CHAUCER'S MINOR WORKS.

57

the poet's life, when, after his sixtieth year, he rested from the toils and troubles of a public career. It is composed in pentameter couplets,-a form of verse thoroughly suited to the spirit of our English tongue, and used by almost all the great masters of our literature. The abundance of French words in the language of Chaucer is easily accounted for by the fact that French was not in the poet's day quite superseded as the speech of the upper classes in England. Many of Chaucer's words require a French accentuation; such as aventúre, licóur, coráge. There has been much discussion about the true way of reading Chaucer; some maintaining that the rhythm is to be preserved by certain pauses, while others, following Tyrwhitt, sound as a separate syllable the e, which is now silent at the end of so many words. Most prefer the latter method, which has the advantage of giving to the language an antique air, suitable to the cast of the plot and the period of the poem. The ed at the end of certain verbs, and the es terminating nouns in the plural number or the possessive case, are always to be made separate syllables.

Most of Chaucer's minor and earlier works are either in part or altogether translated from French, Italian, and Latin. The Court of Love, and a heavy tragic poem in five books, called Troilus and Creseide, are thought to have been the work of his college days. The Romaunt of the Rose is an allegory, in which the troubled course of true love is painted in rich descriptive verse. The House of Fame depicts a dream, in which the poet is borne by a huge eagle to a temple of beryl, built on a rock of ice, where he sees the Goddess of Fame dispensing her favours from a carbuncle throne. The Legende of Goode Women narrates some passages in the lives of Cleopatra, Dido, Ariadne, and other dames of old classic renown. But most beautiful of all these is the allegory called The Flour and the Lefe, of which the plot is thus given: "A gentlewoman out of an arbour, in a grove, seeth a great companie of knights and ladies in a daunce upon the greene grasse; the which being ended, they all kneele down, and do honour to the daisie, some to the flower, and some to the leafe. The meaning hereof is this:-They which honour the flower, a thing fading

58

(6 THE KNIGHT AND THE SQUIER."

with every blast, are such as looke after beautie and worldly pleasure. But they that honour the leafe, which abideth with the root, notwithstanding the frosts and winter storms, are they which follow vertue and during qualities without regard of worldly respects." While a prisoner in the Tower, Chaucer wrote, in imitation of Boethius, his longest prose work, called The Testament of Love.

In closing our sketch of Geoffrey Chaucer, the recorded opinions of a great poet and a great critic are well worthy of remembrance. While Spenser says,

That renowned Poet

Dan Chaucer, well of English undefyled,

On Fame's eternall beadroll worthy to be fyled,

no less a literary judge than Hallam classes him with Dante and Petrarch in the great poetic triumvirate of the Middle Ages. The following are specimens of Chaucer's verse :—

"THE KNIGHT AND THE SQUIER."

66

FROM THE PROLOGUE OF THE CANTERBURY TALES."

A KNIGHT ther was, and that a worthy man,
That fro the time that he firste began

To riden out, he loved chevalrie,
Trouthe and honoúr, fredom and curtesie.
Ful worthy was he in his lordes werre,
And therto hadde he ridden, no man ferre,
As wel in Cristendom as in Hethenesse,
And ever honoured for his worthinesse.

This ilke worthy knight hadde ben also
Somtime with the lord of Palatie,
Agen another hethen in Turkie:

And evermore he hadde a sovereine pris.
And though that he was worthy he was wise,
And of his port as meke as is a mayde.

He never yet no vilanie ne sayde

In alle his lif, unto no manere wight.

He was a veray parfit gentil knight.

But for to tellen you of his araie,

His hors was good, but he ne was not gaie.

[war [further

[same

[praise

[kind of person

And wente for to don his pilgrimage.

With him ther was his sone a yongé SQUIER,

A lover, and a lusty bacheler,

With lockes crull as they were laide in presse.
Of twenty yere of age he was
I gesse.
Of his stature he was of even lengthe,
And wonderly deliver, and grete of strengthe.
And he hadde be somtime in chevachie,
In Flaundres, in Artois, and in Picardie,
And borne him wel, as of so litel space,
In hope to stonden in his ladies grace.

Embrouded was he, as it were a mede
Alle ful of fresshe floures, white and rede.
Singing he was, or floyting alle the day,
He was as fresshe as is the moneth of May.
Short was his goune, with sleves long and wide.
Wel coude he sitte on hors, and fayre ride.
He coude songes make, and wel endite,

[curled

[nimble

[an expedition

{embroidered

playing on the flute

Juste and eke dance, and wel pourtraie and write.
So hote he loved, that by nightertale

He slep no more than doth the nightingale.
Curteis he was, lowly, and servisable,
And carf before his fader at the table.

[relate

[the night-time

[carved.

STANZAS FROM "THE FLOUR AND THE LEFE"

And at the last I cast mine eye aside,
And was ware of a lusty company
That came roming out of the field wide,
Hond in hond a knight and a lady;
The ladies all in surcotes, that richely
Purfiled were with many a rich stone,
And every knight of green ware mantles on.

Embrouded well so as the surcotes were,
And everich had a chapelet on her hed,
Which did right well upon the shining here,
Made of goodly floures white and red,
The knightes eke, that they in honde led,
In sute of hem ware chapelets everichone,
And before hem went minstrels many one.

[kirtles

[worked on the edge

[hair

[imitation-them

THOUGH ranking far below the great Father of English Poetry, "the moral Gower," as his friend Chaucer calls him in the "Troilus and Creseide," yet holds an honoured place among our earlier bards. We know very little of his personal history.

He was, perhaps, born in 1325. One of the most illustrious houses in the realm now bears his name; and even in the far-off days of the poet's birth the family was of noble blood. Supposed to have been a scion of the gentle Gowers, resident in the twelfth century at Stittenham in Yorkshire, he seems to have studied at Merton College, Oxford, and to have adopted the law as his profession. Indeed there is a story to the effect that he was a judge of the Common Pleas. But evidence is not forthcoming to prove that Sir John Gower the judge and John Gower the poet were one and the same man.

Like Chaucer, with whom he was long very intimate, although it is said that their friendship cooled at last, Gower espoused the cause of one of King Richard's uncles. His patron was the Duke of Gloucester, whose mysterious murder at Calais is one of the darkest spots in a miserable reign. Fired, no doubt, with the strong suspicion, perhaps with the certain knowledge, that his friend and patron was slain by a royal order, Gower seems to have been right glad when the luxurious king was hurled from his throne to die in Pontefract.

During the last nine years of his life, Gower was blind (1399– 1408.) He died rich, leaving to his widow the then large sum of £100, along with the rents of two manors, one in Nottinghamshire