A Literary History of the English People Part 35

(ll. 906, 963.)

[467] "Book of the d.u.c.h.esse," ll. 339, 406, 391, 1033. John of Gaunt found some consolation in marrying two other wives. Blanche, the first wife, was buried with him in old St. Paul's. See a view of their tomb from Dugdale's "St. Paul's," in my "Piers Plowman," p. 92.

[468]

Vous Amba.s.seur et messagier, Qui alez par le monde es cours Des grans princes pour besongnier, Vostre voyage n'est pas cours ...

Ne soiez mie si hastis!

Il fault que vostre fait soit mis Au conseil pour respondre a plain; Attendez encore mes amis ...

Il faut parler au chancelier De vostre fait et a plusours ...

Temps pa.s.se et tout vint arrebours.

"Oeuvres Completes," Societe des Anciens Textes, vol. vii. p. 117.

[469]

De laissier aux champs me manace, Trop souvent des genoulx s'a.s.siet, Par ma foy, mes chevaulx se lace.

(_Ibid._, p. 32.)

[470]

Mal fait mangier a l'appet.i.t d'autruy.

(_Ibid._, p. 81.)

[471]

O doulz pais, terre tres honorable, Ou chascuns a ce qu'il veult demander Pour son argent, et a pris raisonnable, Char, pain et vin, poisson d'yaue et de mer, Chambre a par soy, feu, dormir, reposer, Liz, orilliers blans, draps flairans la graine, Et pour chevaulz, foing, litiere et avaine, Estre servis, et par bonne ordonnance, Et en seurte de ce qu'on porte et maine; Tel pais n'est qu'en royaume de France.

(_Ibid._, p. 79.)

[472] Book i. chap. 692.

[473] The order for the payment of the expenses of "nostre cher et feal chivaler Edward de Berkle," and "nostre feal esquier Geffray Chaucer,"

is directed to William Walworth, then not so famous as he was to be, and to the no less notorious John Philpot, mercer and naval leader. Both envoys are ordered "d'aler en nostre message si bien au duc de Melan Barnabo come a nostre cher et foial Johan Haukwode es parties de Lumbardie, pur ascunes busoignes touchantes l'exploit de nostre guerre,"

May 12, 1378. Berkeley receives 200 marcs and Chaucer 100; the sums are to be paid out of the war subsidy voted by Parliament the year before.

The French text of the warrant has been published by M. Spont in the _Athenaeum_ of Sept. 9, 1893. During this absence Chaucer appointed to be his representatives or attorneys two of his friends, one of whom was the poet Gower. See doc.u.ment dated May 22, 1378, in "Poetical Works," ed.

Morris, i. p. 99.

[474] ll. 1982, 1990, 1997.

[475] Figure of "Peace," by Ambrogio Lorenzetti, 1339. See a drawing of it in Muntz, "Les Precurseurs de la Renaissance," Paris, 1882, 4to, p.

29.

[476] Muntz, _ibid._, p. 30.

[477] "F. Petrarcae Epistolae," ed. Fraca.s.setti, Florence, 1859, vol. iii.

p. 541.

[478] Letter of Boccaccio "celeberrimi nominis militi Jacopo Pizzinghe."

Corazzini, "Le Lettere edite ed inedite di Giovanni Boccaccio,"

Florence, 1877, 8vo, p. 195.

[479] Chaucer could not be present at the lectures of Boccaccio, who began them on Sunday, October 23, 1373; he had returned to London in the summer. Disease (probably diabetes) soon obliged Boccaccio to interrupt his lectures; he died in his house at Certaldo on December 21, 1375. See Cochin, in _Revue des Deux Mondes_, July 15, 1888.

[480] This meeting, concerning which numerous discussions have taken place, seems to have most probably happened. "I wol," says the clerk of Oxford in the "Canterbury Tales,"

I wol yow telle a tale which that I Lerned at Padowe of a worthy clerk ...

He is now deed and nayled in his cheste ...

Fraunceys Petrark, the laureat poet.

