A Literary History of the English People Part 34

I can nat geste--run, ram, ruf--by lettre.[554]

Ridiculous, too, in his eyes is the "rym dogerel" of the popular romances of which "Sir Thopas" is the type. His verse is the rhymed verse, with a fixed number of accents or beats, and a variable number of syllables. Nearly all the "Tales" are written in heroic verse, rhyming two by two in couplets and containing five accentuated syllables.

The same cheerful, tranquil common sense which made him adopt the language of his country and the usual versification, which prevented him from reacting with excess against received ideas, also prevented his harbouring out of patriotism, piety, or pride, any illusions about his country, his religion, or his time. He belonged to them, however, as much as any one, and loved and honoured them more than anybody. Still the impartiality of judgment of this former prisoner of the French is wonderful, superior even to Froissart's, who, the native of a border-country, was by birth impartial, but who, as age crept on, showed in the revision of his "Chronicles" decided preferences. Towards the close of the century Froissart, like the Limousin and the Saintonge, ranked among the conquests recovered by France. Chaucer, from the beginning to the end of his career, continues the same, and the fact is all the more remarkable because his turn of mind, his inspiration and his literary ideal, become more and more English as he grows older. He remains impartial, or, rather, outside the great dispute, in which, however, he had actually taken part; his works do not contain a single line directed against France, nor even any praise of his country in which it is extolled as the successful rival of its neighbour.

For this cause Des Champs, a great enemy of the English, who had not only ravaged the kingdom in general but burnt down his own private country house, made an exception in his hatred, and did homage to the wisdom and genius of the "n.o.ble Geoffrey Chaucer," the ornament of the "kingdom of Eneas," England.

V.

The composition of the "Canterbury Tales" occupied the last years of Chaucer's life. During the same period he also wrote his "Treatise on the Astrolabe" in prose, for the instruction of his son Lewis,[555] and a few detached poems, melancholy pieces in which he talks of shunning the world and the crowd, asks the prince to help him in his poverty, retreats into his inner self, and becomes graver and more and more resigned:

Fle fro the prees, and dwelle with sothfastnesse, Suffyce unto thy good, though hit be smal....

Forth, pilgrim, forth! Forth, beste out of thy stal!...

Hold the hye wey, and lat thy gost thee lede: And trouth shal delivere, hit is no drede.[556]

In spite of this melancholy, he was at that time the uncontested king of English letters; a life-long friendship bound him to Gower[557]; the young poets, Hoccleve, Scogan, Lydgate, came to him and proclaimed him their master. His face, the features of which are known to us, thanks to the portrait we owe to Hoccleve, had gained an expression of gentle gravity; he liked better to listen than to talk, and, in the "Canterbury Tales," the host rallies him on his pensive air and downcast eyes:

"What man artow?" quod he; "Thou lokest as thou woldest finde an hare, For ever up-on the ground I see thee stare."

Age had bestowed on him a corpulency which made him a match for Harry Bailey himself.[558]

When Henry IV. mounted the throne, within the four days that followed his accession, he doubled the pension of the poet (Oct. 3, 1399), who then hired, for two pounds thirteen shillings and four pence a year, a house in the garden of St. Mary's, Westminster. The lease is still preserved in the archives of the Abbey.[559] He pa.s.sed away in the following year, in that tranquil retreat, and was interred at Westminster, not far from the sepulchres where slept his patrons, Edward III. and Richard II., in that wing of the transept which has since been called the Poets' Corner, where lately we saw Browning's coffin lowered, and where, but yesterday, Tennyson's was laid.

