years old and upwards," to mean 42, the birth of Chaucer would thus be brought down to 1344. This date may be thought more conformable than the other to the defignation of dilectus valettus nofter, in a grant of a penfion conferred on the poet, in 1357. Valettus is explained by Ducange "magnatis filius, qui necdum militare cingulum erat confecutus," and the appellation is, undoubtedly, more fuited to a youth of 23 than to a man of 39. But this argument is completely refuted by the depofition itself. For there Chaucer informs us that, in 1386, he had already borne arms 27 years, that is ever fince the year 1359.

It occurred to our author that, the age to be mentioned in a depofition of this kind did not demand any particular accuracy, and that nothing was requifite but that the perfon fhould be of an age fufficient to make him a credible witnefs. This, we think, is the true folution of the cafe. The poet was giving evidence of a fact which had happened 27 years before, and, therefore, it was of importance to be afcertained that, at the time of its happening, he was not below 13 years of age. Still, however, it may be deemed unaccountable that Chaucer, at the age of 58, should affect to pass for a man of about 40. If what is fuggefted in the following paffage fhould not fatisfy our readers, we confels that we have nothing better to offer. And if for Chaucer's wishing to appear younger than he was, Mr. G. fhould be accused of affigning a caufe which bears hard on the good fenfe of both fexes, as well as on their integrity, we have certainly no apology to make for him but that he has bluntly advanced what every day's experience proves to be true.

Lafily, we may conceive that fuch an understatement of Chaucer's age might be dictated by a fentiment of vanity. Chaucer, with all his wonderful endowments, was a man; and it is incident to perhaps one half of mankind, particularly of that part of our fpecies who are accustomed to affociate with the opulent and refined, when advanced beyond the middle period of human life, to be thought willing to be younger than they are. Chaucer was a courtier; and was not without fome contagion of the folly of cour tiers. Though now an old man, and, as we fhall hereafter fee, a prisoner, embarraffed in his circumftances, and not without fome reasons to fear for his life, he felt like an antiquated belle, and did not fee why, when it was of no importance to the fubftance of his testimony, he should confefs that he had paffed his eighth climacteric." (Differt. Pp. xxvii. xxviii.)

But that, in 1386, Chaucer was only about 40 years old, feems altogether incredible. Two of his moft confiderable poems, "Chaucer's Dream," and the Parliament of Birds," have been always fuppofed, and, by our author, are fhewn, to have been written on occafion of the courtship and marriage of John of Gaunt and the Princess Blanche: that is, in 1358 and 1359. If from the depofition we infer the date. of his birth, Chaucer was then only 14 and 15 years of age. But with fuch a fuppofition the merit of the poems, the language, the verfification, and, above all, the confidential knowledge which they difplay of incidents relating to fuch a perfonage as John of Gaunt, are

wholly

wholly incapable of being reconciled. Befides, Leland affirms that "Chaucer lived to the period of grey hairs, and at length found old age his greatest difeafe." This could hardly be faid with propriety of a man who, fuppofing him to have been born in 1344, was at the time of his death in 1400, only fifty-fix. We can add, however, to Leland's teftimony, the high authority of a contemporary and friend; Gower's poem, "De Confeffione Amantis," appears, from the work itfelf, to have been produced in the 16th year of Richard II. In this poem Gower fpeaks thus of his friend:

"

It is difficult," Mr. G. obferves, "to conceive an evidence more foreibly to our purpofe than this. According to the received chronology, Chaucer was, at the time when these verses were written, 64 or 65 years of age. But, if he was born in 1344, he was only 48 or 49. It seems impoffible to imagine that any man, fpeaking of his friend under fifty years of age, fhould employ fuch terms, and, in this ungracious way, give him his discharge from the theatre of literature and life." (Diss. P. xxx.)

This reafoning is corroborated by the manner in which Chaucer fpeaks of himself in his poem, intituled, "The Houfe of Fame." From this poem Mr. Tyrwhitt has concluded, with apparent good reafon, that it was written while Chaucer was Comptroller of the Customs, from 1374 to 1386. Taking the mean of this period, he will have been, at the time of its compofition, by the received computation, 52 years of age; by the date inferred from his depofition only 36. In the Houfe of Fame, however, his celeftial guide propofes to inftruct him in the fcience of the fars. The propofal he declines, alleging "For I am olde;" a reafon which we cannot fuppofe to be alleged by a man only 36 years of age. Our author, we therefore think, is perfectly right, when he "does not, in this cafe, feel himfelf inclined to remove the old land-marks, and fet afide the date which has hitherto always been received, though we do not exactly know the authority on which it is founded." (Diff. p. xxxii.)

