was acquainted with the Italian language; and it is not improbable that he may have picked up his Latin version of Boccaccio's story in Italy, and brought it with him to England, or, as Sir H. Nicolas observes, perhaps "both the clerk who relates the tale, and the immediate source of the tale, are alike fictitious.' Chaucer's mission to Italy was the earliest evidence that is talents were appreciated by the Crown, for he soon received some substantial marks of royal favour. In April 1374 a pitcher of wine daily was granted him, to be received in the port of London from the hands of the king's butler. A pitcher of wine is very well at a poet's dinner every day, but it is a natural feeling not to like to be worse off than one's neighbour; and John Gower had two gallons of wine for his share, which showed that poetry was rising in the market; and besides, as this wine. might be commuted for a money payment,* as was afterwards the case, the quantity allowed was not unimportant. In June of the same year, Chaucer was appointed comptroller of the customs of skins, tanned hides, &c. in the port of London. In the same month, the Duke of Lancaster granted him 107. for life, which probably was worth 1801. of our present money, for some good service rendered to him. In 1375 he obtained a grant of the custody and lands and person of Edmund Staplegate, of Kent, a minor. This would probably have been a very lucrative grant, but his ward, luckily for himself and his estate, became of age within three years, and only suffered the loss of 1047. which he had to pay for his wardship and marriage. Towards the end of 1376, the king appointed Sir John Burley and G. Chaucer to perform some secret service, the nature of which has not been ascertained; but Chaucer was paid 87. 13s. 4d. for his wages. In 1377 he was associated with Sir Thomas Percy, in a secret mission to Flanders, the object of which has not been discovered he received 107. for his expenses. Not improbably it was some commercial negotiation. At the same period, Froissart says, he was joined with Sir Guichard d'Angle and Sir Richard Sturry, to negotiate a secret treaty for the marriage of Richard, Prince of Wales, with Mary daughter of the King of France. The envoys met at Montreuil-sur-Mer, but Sir H. Nicolas observes that Froissart has blended two negotiations. Edward the Third died in June in this year; and it was in the following, after the accession of Richard the Second, that the negotiation for the marriage took place, to which mission Chaucer was certainly attached. In May 1378 he was sent, with Sir Edward Berkeley, to Lombardy, to treat with Bernardo Visconti, Lord of Milan, and the celebrated Sir John Hawkwood, "pro certis negociis expeditionem guerræ Regis tangentibus." For his expenses he was paid about 561. "Of the precise object or result (says his biographer) of his mission to Lom. bardy, no particulars are known; but a fact of much literary value is established by one of the documents connected with it, namely, that (as has hitherto been presumed only) Chaucer was certainly the friend of Gower the Poet. In case of any legal proceedings being instituted during his absence, it was necessary that Chaucer should appoint two persons to appear for him in the courts; and, supposing one of the individuals to have been selected merely because he was a lawyer, the other would probably have been an intimate friend, on whose ability, * Mr. Ellis has calculated the value of Chaucer's grants in modern money. He estimates the "mark of silver" at 107. of our present money, and Chaucer's original annuity at 2007. The grant of wine was of the same value, because it was exchanged for an annuity of 20 marks. Chaucer, according to his calculation, appears to have received during the last three years of Edw. III. the present value of 4,7007. without taking into account his receipts as Comptroller of the Customs. (Spec. vol. i. p. 204.) zeal, and honour he could entirely rely. Chaucer named John Gower and Richard Forrester (of whom nothing more has been found) as his representatives; and the identity of the John Gower mentioned in that document with the post, is not only highly probable in itself, but is supported by the name being very uncommon at that period, and by both of them being connected with the county of Kent." * Each poet has celebrated the other in his verses: Chaucer at the end of Troilus and Cressida, and Gower in the Confessio Amantis, in some lines that he puts into the mouth of Venus. As commentators, however, exist on suppositions, Tyrwhitt supposed that they subsequently quarrelled; and then, correcting himself, he supposed they did not; and Sir Harris observes, that, as their friendship lasted till within seven years of Chaucer's death, "it is probable that it was never dissolved." The fact is, there is not the slightest ground for any supposition of a quarrel, the whole web being woven by the critic from his own bowels, to catch the heedless flies -his readers. Chaucer returned to England before February 1379. In May 1382 he was appointed Comptroller of the Petty Customs in the Port of London during pleasure, still keeping his former place. In the February ¡following, he was enabled to nominate a permanent deputy to his office; and he was released from the drudgery of dockets and cockets and consignments, to walk in the fields at Stratford-le-Bow, and think of Palemon and Arcite. The next notice of Chaucer is of importance; he was elected knight of the shire for Kent in the parliament of Oct. 1386. This fact tends to identify the poet with Kent; in which county it is probable he possessed some property. Chaucer was examined as witness at Westminster for Richard Lord Scrope, in defence of his right to the arms Azure, a bend or," against the claim of Sir Robert Grosvenor; his deposition, as his biographer tells us, is material for the information it contains respecting himself, but we can perceive