No English poet enjoyed a fame more constantly equal to itself. In the fifteenth century writers did scarcely anything but lament and copy him: "Maister deere," said Hoccleve,

O maister deere and fadir reverent, Mi maister Chaucer, flour of eloquence, Mirour of fructuous entendement, O universal fadir of science, Allas that thou thyn excellent prudence In thi bed mortel mightist noght byquethe![560]

At the time of the Renaissance Caxton printed his works twice,[561] and Henry VIII. made an exception in their favour in his prohibition of "printed bokes, printed balades, ... and other fantasies."[562] Under Elizabeth, Thynne annotated them,[563] Spenser declared that he "of t.i.tyrus," that is of Chaucer, "his songs did lere,"[564] and Sidney exalted him to the skies.[565] In the seventeenth century Dryden rejuvenates his tales, in the eighteenth century the admiration is universal, and extends to Pope and Walpole.[566] In our time the learned men of all countries have applied themselves to the task of commentating his works and of disentangling his biography, a Society has been founded to publish the best texts of his writings,[567] and but lately his "Legend of Good Women" inspired with an exquisite poem the Laureate who sleeps to-day close to the great ancestor, beneath the stones of the famous Abbey.

FOOTNOTES:

[448] The date 1328 has long but wrongly been believed to be the true one. The princ.i.p.al doc.u.ments concerning Chaucer are to be found in the Appendix to his biography by Sir H. Nicolas, in "Poetical Works," ed. R.

Morris, Aldine Poets, vol. i. p. 93 ff., in the "Trial Forewords," of Dr. Furnivall, 1871, and in the "Life Records of Chaucer," 1875 ff., Chaucer Society. One of the munic.i.p.al ordinances meant to check the frauds of the vintners is signed by several members of the corporation, and among others by John Chaucer, 1342. See Riley, "Memorials, of London," p. 211.

[449] See the view of London, painted in the fifteenth century, obviously from nature, reproduced at the beginning of this vol., from MS. Royal 16 F ii, in the British Museum, showing the Tower, the Bridge, the wharfs, Old St. Paul's, etc.

[450] Such is the case with a tower in the churchyard of St. Giles's, Cripplegate.

[451] "Et qi pork voedra norir, le norise deinz sa measoun." Four jurymen were to act as public executors: "Quatuor homines electi et jurati ad interficiendos porcos inventos vagantes infra muros civitatis." Riley "Munimenta Gildhallae," Rolls, 1859, 4 vols. 8vo; "Liber Albus," pp. 270 and 590.

[452] April, 1357, an information gathered from a fragment of the accounts of the household of Elizabeth found in the binding of a book.

[453] In the controversy between Sir Richard Scrope and Sir Robert Grosvenor, concerning a question of armorial bearings, Chaucer, being called as witness, declares (1386) that he has seen Sir Richard use the disputed emblems "en France, devant la ville de Retters ... et issint il [le] vist armez par tout le dit viage tanque le dit Geffrey estoit pris." "The Scrope and Grosvenor controversy, 1385-90," London, 2 vols.

fol., vol. i. p. 178. "Retters" is Rethel in Champagne (not Retiers in Brittany, where the expedition did not go). Chaucer took part in another campaign "in partibus Franciae," in 1369.

[454] On this see Furnivall, "Chaucer as valet and esquire," Chaucer Society, 1876.

[455] A pa.s.sage in Chaucer's "Book of the d.u.c.h.esse" (1369), lines 30 ff., leaves little doubt as to the reality of the unlucky pa.s.sion he describes. The poet interrupts the train of his speech to answer a supposed question put to him as to the causes of his depression and "melancolye":

I holde hit be a siknesse That I have suffred this eight yere, And yet my bote is never the nere; For ther is phisicien but oon, That may me hele.

Proem of the "Book." See, in connection with this, the "Compleynte unto Pite." Who was the loved one we do not know; could it be that the poet was playing upon her name in such lines as these:

For kindly by your heritage right Ye been annexed ever unto Bountee? (l. 71).

There were numerous families of Bonamy, Bonenfaut, Boncoeur. A William de Boncuor is named in the "Excerpta e Rotulis Finium," of Roberts, vol.

ii. pp. 309, 431, 432.

