from the Normans, the

rudiments of that cultivation which it has preserved to the present times.

In the two fucceeding centuries, the principal efforts of our yet untutored verfifiers, were rhyming chronicles and metrical romances, the style of which was rough, and the harmony of the numbers very defective.

In the reign of Edward I., the character of our poetical compofition was confiderably changed, by the introduction and increase of the tales of chivalry, and the popular fables of the troubadours of Provence.

Fictitious adventures were then substituted by the minstrels in the place of hiftorical and traditionary facts, and a taste for ornamental and exotic expreffion gradually prevailed over the rude finplicity of the native English phrafeology.

These fabulous narratives, afterwards enlarged by kindred fancies, derived from the crufades, and enriched by the marvellous machinery of the Italian poets, formed the tafte, and awakened the imagination of GEOFFREY CHAUCER, the illuftrious ornament of the reign of Edward III. and of his fucceffor Richard II., the father of the English heroic verfe, and the first English verfifier who wrote poetically.

Of the great poet, with whofe compofitions this collection of claffical English poetry commences, the curiosity which his reputation must excite, will require more ample information than can now be given. His contemporaries, who reverenced his genius, recorded few particulars of his life; and all who have fince written of him, relate nothing beyond what casual mention, uncertain tra dition, and difcordant conjecture, have supplied.

This meagre narration, therefore, scarcely merits the title that is given to it; but the materials for a fuller account are not to be found, without fupplying the deficiency of facts by the comments and inventions of his biographers, which have nothing to recommend them to credit but the single circumftance of being often repeated.

The birth of Chaucer, in 1328, has been fettled, from the infcription on his tomb stone, signifying that he died in 1400, in the 72d year of his age.

Of the place of his nativity there is no memorial, any more than of his parents. Bale says he was a Berkshireman; Pits would entitle Woodstock in Oxfordshire to his birth; and Camden affirms that London was his birth-place: “ Edmund Spenfer," fays he, "a Londoner, was fo fmiled on by the Mufes at his birth, that he excelled all the English poets that went before him, if we except only his fellow citizen Chaucer." But Chaucer himself feems to have determined the point. In his Teftament of Love, he calls himself a Londonois or Londoner, and fpeaks of the city of London as the place of his engendrure.

His defcent has been variously assigned. Leland fays that he was of a noble stock; Pits, that he was the son of a knight; Speght, that his father was a vintner; and Hearne, that he was a merchant. This difference of opinion fhews, that nothing can be said with any tolerable afsurance of his family; but the patronymic name feems to indicate, that it came originally from Normandy; and there is fomewhat more probability of his being the fon of a gentleman rather than of a tradefman

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His biographers are as much in the dark about the place of his education. They tell us that he received the rudiments of his education in Solere's Hall, Cambridge, where he wrote his Court of Love; and afterwards completed his studies in Merton College, Oxford.

In his Court of ove, he fpeaks of himself under the name and character of "Philogenetof Cambridge, Clerk." This is by no means a decifive proof that he was really educated at Cambridge; but it may be admitted as a strong argument, that he was not educated at Oxford, as Leland has fuppofed, without the shadow of proof. The biographers, however, instead of weighing one of these accounts against the other, have adopted both, and tell us very gravely that he was firft at Cambridge, and afterwards removed from thence to complete his education at Oxford.

After he left the university, he is supposed to have added to his accomplishments by travelling into France and the Low Countries; but when he went abroad, or at what time he returned, are circumstances not determined.

His biographers agree, that on his return, he entered himself of the Inner Temple, and prosecuted for feme time the ftudy of the law. Speght has given us a record in the Inner Temple (which he fays a Mr. Buckley had feen), where "Geoffrey Chaucer was fined two fhillings, for beating a Francifcan friar in Fleet-ftrcet." It were to be wished that he had given the date, Leland fays, “ Collegia Legulciorum frequentavit, after his travels in France, and perhaps before." These travels in France rett entirely on the authority of Leland, whofe account is full of inconfiftencies.

He appears to have been early converfant with the court, and particularly attached to the service of the king's fon, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, by whofe favour he obtained in marriage Philippa, daughter of Sir Payne, or Pagan Rouet, a native of Hainault, and sister of the famous Catherine Swynford, the duke's mistress, and afterwards his wife.

As the credit of the Duke of Lancaster increased with his father, Chaucer's also rose in a like proportion; and the liveliness of his parts, and the native gaiety of his difpofition, rendered him a very popular and acceptable character in the English court, at that time the most gay and splendid in Europe.

That he had distinguished himself before this time by his poetical performances, is almost certain ; and there is a tradition fupported by fome paffages in his Dream, and Cukoo and Nightingale, that when he attended the court at Woodstock, he refided at a fquare stone houfe near the park stile, which still retains his name.