nothing in it connected with his personal history that we do not know, except that he once walked in Friday Street, and, as he was walking, saw a new sign hung out. Towards the end of 1386, he was superseded in both his offices, as Comptroller of Customs and Petty Customs in the Port of London. Why he was dismissed, no one can tell; nor have we anything to guide us on the subject; but the biographers fortunately are not so soon drawn from the game, and can give tongue on a false scent, as well as on a true one. This then is the goodly fabric they have raised, which Sir Harris tells us is nothing but a pure fiction. "His biographers attribute Chaucer's dismissal to his having taken an active part in the dispute between the Court and the Citizens of London respecting the election of John of Northampton to the Mayoralty in 1382; and they cite various passages in the Testament of Love,' which they suppose shew that, in February 1384, when Northampton was ordered to be arrested and sent to Corfe Castle, a process issued against the poet, who fled for safety to the island of Zealand; that he remained in exile for two years; that he met many of his confederates in Zealand, who had fled from the same cause, to whom he acted with great liberality; that the persons who had the management of his affairs in England betrayed their trust; that he experienced much distress during his banishment; that he returned to England some time in 1386, and on his arrival was sent to the Tower; that he remained in custody for three years, and was released about May 1389, at the intercession of Anne of Bohemia, Queen of Richard the Second; and that it was one condition of his pardon that he should impeach his former associates, to which terms he ultimately yielded.” These circumstances have been taken out of an allegorical poem, the See Retrospective Review, New Series, vol. ii. 12 Sir H. Nicolas's Life of Geoffrey Chaucer. [Jan. Testament of Love, and applied as verities to Chaucer's history, as Spenser's life might have been compiled from the Fairy Queen, or, in the absence of real information, Milton might have been presumed to have rescued a lady from the enchantments of Comus, or met his death like Samson Agonistes. The fact is, Chaucer was in London from 1380 to May 1388, receiving regularly his pension at the Exchequer, probably walking in Friday Street as usual; and, at the very moment when he is sent by Mr. Godwin and others as prisoner to the Tower, he was sitting in Parliament as a knight of the shire for one of the largest counties in England. To account for Chaucer's dismissal from his employments in Dec. 1386, Sir Harris reasonably conjectures that he became obnoxious to Thomas Duke of Gloucester and the other ministers, who had succeeded his patron the Duke of Lancaster: and further, as the board of customs seems in those days not to have been unlike what it has been lately discovered to be in ours, a commission was appointed to investigate the abuses; and we are sorry to have to transcribe the remaining words of the biographer on the subject. "As the commissioners began their duties by examining the accounts of the officers employed in the collection of the revenue, the removal of any of those persons, soon afterwards, may, with much probability, be attributed to that investigation." This is delicately and carefully expressed, but, if it means any thing to the purpose, it is, that when Chaucer was walking in Friday Street, looking at the signs, the money in his purse was not exactly what an honest man could call his own. In May 1388, the grants of his pensions of twenty marks each were cancelled, at his request, and assigned to John Scalby: it is probable that, being now distressed by the loss of his places, he sold his pensions to this person. In May 1389, the tide of fortune turned; the young King assumed the reins of government, and appointed new ministers, among whom Chaucer found new friends. He was appointed Clerk of the King's Works at all the royal palaces, castles, and lodges; he was, moreover, permitted to execute his office by deputy, for there were no Whittle Harveys nor Joseph Humes in the House in those days; and his salary was two shillings per diem, being equal in value to a sinecure place of 400 or 500 a year in the present day. After holding this situation two years only, he was superseded by a John Gedney, for what cause is not known, though many have been suggested; and his probable unfitness for his office the only one that has been overlooked. In Feb. 1394, he obtained a grant from the King of 201. a year for his life, payable half-yearly, being 67. 13s. 4d. less than the pensions he surrendered in 1388. That he was now poor, may be inferred from several advances made to him at the Exchequer on account of his annuity, before the half-yearly payments became due. From the next record relating to the poet, inferences exactly opposite to each other have been drawn. On 4th May, 1398, letters of protection were issued to him, stating "That whereas the King had appointed his beloved esquire Geoffrey Chaucer, to perform various arduous and urgent duties in divers parts of the realm of England, and the said Geoffrey, fearing that he might be impeded in the execution thereof by his enemies, by means of various suits, had prayed the King to assist him therein; and that therefore the King took the said Geoffrey, his tenants and property, into his special protection, forbidding any one to sue or arrest him on any plea except it were connected with land, for the term of two years." His biographer says, that, in judging of this document, though it must be borne in mind that similar language was often employed in other records of that nature, in cases where the parties are not in pecuniary difficulties, yet the Records of the Exchequer for 1398 so strongly support the opinion that Chaucer was in distressed circumstances, as to leave little doubt of the