[456] The date of Chaucer's marriage has not been ascertained. We know that his wife was called Philippa, that one Philippa Chaucer belonged to the queen's household in 1366, and that the Philippa Chaucer, wife of the poet, was at a later date in the service of the d.u.c.h.ess of Lancaster, after having been in the service of the queen. It seems most likely that the two women were the same person: same name, same function, same pension of ten marks, referred to in the same words in public doc.u.ments, for example: 1 42 Ed. III., 1368, "Philippae Chaucer cui dominus Rex decem marcas annuatim ad scaccarium percipiendas pro bono servitio per ipsam Philippam Philippe Regine Anglie impenso per literas suas patentes nuper concessit...." 2 4 Ric. II., 1381, "Philippae Chaucer nuper uni domicellarum Philippae nuper Regine Anglie"--she had died in 1369--"cui dominus Rex Edwardus avus Regis hujus X marcas annuatim ad scaccarium suum percipiendas pro bono servitio per ipsam tam eidem domino Regi quam dicte Regine impenso per literas suas patentes nuper concessit ... in denariis sibi liberatis per ma.n.u.s predicti Galfridi mariti sui...." "Poetical Works," ed. Morris, i.

p. 108. Who Philippa was by birth is doubtful, but it seems likely that she was Philippa Roet, daughter of Sir Payne Roet, who hailed, like the queen herself, from Hainault--hence her connection with the queen--and sister of Catherine Roet who became the mistress and then the third wife of John of Gaunt--hence the favour in which the poet and his family stood with the Lancastrians. It seems again very probable, though not absolutely certain, that Thomas Chaucer, who used at different times both the Chaucer and the Roet arms, Speaker of the House of Commons under Henry V., a man of great influence, was one of the children of the poet.

[457] Book iv. chap. 40.

[458] Froissart declares concerning his own poems that he "les commencha a faire sus l'an de grace Nostre Seigneur, 1362." He wrote them "a l'ayde de Dieu et d'Amours, et a le contemplation et plaisance de pluisours haus et n.o.bles signours et de pluisours n.o.bles et vaillans dames." MS. Fr. 831 in the National Library, Paris.--On Guillaume de Deguileville, who wrote about 1330-5, see Ward, "Catalogue of Romances,"

1893, vol. ii. p. 558; Hill, "An Ancient Poem of G. de Guileville,"

London, 1858, 4to, ill.u.s.trated, and my "Piers Plowman," chap. vii.

Chaucer imitated from him his "A.B.C.," one of his first works.--On Machault, who died in 1377, see Tarbe, "Oeuvres Choisies," Reims and Paris, 1849, 8vo, and Thomas, "Romania," x. pp. 325 ff. (papal bulls concerning him, dated 1330, 1332, 1333, 1335).--On Des Champs, see "Oeuvres Completes publiees d'apres le Ma.n.u.scrit de la Bibliotheque Nationale," by the Marquis de Queux de St. Hilaire, Societe des Anciens Textes, 1878 ff. (which MS. contains, _e.g._, 1175 ballads, 171 roundels, and 80 virelais), and A. Sarradin, "Etude sur Eustache des Champs," Versailles, 1878, 8vo.--On Granson, a knight and a poet slain in a judicial duel, in 1397, see Piaget, "Granson et ses poesies,"

"Romania," vol. xix.; Chaucer imitated in his later years his "Compleynt of Venus," from a poem of "Graunson, flour of hem that make in Fraunce."

[459] Chaucer's favourite flower; he constantly praises it; it is for him a woman-flower (see especially the prologue of the "Legend of Good Women"). This flower enjoyed the same favour with the French models of Chaucer. One of the ballads of Froissart has for its burden: "Sus toutes flours j'aime la margherite" ("Le Paradis d'Amour," in "Poesies," ed.

