Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 3.djvu/717

 CHAUCER

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CHAUCER

missions; the year 1372-3 marks the turning-point of his literary life, for then he was sent to Italy; circumstances make it extremely probable that either in Florence or at Padua he made Petrarch's acquaintance (Lounsbury, Studies, I, 67-68). The young King Richard II granted Chaucer a second life pension. It is startling to find him, in 13S0, concerned in a discreditable abduction (Atheiwum, 29 Nov., 1S73; from the Close Roll of 3 of Richard II). He was made comptroller of the petty customs of the port of Lon- don, and complains of the burden of offi- cial life in "The House of Fame" (lines 652-60); and it would appear, from the prologue to the " Legend of Good Women ".that t h rough the in- fluence of the new qaeen, Anne of Bo- hemia, he was en- abled by 1385 to secure a permanent deputy. At this t i in e he gave up housekeeping in Aldgate, and settled in the country, pre- sumably at Green- wich, where he had a garden and ar- bour. The intrigues of the partisans of the king's uncle. Thomas, Duke of Gloucester, involved Chaucer's fortunes in partial ruin. The grants made to Philippa, his wife, ceased in 1387, so that we may sup- pose she was then dead ; during the spring of l388Chau- cer was obliged to sell two of his pen- sions; in 1390 he was twice in one day robbed of the king's money, but was ex- cused from repaying it. Until King Rich- ard recovered power Chaucer had lean years to undergo. For a while lie was Canterbury Pilgrims. (From

Clerk of the Works

at Windsor, Westminster, and the Tower, but proved thriftless and unsuccessful in business affairs, and gave little satisfaction. Unrivalled opportunities and the fos- tering care of successive sovereigns could not keep him from anxiety, if not penury, towards the end. It is noticeable that his latest and most troubled period produced the " Canterbury Tales ". Within four days after his accession King Henry IV, the son of Chaucer's first benefactor, increased Chaucer's remaining income by forty marks per annum. The poet then leased a pleasant house in the monastery garden at Westminster, and there, hard by the Lady Chapel of the Abbey (now replaced by the loftier erection of Henry VII), he died. For a century and a half his only memorial in Westminster Abbey was a Latin epitaph written by Surigonius of Milan,

engraved upon a leaden plate, and hung up, probably at Caxton's instigation, on a pillar near the grave. The present canopied grey marble altar-tomb, on the south side, was set up by Nicholas Brigham, in 1556. All trace of its votive portrait of the vener- ated master disappeared long ago.

The "Canterbury Tales" were first printed by Caxton, from a faulty manuscript, in or about 1476-7; later by Pynson, and by Wynkyn de Worde. Other pieces were collected, and, between 1526-1602, often published with the "Tales". Many of these, attributed to Chancer even by his earliest great mod- ern editor, Tyrwhit t , are now known not to be his. (Skeat, "Chaucer's Minor Poems", Oxford, 1896; or, Idem, " ( ihaucerianPieces" in the "Complete Works", Oxford, 1897, suppl. vol.) Chaucer's genuine major poems are assigned to this chronological order: The "Romaunt of the Rose", that is. the first 1705 lines, the remainder be- ing rejected as not Chaucer's (see Chau- cer Society Publi- cations, 2nd Serie , No. 19, 1884), dates from about 1366, and "The A. B.C.", from the same pe- riod; the "Book of the Duchess" from 1369; the "Com- plaint of Pity" from 1372; "Anefida and False Arcite" from 1372 1; "Troilus and Cressid " from 1379-83; the "Par- liament of Fouls" from 1382; the "House of Fame'' from 1383-4; the " Legend of Good Women "from about 1385 6; a n d t he "t lanterburyTales", asa u hole, from 1386 onwards until after 1390. If is curious that the first draft of the lovely Tales by the Second Nun, the Man of Law, the Clerk, the Knight, and part of that of the Monk, should have been pro- duced early; and that the Tales by the Miller, the Reeve, the Shipman. and the Merchant, as well as the Wife of Bath's Prologue, should have been pro- duced after 13S7. Chaucer's objectionable work is, therefore, not the work of his youth.

To the intense affection, frequently expressed, of Hoccleve, we owe the first and best of Chaucer's por- traits, familiar through reproduction. It appears in the margin of "The Governail of Princes", or "He Hegimine Principum " (Marl. MS. 4866, in British Museum). In it we see Chaucer, limned from mem- ory, in his familiar hood and gown, rosary in hand, plump, full-eyed, fork-bearded. (For detailed ac-

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