Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 1.djvu/479

TO A.D. 1399.] its firm hold at court itself when two such men as Gower and Chaucer cast the chance of their fame into that vehicle. Chaucer was brother-in-law to John of Gaunt, having married Philippa, the sister of John of Gaunt's third wife, Catherine Swinford. Chaucer was educated at both Cambridge and Oxford. He was a page to Edward III., and went as ambassador to Genoa and Flanders. On the former occasion it is probable that he met with Petrarch, for he says in the prologue to the Clerk's Tale—

Chaucer's great poem, the "Canterbury Tales," is a collection of poems which, for spirit, humour, knowledge of and enjoyment of life, have nothing like them, except Shakespeare. They are full of vigour, beauty, and the most subtle sense. They sparkle, burn, and laugh on every page. We have the most vivid picture of the



times, and all the varied characters amongst whom he lived. We feel what a buoyant, genial soul he was, and yet we know that he did not escape without his troubles and his deep griefs. Warton, in his "History of English Poetry," says of him, "Chaucer surpasses his predecessors in an infinite proportion. His genius was universal, and adapted to themes of unbounded variety. His merit was not less in painting familiar manners with humour and propriety, than in moving the passions, and in representing the beautiful or the grand objects of Nature with grace and sublimity."

Truly is he called the father of our English poetry, and he had no real successor till the appearance of Spenser and Shakespeare.

ARCHITECTURE

In the last chapter on this subject we traced the progress of the Early English style from its rise and through the best period of its duration. It was there shown how, by the combining into one window two or more lancets, and the circle above them, tracery was formed. This at first was left solid and was not moulded, and the form of the tracery was simple—generally a circle, or circles, in the head or intersecting lines. The introduction of tracery gave great facilities for enlarging the width of the windows; and we accordingly find those of two or more lights gradually superseding the lancet.

After this change, it is difficult to distinguish the late examples of one style from the earlier ones of the other; indeed, tracery may be regarded as the commencement of the transition. But in the beginning of the reign of Edward I. a more decided change took place—tracery proper became fully developed. But the architects had not yet ventured on the graceful flowing lines which mark the true Decorated style; they clung to their geometrical forms, and therefore we find, in windows of this time, circles, triangles, both plain and spherical squares, quatre-foils, trefoils, &c.; and, for this reason, this style of



Edward I. has been called Geometrical, or Early Decorated, which well distinguishes it from the fully developed, or flowing Decorated. This is, perhaps, the best period of English architecture; for, though the geometrical forms give a certain stiffness to the tracery, it is more than compensated by the extreme beauty and finish of the workmanship. The imitation of natural foliage was perfect, and the drawing of the human figure more chaste and finished than at any other period. The style continued through the reign of Edward I., after which it gradually changed into that of the more perfect Decorated.

The Decorated style differs from the Early English in its windows, which, instead of being lancets, or having tracery of the simplest forms, had the head entirely filled with tracery, either of geometrical forms, or ramifying from the mullions in the most easy and graceful manner, and in every variety of design; and the same character will distinguish them from the next, or Perpendicular style, in which the mullions are carried through in perpendicular lines to the head of the window.

In the Decorated style, Gothic architecture seems to