grant of a daily pitcher of wine from the king's cellars. His office as controller was an arduous one, requiring his constant attendance. He was by this time married to Philippa, ladyin-waiting to the queen, and lived in a house over one of the city gates near the Tower. We get from his poems various glimpses of his daily life, especially of his eagerness for study, which, after the day's work was done, would send him home, regardless of rest and "newe thinges," to sit "as domb as any stone" over his book, until his eyes were dazed. But he was more than a student. The great books he had come to know in Italy gave him no peace, until he should equal or surpass them. In 1382, on the betrothal of the boy king, Richard II, to the young princess Anne of Bohemia, Chaucer wrote a wedding poem for the royal pair, the Parlement of Fowls. Troilus and Creseide and the House of Fame belong also to this central or "Italian," period, of Chaucer's literary life. In 1385 he was allowed to discharge his duties as customs officer by deputy. The first result of his newfound leisure was The Legend of Good Women, dedicated to the young queen.

Chaucer's Later Life: English Period. In 1386 Chaucer was sent to Parliament as member from Kent. This Parliament was in opposition to Chaucer's patron, John of Gaunt, and Chaucer was deprived of his office as controller. Three years later John of Gaunt regained influence, and as a renewed sign of favor Chaucer was made clerk of the king's works (supervising architect) at Westminster, the Tower, Windsor Castle, and other places. During these years his masterpiece, the Canterbury Tales, was written. Toward the end of Richard II's reign Chaucer fell into poverty, from causes not well known; but in 1399, on the accesssion of Henry IV, a ballad entitled "The Compleint of Chaucer to his Empty Purse" brought him substantial aid. He died in 1400.

Influence of Italy Upon Chaucer. The most important event in Chaucer's life was his first visit to Italy, on the king's business, in 1372. Italy was then at the zenith of her artistic energy, in the full splendor of that illumination which had followed the intellectual twilight of the Middle Ages, and

which we know as the Renaissance, or "New Birth." Each of her little city-states was a centre of marvellous activity, and everywhere were being produced those masterpieces of painting, sculpture, and architecture, which still make Italy a place of pilgrimage for all lovers of art. The literary activity was equally great, at least in Tuscany. The world which lay open to Chaucer's gaze when he crossed the Alps, was one calculated to fascinate and stimulate him in the highest degree. Whether he saw Petrarch or Boccaccio in person is not known, but, from this time on, his work was largely influenced by them, as well as by Dante. Through all three he came into closer contact with the great literature of the past, and acquired a new reverence for the ancient

masters.

"Troilus and Creseide."-Both the Parlement of Fowls and the House of Fame are colored with Italian reminiscence; but the chief fruit of Chaucer's Italian journeys was the long poem adapted from Boccaccio's Philostrato (The Love-stricken One), entitled by Chaucer Trolius and Creseide. The story of the love of the young Trojan hero for Cressida, and of her desertion of him for the Greek Diomedes, Chaucer pretended only to translate, but he changed the theme radically. In his hands, the lovers' go-between, Pandarus, is transformed from a gilded youth of Troilus's own age and temperament, to a middle-aged man, plausible, good-natured, full of easy worldly wisdom and vulgar ideals —a character as truly alive as if Shakespeare had drawn him. The growth of the love-passion in Cressida's heart is traced through its gradual stages with a truth and insight entirely new in English poetry. The "background" of the poem is painted with the most delightful realism. Though the scene is ancient Troy, and the costumes are those of mediæval knights and ladies, we seem, in many passages of the poem, to be looking at a modern play or reading from a modern novel, so homely and actual does it appear.

"The Legend of Good Women."-The Legend of Good Women, which marks the close of Chaucer's Italian period, has for its prologue the most charming of the poet's many passages of personal confession and self-revealment.

He

represents himself as wandering in the fields on the Mayday, the only season which can tempt him from his books. The birds are singing to their mates their song of "blessed be Seynt Valentyn!", and Zephyrus and Flora, as "god and goddesse of the flowery mede," have spread the earth with fragrant blossoms. But the poet has eyes only for one flower, the daisy, the "emperice (empress) and flower of floweres alle." All day long he leans and pores upon the flower; and when at last it has folded its leaves at the coming of night, he goes home to rest, with the thought of rising early to gaze upon it once more. He makes his couch out-of-doors, in a little arbor, and here he has a wonderful dream. He dreams that he is again in the fields, kneeling by the daisy, and sees approaching a procession of bright forms. First comes the young god of love, clad in silk embroidered with red rose-leaves and sprays of green, his "gilt hair" crowned with light, in his hand two fiery darts, and his wings spread angel-like. He leads by the hand a queen, clad in green and crowned with a fillet of daisies under a band of gold. She is Alcestis, who died to save her husband Admetus. Behind her comes an endless train of women who have been "true of love." They kneel in a circle about the poet, and sing honor to woman's truth, and to the daisy flower, the emblem of Alcestis. The love-god then glowers angrily upon Chaucer, and upbraids him for having done despite to women, in translating the Roman de la Rose, with its satire upon their foibles; and in writing the story of Cressida, so dishonorable to the steadfastness of the sex. Alcestis comes to his rescue, and agrees to pardon his misdeeds if he will spend the rest of his life in making a "glorious Legend of Good Women," and will send it, on her behalf, to the English queen. Chaucer promises solemnly, and as soon as he wakes, betakes himself to his task.

