The Romance of Biography Volume I Part 9

thinking on his mistress--all her goodness and all her sweetness, and marvelling how heaven had formed her so exceeding fair,

And in so litel s.p.a.ce Made such a body and such a face; So great beauty, and such features, More than be in other creatures!

He falls into a dream as usual, and in the conclusion fancies himself present at the splendid festivities which took place at the marriage of his patron. The ladye of his affection is described as the beloved friend and companion of the bride. She is sent to grace the marriage ceremony with her presence; and Chaucer seizes the occasion to plead his suit for love and mercy. Then the Prince, the Queen, and all the rest of the Court, unite in conjuring the lady to have pity on his pain, and recompence his truth; she smiles, and with a pretty hesitation at last consents.

Sith his will and yours are one, Contrary in me shall be none.

They are married: the ladies and the knights wish them

----Heart's pleasance, In joy and health continuance!

The minstrels strike up,--the mult.i.tude send forth a shout; and in the midst of these joyous and triumphant sounds, and in the troubled exultation of his own heart, the sleeper bounds from his couch,--

Wening to have been at the feast,

and wakes to find it all a dream. He looks around for the gorgeous marriage-feast, and instead of the throng of knights and ladies gay, he sees nothing but the figures staring at him from the tapestry.

On the walls old portraiture Of hors.e.m.e.n, of hawks and hounds, And hurt deer all full of wounds; Some like torn, some hurt with shot; And as my dream was, _that_ was not![49]

He is plunged in grief to find himself thus reft of all his visionary joys, and prays to sleep again, and dream thus for aye, or at least "a thousand years and ten."

Lo, here my bliss!--lo, here my pain!

Which to my ladye I complain, And grace and mercy of her requere, To end my woe and all my fear; And me accept for her service-- That of my dream, the substance Might turnen, once, to cognisance.[50]

And the whole concludes with a very tender "envoi," expressly addressed to Philippa, although the poem was written in honour of his patrons, the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess. It has been well observed, that nothing can be more delicate and ingenious than the manner in which Chaucer has complimented his mistress, and ventured to shadow forth his own hopes and desires; confessing, at the same time, that they were built on air and ended in a dream: it may be added, that nothing can be more picturesque and beautiful, and vigorous, than some of the descriptive parts of this poem.

There is no reason to suppose that Philippa was absolutely deaf to the suit, or insensible to the fame and talents of her poet-lover. The delay which took place was from a cause honourable to her character and her heart; it arose from the declining health of her royal mistress, to whom she was most strongly and gratefully attached, and whose n.o.ble qualities deserved all her affection. It appears, from a comparison of dates, that Chaucer endured a suspense of more than nine years, during which he was a constant and fervent suitor for his ladye's grace. In this interval he translated the Romaunt of the Rose, the most famous poetical work of the middle ages. He addressed it to his mistress; and it is remarkable that a very elaborate and cynical satire on women, which occurs in the original French, is entirely omitted by Chaucer in his version; perhaps because it would have been a profanation to her who then ruled his heart: on other occasions he showed no such forbearance.

In the year 1369, Chaucer lost his amiable patroness, the d.u.c.h.ess Blanche; she died in her thirtieth year; he lamented her death in a long poem, ent.i.tled the "Booke of the d.u.c.h.esse." The truth of the story, the virtues, the charms, and the youth of the Princess, the grief of her husband, and the simplicity and beauty of many pa.s.sages, render this one of the most interesting and striking of all Chaucer's works.

