THE first thing which forcibly strikes our attention in tracing the Homes and Haunts of the Poets, is the devastation which Time has made amongst them. As if he would indemnify himself for the degree of exemption from his influence in their works, he lays waste their homes and annihilates the traces of their haunts with an active and a relentless hand. If this is startlingly apparent in the cases of those even who have been our cotemporaries, how much more must it be so in the cases of those who have gone hence centuries ago. We begin with the father of our truly English poetry, the genial old GEOFFREY CHAUCER; and, spite of the lives which have been written of him, Tyrwhitt tells us that just nothing is really known of him. The whole of his account of what he considers well-authenticated facts regarding him amounts to but twelve pages, including notes and comments. The facts themselves do not fill more than four pages. He is supposed to have been born in 1328, and probably of an old Kentish family. Of his birth-place, further than that it was in London, as he tells us himself in the Testament of Love, fol. 321, nothing is known. The place of his education is by no means clear. It has been said that he was educated first at Cambridge and then at Oxford. He himself leaves it pretty certain

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that he was at Cambridge, styling himself, in The Court of Love, "Philogenet of Cambridge, Clerk." Leland has asserted that he was at Oxford: and Wood, in his Annals, gives a tradition that, "when Wickliffe was guardian or warden of Canterbury College, he had for his pupil the famous poet called Jeffrey Chaucer, father of Thomas Chaucer, Esq., of Ewelme, in Oxfordshire, who, following the steps of his master, reflected much upon the corruptions of the clergy." He is then said to have entered himself of the Inner Temple. Speght states that a Mr. Buckley had seen a record in the Inner Temple of "Geffrey Chaucer being fined two shillings for beating a Franciscan Friar in Fleet Street." This, Tyrwhitt says, was a youthful sally, and points out the fact that Chaucer studied in the Inner Temple-on leaving college, and before his travels abroad, which is contrary to the account of Leland, who makes him after his travels reside in the Inner Temple. These travels even in France resting solely on the authority of Leland, Tyrwhitt disputes, but of their reality there can be little doubt.

Chaucer, having finished his education, became a courtier. The first authentic memorial, says Tyrwhitt, that we have of him, is the patent in Rymer, 41 E. III, by which the king grants him an annuity of twenty marks, by the title of Valettus noster; at which time he is also said to have been knighted, on or about the time of his marriage. He was then in the thirty-ninth year of his age. But previously to this we have it on his own evidence that he served under Edward III. in his great campaigns in France; was made prisoner, and obtained his release at the peace of Bretigni, which took place in 1360, consequently in the 34. E. III, seven years before. Speght mentions a succeeding grant by the title of Valettus hospitii. By those titles it appears that he was a royal page or groom. In this situation he enjoyed various grants from the king. In the 48 E. III. he had, according to Rymer, a grant for life of a pitcher of wine daily; in the same year a grant, during pleasure, of the office of Comptroller of the Custom of Wools, Wines, etc. in the port of London. The next year the king granted him the Wardship of Sir Edmund Staplegate's heir, for which he received 1047.; and in the following year, some forfeited wool to the value of 71. 4s. 6d. His annuity of twenty marks was confirmed to him on the accession of Richard II, and another annuity of twenty marks was granted him in lieu of the daily pitcher of wine. It is probable, too, that he was confirmed in his office of comptroller, though the instrument has not been produced. In the 13th of Richard II. he appears to have been clerk of the works at Westminster, etc., and in the following year at Windsor. In the 17th of Richard II. the king granted him a new annuity of twenty pounds; in the 22d, a pipe of wine. On the accession of Henry IV. his two grants, of the annuity of twenty pounds and of the pipe of wine, were confirmed to him, with an additional grant of forty marks.

Thus it appears that Chaucer did not miss the profitable part of court patronage. He also reaped some of its honourable employments. Edward III, in the 46th year of his reign, appointed hi

with two others, his envoy to Genoa, with the title of Scutifer noster, Our Squire. This great and able king, it is evident, regarded Chaucer as a good man of business; and that he proved himself so, is pretty well denoted by the chief grants of his life immediately following his return. On the heels of these grants, came also another embassy, in company with Sir Thomas Priest, to Flanders, in 1377, and after that to France, with Sir Guichard d'Angle and Richard Stan, according to Froissart, to treat of a marriage between the Prince of Wales, afterwards Richard II, and Isabella, daughter of the French king. Other historians assert that the original object of his mission was to complain of some infringement of the truce concluded with France, and which was so well pushed by Chaucer and his colleagues, that it led to some overtures respecting the marriage. However that may be, it is evident that our poet's part in the transaction met with the royal approbation; for the old king dying, one of the first acts of the prince, on his accession, was to confirm his father's grants to him, with an additional one, as we have observed. Richard, moreover, in the very first year of his reign, sent him on a second embassy to Flanders, and, in the following year, on another to Lombardy. Eight years later he was elected a knight of the shire for Kent to Parliament.

But Chaucer had also his share of life's reverses. In 1386, he was dismissed from his offices. In the eleventh year of Richard II, that is, only two years later, he had the king's licence to surrender his two grants of twenty marks each, in favour of John Scalby. It is not really known why he surrendered those grants, but it is supposed that it was owing to his connexion with the Lollard cause, and especially to his alliance with John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster, and John of Northampton. He was not only attached to the duke on account of their common interest in the reformed opinions, but he was married to a sister of Catherine Swynford, the duke's mistress, and afterwards wife. Chaucer, it seems, had exerted himself zealously to secure the re-election of John of Northampton as mayor of London. There is much mystery attached to the cause of the riot which took place; but as this Comberton, or John of Northampton, was a zealous Wickliffite, the supposition that the disturbance arose from the violent opposition of the clergy to him, is very probable. Comberton was finally committed to prison, and Chaucer fled, first to Hainault, then to France, and lastly to Zealand. "Whilst in Zealand," says Mr. Chalmers, "he maintained some of his countrymen, who had fled thither on the same account, by sharing the money he had brought with him,-an act of liberality which soon exhausted his stock. In the meantime the partizans of his cause, whom he had left at home, contrived to make their peace, not only without endeavouring to procure a pardon for him, but without aiding him in his exile, where he became greatly distressed for want of pecuniary supplies. Such ingratitude, we may suppose, gave him more uneasiness than the consequences of it; but it did not lessen his courage, as he soon ventured to return to England. On this he was discovered, and committed to the Tower, where, after being treated with great rigour, he was promised his pardon if he would