The first authentic memorial of Chaucer, is the patent in Rymer, 41. Edward III. by which the king grants to him an annuity of 20 marks, by the title of Valettus nofter. He was then in the 39th year of his age. How long he had ferved the king in that or any other station, and what particular merits were rewarded by this royal bounty, are points equally unknown. There is, however, no ground for fuppofing that this mark of his Majesty's favour was a reward of Chaucer's poetical merits. If it is confidered that a few years after (43 Edward III.), the king appointed him Comptroller of the Wool, &c. in the port of London, with the following injunction in the patent : So that the faid Geoffrey write with his own hand his rolls, touching the faid office, and continually refide there, and do and execute all things pertaining to the faid office in his own proper person, and not by his fubflitute;”—it should seem that Edward, though adorned with many royal and heroić virtues, had not the gift of difcerning and patronizing a great poet : a gift which, like that of genuine poetry, is only bellowed on the chofen few, by the peculiar favour of Heaven;

neque enim, nifi carus ab ortu

Diis fuperis, poterit magno fuiffe poetæ.

MILT. MANSUS.

From this time Chaucer is frequently mentioned in various public inftruments. In the 46. Edward III, Ryner] the king appoints him Lnvoy (with two others) to Genoa, by the title of Scutifer ufter. This embaffy might probably have afforded him an opportunity of vifiting Petrarch at Padua, where he tells us, in the prologue to the Glerkes Tale, he learned from him the flory of Grifeldis. But it is uncertain whether he ever went upon the embaffy; and the biographers of Petrarch, who died the year following (1374), have not recorded the reverential vifit of the English envoy.

"Some write," fays Speght," that he, with Petrarke, was present at the marriage of Lionell Duke of Clarence, with Violante, daughter of Galeafius Duke of Millain; yet Paulus Jovius mameth not Chaucer, but Petrarke, he sayeth, was there." It appears from an inftrument in Rymer [42. Edward III.], that the Duke of Clarence passed from Dover to Calais in his way to Milan, in the fpring of 1638, with a retinue of 457 men and 1280 horses. That Chaucer might have attended the Duke upon this occafion, is not impoffible; but his name does not appear among the "Grandi Signori Baroni Inghilese,” who were “ Com. Meffere Lionell in compagnia” [Muratori]. In the 48. Edward III., he has a grant for life of a pitcher of wine daily [Rymer]. In the 49. Edward III. the king grants to him the wardship of Sir Edmond Staplegate's heir [Rymer], for which he received 1041.; and, in the next year, fome forfeited wool, to the value of 711. 4s. 6d. [Urr. Life of Cb.]. In the last year of Edward III., he was sent to France with Sir Guichard D'Angle and Richard Stan [or Sturry], to treat of a marriage between Richard Prince of Wales, and a daughter of the French king [Freijart].

In the next year, I. Richard II., his annuity of 20 marks was granted to him in lieu of the pitcher of wine daily. In his Teftament of i ove, he alludes to the misfortunes brought upon him by his meddling in the disturbances which happened in London in the 7. Richard II. What the real defigns of John Comberton, commonly called John of Northampton, and his party, were, and how a trifling city-riot came to be treated as a rebellion, are points of great obfcurity. There is good ground to believe that Comberton, in his endeavours to reform the city, according to the advice given by Wickliffe, was countenanced by the Duke of Lancaster, which may account for Chaucer's engagement with that party. When Chaucer fled to Holland, to avoid being examined in relation to these difturbances (as he says, Teft. of Love) he was probably superfeded in his office of Comptroller. It is probable, too, that he was confirmed in it on his return, though the instrument has not been produced. In the II. Richard II., he had the king's license to furrender his two grants of 20 marks, in favour of John Scalby. This furrender was probably occasioned by his distressed circumstances. In the 13. Richard II., he appears to have been Clerk of the works at Westminster, &c., and in the following year at Windfor. In the 17. Richard II. the king granted him a new annuity of 201. [Rymer.] If he was ever poffeffed of Dunnington Castle in Berkshire (as his biographers suppose), he must have purchased it about this time; for it appears to have been in the poffeflion of Sir Richard Adderbury, in the 17. Richard II. [Monaft. Ang. ii. 474]. But there is no proof of any fuch purchase; and the situation of his affairs makes it highly improbable. The tradition of an oak in Dunnington park, called Chaucer's oak, may be fufficiently accounted for, without fuppofing that it was planted by Chaucer himself, as the caftle was undoubtedly in the poffeffion of Thomas Chaucer, whe is fuppofed to be his fon, for many years.

In the 21. Richard II. the king granted him his protection for two years [Rymer]; and in 22, a pipe of wine annually [ibid]. In the next year, the 1. Henry IV., his two grants of the annuity of 20 1., and of the pipe of wine, were confirmed to him [Rymer]; and at the fame time, he had an additional grant of 40 marks, [ibid]. It appears that he received an annuity of 10 marks on account of his wife. He died, according to the infcription on his tombstone, in the 2. Henry IV., on the 25th of October 1400, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. A monument was erected to his memory in 1556, by Mr. Nicholas Brigham of Oxford, upon which he caused his picture to be painted, from the original of Occleve, in the illuminated manufcript of his treatise De regimina Principis, together. with the following infcription, which still remains.

M.S.

Qui fecit Anglorum vates nofter maximus olim.

GALFRIDUS CHAUCER Conditur hoc tumulo:
Annum fi quæras Domini, fi tempora vitæ,

Ecce notæ fubfunt quæ tibi cuncta notunt.
25 Octobris 1400.

Ærumnarum requies mors.

N. Irigham hos fecit Mufarum nomine fumptus,