Scheler, Brussels, 1870, 3 vols. 8vo), vol. i. p. 49. Des Champs praised the same flower; Machault wrote a "Dit de la Marguerite" ("Oeuvres Choisies," ed. Tarbe, p. 123):

J'aim une fleur qui s'uevre et qui s'encline Vers le soleil, de jour quand il chemine; Et quand il est couchiez soubz sa courtine Par nuit obscure, Elle se clost ainsois que le jour fine.

[460] Guillaume de Lorris wrote the first part of the "Roman" ab. 1237; Jean de Meun wrote the second towards 1277. On the sources of the poem see the important work of Langlois: "Origines et Sources du Roman de la Rose," Paris, 1891, 8vo. M. Langlois has traced the originals for 12,000 out of the 17,500 lines of Jean de Meun; he is preparing (1894) a much-needed critical edition of the text.

[461] One of them has a sort of biographical interest as having belonged to Sir Richard Stury, Chaucer's colleague in one of his missions (see below, p. 284); it was afterwards purchased for Thomas, duke of Gloucester, son of Edward III., and is now in the British Museum, MS.

Royal 19 B xiii. "Ceste livre est a Thomas fiz au Roy, duc de Glouc', achates dez executeurs Mons' Ric' Stury." It has curious miniatures exemplifying the way in which people pictured to themselves at that time Olympian G.o.ds and romance heroes. The "Dieu d'amour" figures as a tall person with a tunic, a cloak, and a crown, a bow in his hand and large red wings on his back. See fol. 16, "coment li diex d'amours navra l'amant de ses saietes."

[462] "A vous qui belles filles avez et bien les desirez a introduire a vie honneste, bailliez leur, bailliez le Rommant de la Rose, pour aprendre a discerner le bien du mal, que diz-je, mais le mal du bien. Et a quel utilite ne a quoy proufite aux oyans or tant de laidures?" Jean de Meun "oncques n'ot acointance ne hantise de femme honorable ne vertueuse, mais par plusieurs femmes dissolues et de male vie hanter, comme font communement les luxurieux cuida ou faingny savoir que toutes telles feussent car d'autres n'avoit congnoissance." "Debat sur le Rommant de la Rose," in MS. Fr. 604 in the National Library, Paris, fol.

114 and 115.

[463] An incomplete translation of the "Roman" in English verse has come down to us in a single MS. preserved in the Hunterian collection, Glasgow. It is anonymous; a study of this text, by Lindner and by Kaluza, has shown that it is made up of three fragments of different origin, prosody, and language. The first fragment ends with line 1705, leaving a sentence unfinished; between the second and third fragments there is a gap of more than 5,000 lines. The first fragment alone might, on account of its style and versification, be the work of Chaucer, but this is only a surmise, and we have no direct proof of it. The "Romaunt"

is to be found in Skeat's edition of the "Complete Works" of Chaucer, 1894, vol. i. For Fragment I. the French text is given along with the English translation.

[464]

Mais pran en gre les euvres d'escolier Que par Clifford de moy avoir pourras.

For Des Champs, Chaucer is a Socrates, a Seneca, an Ovid, an "aigle tres hault," "Oeuvres Completes," Paris, 1878 ff., vol. ii. p. 138.

[465] "Hous of Fame," line 622; "Legend of Good Women," line 422, "Complete Works," 1894, vol. i. pp. 19 and 96. Such was the reputation of Chaucer that a great many writings were attributed to him--a way to increase their reputation, not his. The more important of them are: "The Court of Love"; the "Book of Cupid," otherwise "Cuckoo and Nightingale"; "Flower and Leaf," the "Romaunt of the Rose," such as we have it; the "Complaint of a Lover's Life"; the "Testament of Love" (in prose, see below, page 522); the "Isle of Ladies," or "Chaucer's Dream"; various ballads. Most of those works (not the "Testament") are to be found in the "Poetical Works" of Chaucer, Aldine Poets, ed. Morris.

[466]

And every day hir beaute newed.