Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 7.djvu/56

 30 ARTISTS AND AUTHORS Whoever Chaucer's father may have heen, he certainly gave him a very liberal education. His writings show that Chaucer was a good scholar, both in the classics and in divinity, and that, according to the ideas of the fourteenth century, he was far advanced in astronomy and the other sciences. Tradition says that he studied at both Cambridge and Oxford. This is not at all unlikely, for we find that reading young men of that day did sometimes really go from one university to the other. When he had finished his education in England, Chaucer went to Paris. There he may have gained that grace of carriage and manner for which he is said to have been always so remarkable. We can picture to ourselves the handsome, free-spirited young fellow, with his ruddy Saxon face and ready Saxon wit, in the joyous capital of fair France ; now whispering pretty nothings into the dainty ear of some dark-eyed grisette, now going home through the streets at daybreak, with a band of merry com- panions, shouting out in questionable French a jolly chorus ; and now riding gayly forth to see how in a foreign land they understood the art of woodcraft. No doubt he sowed at this period a tolerable crop of wild oats, but at the same time he began to plant his laurels. He wrote very early his first long poem, "The Court of Love." This, like most of his earlier writings, is full of allegory and imagery. Though very gorgeous in coloring, and often literally overflowing with rich fancy, these first poems are rather wanting in the human interest of the "Canterbury Tales." On his return to England Chaucer for a little while studied law. To judge by the only incident related of his legal life, he by no means entirely buried him- self among musty old documents and ponderous volumes. One afternoon, as young Chaucer was passing through the Temple with his temper made a little more irritable than usual, it may be by the heat of the sun, it may be by an additional cup of sack, it may be by the thought of an especially stiff piece of reading which was before him it may be all' three together he met a friar. The priest came along with easy step and shining, rosy face, rejoicing at once in the odor of sanctity and of a good dinner. The sight of this placidly lazy and provokingly comfortable churchman had upon the man of law the same effect that the sight of a sleek tabby has upon a terrier. In two minutes Master Geoffrey has jostled agains,t the friar and contrived to pick a quarrel with him. Hereupon followed a lively game at single-stick, in which, no doubt, Chaucer's fellow-students backed loudly the law against the church. At first the friar showed himself no mean hand with the quarter-staff. But by degrees he began to give way before his more active antagonist, and when the fray was over the churchman had learned in good earnest what was meant by the strong arm of the law ; young Chaucer was, however, afterward punished for his misdeed, by being brought before a magistrate, reprimanded, and fined as a breaker of the peace ; all of which could not exactly have added to the respectability of the legal brotherhood. Soon after this Chaucer gave up the law, which was, in truth, en- tirely unsuited to him. By some means, perhaps through the good offices of a friend, he now con-