Chaucer, the father of English poetry, was born about the year 1328, probably in London, and educated at Cambridge. On arriving at man's estate, he joined the army with which Edward III. was trying to subjugate France. Taken prisoner at Poitiers, Chaucer, on being released, returned to England, and married a sister of the lady who became the wife of the Duke of Lancaster, better known as John of Gaunt.

King Edward regarded Chaucer with favor, and in 1372 sent him on a mission to Italy, where he made the acquaintance of Petrarch, then living at Padua. He was employed in other public services, sat in Parliament, shared in the downfall of John of Gaunt, fled to Holland, returned home in 1489, abandoned public life, and devoted himself to poetical composition. At the age of sixty-four he began the "Canterbury Tales," a picture of English life in the fourteenth century. He afterward wrote "The Romaunt of the Rose," "Troilus and Cresseide," "The Legende of Good Women," "Chaucer's Dream," "The Flower and the Leaf," "The House of Fame" (richly paraphrased by Pope), etc.

The accentuation in Chaucer's verse, by a license since abandoned, is different in many instances from that of common speech. For example, in

"Fall well she sangé the service divine,"

sangé is two syllables, while service furnishes an example of a transposed accent. This poetical license of transposing an accent is not uncommon in the later poets.

Chaucer appears to have been of a joyous and happy temperament, generous and affectionate. He had that intense relish for the beauties of Nature so characteristic of the genuine poct. His works abound with enthusiastic descriptions of spring, the morning hour, the early verdure of groves, green solitudes, birds and flowNature, courts, camps, characters, passions, motives, are the topics with which he deals. He was opposed to the priests, whose hypocrisy he unmasked. A vigorous temperament, a penetrating, observing intellect, and a strong, comprehensive good-sense, are the instruments with which he fashions his poetical materials. Spenser refers to him as

crs.

"That renowned Poet,

Dan Chancer, well of English undefiled,
On Fame's eternal beadroll worthy to be fyled."

In the following extracts the orthography is partially modernized. Where the change would impair either the measure or the spirit of the passage, the original spelling is retained.

When that Phoebus his chair of gold so high
Had whirled up the starry sky aloft,
And in the Bull was entered certainly;
When showers sweet of rain descended soft,
Causing the ground, feole' times and oft,
Up for to give many a wholesome air;
And every plainé was y-clothéd fair

With newé green, and maketh smallé flowers
To springen here and there in field and mead:
So very good and wholesome be the showers
That it reneweth that was old and dead
In winter time; and out of every seed
Springeth the herbé, so that every wight
Of this season wexeth glad and light;

TO HIS EMPTY PURSE.

To you, my purse, and to none other wight Complaine I, for ye be my lady dere;

I am sorry now that ye be light,

For certes ye now make me heavy cheer;

Me were as lefé laid upon a bere

For which unto your mercie thus I crie,
Be heavy againe, or els mote I die.

Now vouchsafe this or it be night,

That I of you the blissful sowne may here,
Or see your color like the sunné bright,
That of yelowness had never pere.
Ye be my life, ye be my herte's stere,
Queene of comfort and of good companie,
Be heavy againe, or els mote I die.

Now purse that art to me my live's light
And saviour, as downe in this world here,
Out of this towné helpe me by your might,
Sith that you woll not be my treasure.
For I am shave as nere as any frere,
But I pray unto your curtesie,
Be heavy againe, or els mote I die.

THE PARSON.

A good man there was of religioun,
That was a pooré Parson of a town;
But rich he was of holy thought and work,
He was also a learned man, a clerk,
That Christés gospel truély would preach;
His parishens devoutly would he teach.
Benign he was and wonder diligent,
And in adversity full patient;
And such he was y-provéd' ofté sithés,'
Full loth were him to cursen for his tithés ;3
But rather would he given, out of doubt,
Unto his pooré parishens about,

Of his offring and eke of his substance;
He couth in little thing have suffisance.
Wide was his parish, and houses far asunder;
But he ne lefte not, for rain ne thunder,
In sickness nor in mischief to visite
The furthest in his parish, much and lite,*

1 Y is the old English prefix of the past participle; Saxon and German ge.

2 Oftentimes.

3 The e ori of the plural in old poetry is always sounded when the verse requires it.

4 Great and small.

Upon his feet, and in his hand a staff.