fact. He obtained also loans of such very trifling sums from the Exchequer, in advance of his pension, as no one in tolerable circumstances could have submitted to request. But, to the honour of the country, the statesman and the poet was not then to sink into his grave, nor his sun to set in the cold and cloudy storms of poverty and sorrow. We are delighted to find that the old man's blood was again warmed by another grant of wine in the very month dedicated to Bacchus, in the genial October of 1398, not precisely as before, doled out in pitchers, but in the totality of an annual tun. Henry the Fourth ascended the throne; and, being connected with the House of Lancaster, the poet had claims on the sovereign which were not denied or forgotten. His pension was doubled in four days after this event, by a grant of forty marks yearly, in addition to the annuity of 20l. which King Richard had given him. We are now, however, about to take leave of all these changes of fortune -these elevations and depressions-this mixture of cloud and sunshine, which pass over the life of man, and to accompany the poet to the only place of rest allotted to the children of mortality. said Chapel, for fifty-three years, at the annual rent of 21. 138. 4d. If any part of the rent was in arrear for the space of fifteen days, power was given to the lessor to distrain, and if Chaucer died within that term, the premises were to revert to the Custos of the said Chapel for the time being; so that in fact the poet had only a life-interest in it."'* "It would seem that Chaucer closed his days near Westminster Abbey, for on Christmas Eve 1399 he obtained a lease, dated at Westminster, by which Robert Hermodesworth, a monk and keeper of the Chapel of the Blessed Mary of Westminster, with the consent of the abbot and convent of that place, demised to him a tenement situated in the garden of the In February 1400 Chaucer received his pension of 207. and he was alive in June following, though probably not in good health, for his second pension was received for him by Henry Somere, who was clerk of the receipt of the Exchequer, and the same person to whom Occleve addressed two ballads. We shall now give the account of his death in the words of his accomplished and learned biographer. "Chaucer is said to have died on the 25th of October 1400, at the age of seventytwo, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. The precise date of his decease stands on no better authority than the inscription on the tomb erected near his grave, by Nicholas Brigham, a poet and man of literary attainments, in the year 1556, who, from veneration for Chaucer, caused his child Rachel to be buried near the spot in June 1557. It appears, that a tomb had been before placed over his re mains; and the above date of his decease may have been copied from it. There can, however, be little doubt of the correctness of the period assigned to Chaucer's decease; for, had he lived many weeks after the end of September 1400, the payment of his pensions would have appeared on the Issue Roll of the Exchequer commencing at Michaelmas in that year and ending at Easter 1401; or at all events on some subsequent Roll." Such was the period of Chaucer's death, at the advanced age of seventytwo; yet it would appear that years had not dimmed the clearness of his intellect, nor quenched the poetic fire that had burnt so steadily during his life, and was yet to illuminate future ages. In Lydgate's Life of the Virgin Mary, See the lease as printed in Godwin's Life of Chaucer, vol. iv. p. 365, from the original in the possession of the Dean and Chapter of Westminster. there is a digression of five or six stanzas in praise of Chaucer; in which he feelingly laments the recent death "of his master Chaucer, poete of Britaine, who used to amende and correcte the wronge traces of my rude penne. Now Lydgate is supposed to have been born about 1375, and we may reasonably presume that he must have arrived at the age of more than twenty before he ventured to open his early effusions to the great master of song; if so, this period would be brought within two or three years of Chaucer's death, when his mind was still vigorous enough to correct, and healthy enough to enjoy, or rather when he was good-natured enough to hear, the compositions of the younger minstrel; and a pleasing picture may be formed by the eye of fancy, of the two poets engaged in the occupation of going over with critical exactness,-Bochas tragedies, or the Fall of Princes-and Chaucer, perhaps, occasionally pouring some lifeblood of his own into the inanimate productions of the prosaic Monk of Bury. The grateful scholar lamented his master's death in the following elegant and affecting lines: "My master Chaucer, with fresh comedies, Is dead, alas! chief poet of Britaine ! Chaucer himself had submitted his poem of Troilus and Cressida to Gower's correction. O moral Gower, this book I directe The tomb which Brigham erected to Chaucer still remains, and forms one of the most interesting objects in Poet's Corner. It is much to be lamented, that, of a small whole-length portrait of Chaucer, which was delineated in plano on the north side of the inscription, not a vestige is left. The inscription is as follows : " M. S. Qui fuit Anglorum vates ter maximus olim, Erumnarum requies mors. N. Brigham hos fecit Musarum nomine sumptus, 1556."+ On the ledge of the tomb the following verses were engraved : Si rogitas quis eram, forsan te fama docebit, Quod si fama negat, mundi quia gloria transit, Hæc monumenta lege. Speght says that the following lines were to be seen on the original tomb: *V. Prol. Fall of Princes, v. 1. See Neale and Brayley's History and Antiquities of Westminster, ii. p. 265. See an engraving of the tomb in Urry's Chaucer, Todd's Illustrations, xxx. Gough's Sepulchral Monuments. Brigham was a man of learning and a poet. See Wood's Ath. Ox. and Lambeth MSS. No. 1106. |