It is probable that Chaucer did indeed enter upon this poem with the design of devoting to it many years, and of making it his masterpiece. But he left it unfinished, perhaps for the reason that all the stories illustrate the same theme, and lack, when taken together, that element of surprise and contrast essential to keep up the interest.

"The Canterbury Tales."-The drift of Chaucer s, genius, as he grew older, was more and more toward the portrayal of actual life. He had a wide experience of men, of all ranks and conditions; and he had been storing up for years, with his keenly observant, quiet eyes, the materials for a presentation of contemporary society on a great scale. Moreover, while Chaucer was growing up, England had been growing conscious of herself. The struggle with France had at last unified the people. They were no longer Norman and Saxon, but English; and the brilliancy of Edward III's early reign had given to this new people their first intoxicating draught of national pride. The growing power of parliament tended to foster in the nation the feeling of unity and strength. As a member of parliament and a government officer, Chaucer felt these influences to the full. It must have seemed more and more important to him that the crowning work of his life should in some way represent the varied spectacle of the society in which he moved. With the happy fortune of genius, he hit, in his Canterbury Tales, upon a scheme wonderfully conceived for the ends he had in view. Collections of stories, both secular and sacred, had been popular in the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance inherited the taste for them. Boccaccio had set the example of throwing a graceful trellis-work of incident and dialogue about the separate stories of a collection. Chaucer, while adopting a similar framework, made his setting thoroughly national and racy; individualized his characters so as to make of them a gallery of living portraits of his time.

The Pilgrims at the Tabard. He represents himself as alighting, one spring evening, at the Tabard Inn, in Southwark, a suburb at the southern end of London Bridge, where afterward the famous Elizabethan playhouses, Shakespeare's among them, were to arise. Southwark was the place of departure and arrival for all South-of-England travel, and especially for pilgrimages to the world-renowned shrine of Thomas-à-Becket, at Canterbury. A company bent on such a pilgrimage Chaucer finds gathered at the inn. He makes their acquaintance, and joins himself with them for the journey. Counting the poet, they are thirty in all. There is a

Knight lately from the foreign wars, a man who has fought in Prussia and in Turkey, jousted in Trasimene, and been present at the storming of Alexandria-a high-minded, gentle-mannered, knightly adventurer, type of the chivalry which in Chaucer's time was passing rapidly away. With him is his son, a young squire, curly-haired and gay, his short white-sleeved gown embroidered like a mead with red and white flowers; he is an epitome of the gifts and graces of brilliant youth. It is pleasant to think of the Squire as representing Chaucer himself, as he was when a young man at Edward's court. Their servant is a yeoman, in coat and hood of green, a sheaf of peacock-arrows under his belt, a mighty bow in his hand, and a silver image of St. Christopher upon his breast; he is the type of that sturdy English yeomanry which with its gray-goose shafts humbled the pride of France at Crécy and Agincourt.

There is a whole group of ecclesiastical figures, representing in their numbers and variety the immense growth of the mediaval Church. Most of them are satirical portraits, in their worldliness and gross materialism only too faithful representatives of the corrupt Catholicism against which the reformer Wyclif struggled. First of all there is a monk, who cares only for hunting and good cheer; his bald head shines like glass, his "steep eyes" roll in his head; he rides a sleek brown palfrey, and has "many a dainty horse" in his stables; his sleeves are trimmed with fine fur at the wrists, his hood is fastened under his chin with a gold love knot. As a companion figure to the hunting monk, Chaucer gives us "Madame Eglantyne," the prioress; she is a teacher of young ladies, speaks French with a provincial accent, "after the school of Stratford-atte-bowe"; she is exquisite in her table-manners, counterfeiting as well as she can the stately behavior of the court. Other ecclesiastics are there, hangers-on and caterpillars of the Church: the Summoner, a repulsive person with "fire-red cherubim face"; the Pardoner, with his bag full of pardons," come from Rome all hot," and of bits of cloth and pig's-bones which he sells as relics of the holy saints. Chaucer's treatment of these evil churchmen is highly good-natured and tolerant; he