This noble ensample to his sheep he gaf,1
That first he wrought and afterward he taught.
Out of the gospel he the wordés caught,
And this figure he added eke thereto,-
That, if gold rusté, what should iron do?
For, if a priest be foul on whom we trust,
No wonder is a lewéd man to rust.

#

*

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He was a shepherd, and no mercenary;
And, though he holy were and virtuous,
He was to sinful man not dispitous,
Ne of his speeché dangerous ne digne,
But in his teaching discreet and benign.
To drawen folk to heaven by fairness
By good ensample, this was his business.
But, it were any person obstinate,
What so he were, of high or low estate,
Him would he snibben' sharply for the nonés.®
A better priest I trow there nowhere none is.
He waited after no pomp ne reverence,
Ne makéd him a spicéd' conscience;
But Christés lore and his apostles twelve
He taught, but first he followd it himselve.

GOOD COUNSEL OF CHAUCER.

In one of the Cottonian MSS. (among those destroyed by fire) this poem was described as made by Chaucer "upon his deathbed, in his great anguish." The versions differ considerably.

Fly fro the press and dwell with soothfastness; Suffice unto thy good though it be small; For hoard hath hate, and climbing tickleness," Press hath envy, and weal is blent" over-all. Savour no more than thee behové" shall. Rede1 well thyself that other folk canst rede; And Truth thee shall deliver, it is no drede.13

That thee is sent, receive in buxomness';'

The wrastling of this world asketh a fall. Here is no home, here is but wilderness.

Forth, pilgrim! Forth, beast, out of thy stall! Look up on high, and thanké God of all. Waivé thy lusts, and let thy ghost thee lead; And Truth thee shall deliver, it is no drede.

Gower.-Barbour.-Lydgate.

3

Contemporary with Chaucer, but several years his junior, was John Gower (1325-1408), a wealthy "esquire" of Kent. The grave and sententious turn of his poetry won for him from Chaucer and others the appellation of the "Moral Gower," which has become almost a synonyme for dulness. He gives little evidence of the genuine afflatus.

The Scottish poet, John Barbour, born about the year 1316, grew up in the midst of exciting political events. He was archdeacon of Aberdeen, and in 1375, when Robert III. had been king five years, he was occupied in writing a metrical history, called "The Bruce," of Robert I. It is in the octosyllabic rhymed couplet of the old romanees, and is ranked as authentic history.

The most notable of Chaucer's younger contemporaries was John Lydgate (1373-1460). He was named from his birth in Suffolk, at the village of Lydgate, and became a Benedictine monk. His "Ballad of London Lyckpenny," relating the ill success of a poor countryman in the London Courts of Law, is a remarkable specimen of humorous verse. Both Gray and Coleridge seem to have been impressed by the merits of Lydgate.

MEDEA GATHERING HERBS.
GOWER.

Thus it fell upon a night,

When there was naught but starrie light,
She was vanished right as she list,
That no wight but herself wist,
And that was at midnight tide.
The world was still on every side.
With open hand and foot all bare;
Her hair too spread, she 'gan to fare;
Upon her clothes girt she was,
And spechéless, upon the grass,
She glode forth, as an adder doth.

FREEDOM. BARBOUR.

Ah, Freedom is a noble thing! Freedom makes man to have liking;3

10 Blind.

11 Thau shall be for thy good. 13 Doubt.

Freedom all solace to man gives;
He lives at ease that freely lives!
A noble heart may have nane ease,
Ne ellis nocht' that may him please,
Gif freedom faileth; for free liking
Is yearned' o'er all other thing;
Nor he that aye has lived free

May nocht know well the property,"
The anger, ne the wretched doom
That is couplit to foul thirldom.
But, gif he had assayéd it,

Then all perquere he should it wit,
And should think freedom mair to prize
Thau all the gold in the warld that is.

James J. of Scotland.

This Scottish prince (1394-1437) was intercepted at sea, and made prisoner by Henry IV. in 1405. During his captivity he produced one of the most graceful poems that exist in old English. The "King's Quhair" (that is, quire, or little book) has for its main incident the discovery of a lady walking in the prison garden, to whom he becomes attached. This beauty is supposed to have been Lady Jane Beaufort, who became his wife, and eventually Queen of Scotland, and mother of the royal line of the subsequent Stuarts. King James returned to Scotland after the death of Henry V., was crowned at Scone in 1424, and was for twelve years a wise ruler, endeavoring to establish law and order among turbulent nobles, and to assure the rights and liberties of his people; but his firm upholding of justice led to his assassination at Perth in 1437.