Such a circ.u.mstantial reference is of a most unusual sort; in most cases, following the example of his contemporaries, Chaucer simply says that he imitates "a book," or sometimes he refers to his models by a wrong or fancy name, such being the case with Boccaccio, whom he calls "Lollius," a name which, however, does duty also with him, at another place, for Petrarch. But on this occasion it seems as if the poet meant to preserve the memory of personal intercourse. We know besides that at that date Chaucer was not without notoriety as a poet on the Continent (Des Champs' praise is a proof of it), and that at the time when he came to Italy Petrarch was at Arqua, near Padua, where he was precisely busy with his Latin translation of Boccaccio's story of Griselda.

[481] "The Othe of the Comptroler of the Customes," in Thynne's "Animadversions," Chaucer Society, 1875, p. 131.

[482] None in the handwriting of Chaucer have been discovered as yet; but some are to be seen drawn, as he was allowed to have them later, by another's hand, under his own responsibility: "per visum et testimonium Galfridi Chaucer."

[483] The lease is dated May 10, 1374; Furnivall, "Trial Forewords," p.

1. Such grants of lodgings in the gates were forbidden in 1386 in consequence of a panic (described, _e.g._, in the "Chronicon Angliae,"

Rolls, p. 370) caused by a rumour of the coming of the French. See Riley, "Memorials of London," pp. 388, 489. A study on the too neglected Ralph Strode is being prepared (1894) by M. Gollancz.

[484] "Dimissio Portae de Aldgate facta Galfrido Chaucer.--Concessio de Aldrichgate Radulpho Strode.--Sursum-redditio domorum supra Aldrichesgate per Radulphum Strode." Among the "Fundationes et praesentationes cantariarum ... shoparum ... civitati pertinentium."

"Liber Albus," Rolls, pp. 553, 556, 557.

[485] Chaucer represents Jupiter's eagle, addressing him thus:

And noght only fro fer contree That ther no tyding comth to thee But of thy verray neyghebores, That dwellen almost at thy dores, Thou herest neither that ne this; For whan thy labour doon al is, Thou gost hoom to thy hous anoon, Thou sittest at another boke, Til fully daswed is thy loke, And livest thus as an hermyte.

"Hous of Fame," book ii. l. 647; "Complete Works," iii. p. 20.

[486] All these dates are merely approximative. Concerning the chronology of Chaucer's works, see Ten Brink, "Chaucer Studien,"

Munster, 1870, 8vo; Furnivall, "Trial Forewords," 1871, Chaucer Society; Koch, "Chronology," Chaucer Society, 1890; Pollard, "Chaucer,"

"Literature Primers," 1893; Skeat, "Complete Works of Chaucer," vol. i., "Life" and the introductions to each poem. "Boece" is in vol. ii. of the "Complete Works" (_cf._ Morris's ed., 1868, E.E.T.S.). The "Lyf of Seinte Cecile" was transferred by Chaucer to his "Canterbury Tales,"

where it became the tale of the second nun. The good women of the "Legend" are all of them love's martyrs: Dido, Ariadne, Thisbe, &c.; it was Chaucer's first attempt to write a collection of stories with a Prologue. In the Prologue Venus and Cupid reproach him with having composed poems where women and love do not appear in a favourable light, such as "Troilus" and the translation of the "Roman de la Rose," which "is an heresye ageyns my lawe." He wrote his "Legend" to make amends.

[487] "Parlement of Foules," ll. 272, 225, "Complete Works," vol. i.

[488] "Hous of Fame," l. 133 _ibid._, vol. iii.

[489] "Hous of Fame," l. 518.

[490] "Complete Works, "vol. i. p. 365. This beginning is imitated from Boccaccio's "Teseide."

[491] "Parlement of Foules," in "Complete Works," vol. i. p. 336.

Chaucer alludes here to a book which "was write with lettres olde," and which contained "Tullius of the dreme of Scipioun."

[492] "Legend of Dido," in "Complete Works," vol. iii. p. 117.

[493] Book v. st. 256.