The description of Blanche, in the "Booke of the d.u.c.h.esse," shows how trifling is the difference between a perfect female character in the thirteenth century, and what would now be considered as such. It is a very lively and animated picture. Her golden hair and laughing eyes; her skill in dancing, and her sweet carolling; her "goodly and friendly speech;" her debonair looks; her gaiety, that was still "so womanly;"

her indifference to general admiration; her countenance, "that was so simple and so benigne," contrasted with her high-spirited modesty and consciousness of lofty birth,

No living wight might do her shame, _She loved so well her own name_;

her disdain of that coquetterie which holds men "in balance,"

By half-word or by countenance;

her wit, "without malice, and ever set upon gladnesse;" and her goodness, which the Poet, with a nice discrimination of female virtue, distinguishes from mere ignorance of evil--for though in all her actions was perfect innocence, he adds,

I say not that she had no knowing What harm was; for, else, she Had known no good--so thinketh me;

are all beautifully and happily set forth, and are charms so appropriate to woman, as _woman_, that no change of fashion or lapse of ages can alter their effect. Time

"Can draw no lines there with his antique pen."

But afterwards follows a trait peculiarly characteristic of the women of that chivalrous period. She was not, says Chaucer, one of those ladies who send their lovers off

To Walachie, To Prussia, and to Tartary, To Alexandria, ne Turkie;

and on other bootless errands, by way of displaying their power.

She used no such _knacks small_.

That is, she was superior to such frivolous tricks.

John of Gaunt, who is the princ.i.p.al speaker and chief mourner in the poem, gives a history of his courtship, and tells with what mixture of fear and awe, he then "right young," approached the lovely heiress of Lancaster: but bethinking him that Heaven could never have formed in any creature so great beauty and bounty "withouten mercie,"--in that hope he makes his confession of love; and he goes on to tell us, with exquisite _navet_,--

I wot not well how I began, Full evil rehea.r.s.e it, I can:

For many a word I overskipt In telling my tale--for pure fear, Lest that my words misconstrued were.

Softly, and quaking for pure dred, And shame,-- Full oft I wax'd both pale and red; I durst not once look her on, For wit, manner, and all was gone; I said, "Mercie, sweet!"--and no more.

Then his anguish at her first rejection, and his rapture when, at last, he wins from his ladye

The n.o.ble gift of her mercie;

his domestic happiness--his loss, and his regrets, are all told with the same truth, simplicity, and profound feeling. For such pa.s.sages and such pictures as these, Chaucer will still be read, triumphant as the poet of nature, over the rust and dust of ages, and all the difficulties of antique style and obsolete spelling; which last, however, though repulsive, is only a difficulty to the eye, and easily overcome.

To return to Chaucer's own love.--In the opening lines of the "Booke of the d.u.c.h.esse," he describes himself as wasted with his "eight years'

sicknesse," alluding to his long courtship of the coy Philippa:

I have great wonder, by this light, How that I live!--for day nor night I may not sleepen well-nigh nought: I have so many an idle thought Purely for the default of sleep; That, by my troth, I take no keep Of nothing--how it com'th or go'th, To me is nothing liefe or lothe;[51]

All is equal good to me, Joy or sorrow--whereso it be; For I have feeling in no thing, But am, as 'twere, a mazed[52] thing, All day in point to fall adown For sorrowful imagination, &c.

In the same year with the d.u.c.h.ess died the good Queen of Edward the Third; and Philippa Picard being thus sadly released from her attendance on her mistress, a few months afterwards married Chaucer, then in his forty-second year.

In consequence of her good service, Philippa had a pension for her life; and I regret that little more is known concerning her: but it should seem that she was a good and tender wife, and that long years of wedded life did not weaken her husband's attachment for her; for she accompanied Chaucer when he was exiled, about fifteen years after his marriage, though every motive of prudence and selfishness, on both sides, would then have induced a separation.[53] Neither was the poet likely to be easily satisfied on the score of conjugal obedience; he was rather _exigeant_ and despotic, if we may trust his own description of a perfect wife. The chivalrous and poetical lover was the slave of his mistress; but once married, it is all _vice versa_.

She saith not once _nay_, when he saith _yea_ "Do this," saith he, "all ready, Sir," saith she!

The precise date of Philippa's death is not known, but it took place some years before that of her husband. Their residence at the time of their marriage, was a small stone building, near the entrance of Woodstock Park; it had been given to Chaucer by Edward the Third; afterwards they resided princ.i.p.ally at Donnington Castle, that fine and striking ruin, which must be remembered by all who have travelled the Newberry road. In the domain attached to this castle were three oaks of remarkable size and beauty, to which Chaucer gave the names of the Queen's oak, the King's oak, and Chaucer's oak; these venerable trees were felled in Evelyn's time, and are commemorated in his Sylva, as among the n.o.blest of their species.

Philippa's eldest son, Thomas Chaucer, had a daughter, Alice, who became the wife of William de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk, the famous favourite of Margaret of Anjou. The grandson of Alice Chaucer, by the Duke of Suffolk, John Earl of Lincoln, was declared heir to the crown by Richard the Third;[54] and had the issue of the battle of Bosworth been different, would undoubtedly have ascended the throne of England;--as it was, the lineage of Chaucer was extinguished on a scaffold.

The fate of Catherine Picard de Rouet, the sister of Chaucer's wife, was still more remarkable,--she was destined to be the mother of a line of kings.

She had been _domicella_, or maid of honour to the d.u.c.h.ess Blanche, after whose death, the infant children of the Princess were committed to her care.[55] In this situation she won the heart of their father, the Duke of Lancaster, who on the death of his second wife, Constance of Castile, married Catherine, and his children by her were solemnly legitimatized. The conduct of Catherine, except in one instance, had been irreproachable: her humility, her prudence, and her various accomplishments, not only reconciled the royal family and the people to her marriage, but added l.u.s.tre to her rank: and when Richard the Second married Isabella of France, the young Queen, then only nine years old, was placed under the especial care and tuition of the d.u.c.h.ess of Lancaster.

One of the grand-daughters of Catherine, Lady Jane Beaufort, had the singular fortune of becoming at once the inspiration and the love of a great poet, the queen of an accomplished monarch, and the common ancestress of all the sovereigns of England since the days of Elizabeth.[56]

Never, perhaps, was the influence of woman on a poetic temperament more beautifully ill.u.s.trated, than in the story of James the First of Scotland, and Lady Jane Beaufort. It has been so elegantly told by Washington Irving in the Sketch-Book, that it is only necessary to refer to it.--James, while a prisoner, was confined in Windsor Castle, and immediately under his window there was a fair garden, in which the Lady Jane was accustomed to walk with her attendants, distinguished above them all by her beauty and dignity, even more than by her state and the richness of her attire. The young monarch beheld her accidentally, his imagination was fired, his heart captivated, and from that moment his prison was no longer a dungeon, but a palace of light and love. As he was the best poet and musician of his time, he composed songs in her praise, set them to music, and sang them to his lute. He also wrote the history of his love, with all its circ.u.mstances, in a long poem[57]

still extant; and though the language be now obsolete, it is described, by those who have studied it, as not only full of beauties both of sentiment and expression, but unpolluted by a single thought or allusion which the most refined age, or the most fastidious delicacy, could reject;--a singular distinction, when we consider that James's only models must have been Gower and Chaucer, to whom no such praise is due: we must rather suppose that he was no imitator, but that he owed his inspiration to modest and queenly beauty, and to the genuine tenderness of his own heart. His description of the fair apparition who came to bless his solitary hours, is so minute and peculiar, that it must have been drawn from the life:--the net of pearls, in which her light tresses were gathered up; the chain of fine-wrought gold about her neck; the heart-shaped ruby suspended from it, which glowed on her snowy bosom like a spark of fire; her white vest looped up to facilitate her movements; her graceful damsels who followed at a respectful distance; and her little dog gambolling round her with its collar of silver bells,--these, and other picturesque circ.u.mstances, were all noted in the lover's memory, and have been recorded by the poet's verse. And he sums up her perfections thus:

In her was youth, beauty, and numble port, Bountee, richesse, and womanly feature.