Almost all that we can know of the early part of our poet's life must be gathered from a fhort paffage in the "Teftament of Love," which is in thefe words: "Alfo the citye of London, that is to me fo dere and fwete, in which I was forth growen; and more kindely love have I to that place, than to any other in yerth, as every kindly creture hath full appetite to that place of his kindely engendrure, and to wilne refte and pece in that ftede to abide." This paffage is peremptory as to the place of his birth: for he calls London the "place of his kindely engendrure," that is, of his natural birth. It makes it probable alfo that London was the fcene of his early years, and of his Arft education; for he fays that there he was "forth growen." And,

as

zen.

as he is here affigning a reason for taking a part, at the age of 56, in the difputes of the metropolis, we do not feem entirely unwarranted to infer that he was entitled, by his birth, to the privileges of a citiWe may, therefore, conceive him to have been born in a fituation far removed from indigence: for, in the 14th century, the wealth and commerce of London were extremely refpectable. The father of Michael de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk, and Lord Chancellor to Richard. II. was a merchant. In the year next after the battle of Poitiers, Henry Picard, vintner, or wine-merchant, gave a fumptuous entertainment to Edward, king of England, John, king of France, David, king of Scots, and the king of Cyprus, which is curiously and characteriftically defcribed by Stow, under the year 1357. In the reign of Richard 1. Sir Richard Wittington, Lord Mayor of London, of whom fo many romantic traditions remain, rebuilt, at his own expence, the gaol of Newgate, the Library of the Gray Friars, the Hofpital of Little St. Bartholomew's, and a College near St. Paul's. The father of Chaucer is conjectured, by Speght, to have been, like Henry Picard, a wine werchant, or merchant of the vintry.

It is probable that in London Chaucer received the first rudiments of learning. In the 2d chapter of his book, Mr. G. gives a curious review of the state of learning in England under the Norman and Plantagenet princes. "We are," he obferves, "extremely apt to put the cheat upon our imaginations by the familiar and indifcriminate ufe [which] we make of the terms, the dark, and the barbarous ages.' (P. 13) These terms must not, without confiderable limitations, be applied to the times in which Chaucer was born. Even the eleventh century was, in comparifon of fome preceding ones, enlightened and refined. William I. introduced among the Englith a confiderable fhare of learning and politenefs. Under the reign of his youngest fon, Henry I. to whom, on account of his literary attainments, his contemporaries gave the firname of Beauclerc, or the elegant fcholar, the empire of learning was extended and confirmed. Henry II. was ftill more diftinguished as the patron of letters. His court was crowded

with poets, and other accomplished writers. His illuftrious and high minded fubject, Becket, drew around him a circle of literary men, among whom John of Salisbury, Peter of Blois, and Jofeph of Exeter, are remarkable for the purity of their Latin ftile, as well as for the good fenfe of their remarks, and the juftness of their conceptions. Early in the 12th century, feveral enterprizing Europeans, defirous of knowledge, and informed by the crufaders where it was to be found, paffed over into Afia, and imported the elements of arithmetic, algebra, geometry, medicine, aftronomy, and the Ariftotelian philofophy. It is curious that our ancestors were, in no mean degree, indebted for cherishing in them a fpirit of inquiry, to the labours of an officer of the court of Conftantinople, who lived about 1070, by name Simeon Seth. This man, learned in the oriental tongues, tranflated, from Perfian and Arabic into Greek, a fabulous hiftory of Alexander the Great, and the book which has been known by the name of the Fables of Pilpay.

The

The firft was quickly rendered into Latin, and became familiar to the nations of Europe. The fecond was, foon after 1106, imitated by Piers Alfonfe, a converted Jew, whofe writings were well known in the time of Chaucer, and furnished the basis of the celebrated work called Gefta Romanorum. About this time feveral of the western nations affected to claim a Trojan original; and hence probably thepopularity acquired by Dares Phrygues and Dictys Cretenfis. On the writings of those pretended hiftorians, of Simeon Seth, of Archbishop Turpin, and of Geoffrey of Monmouth, the French and Latin poets of Henry II.'s reign founded their lucubrations. And, to crown the literary glories of his reign, Galfridus de Vino Salvo, a monk of St. Fridefwide, near Oxford, compofed a Latin poem on the art of writing verfe, entituled, De Novâ Poetriâ. The 13th century produced William de Lorris, Guido dalla Colonna, author of the Troy-Book tranflated by Lydgate, Alphonfo and King of Caftile, inventor of the Alphonfine tables of aftronomy, and four men of most aftonishing genius, whofe names would do honour to any age, Thomas Aquinas, Joannes Duns Scotus, Dante Alighieri, and Roger Bacon.

Our author then adverts to fome difadvantages, under which Chaucer and his immediate predeceffors laboured, and from which we are happily free. The first of thefe was the paucity of books, which, before the invention of the art of printing, were procured with great difficulty and expence. In those times 700 volumes were thought to afford no defpicable foundation for a national library. Another was the gloomy and defpotic empire of papal fuperftition. A third, which was peculiar to our native ifland, and which operated powerfully to check the growth of literature among us, was the degraded state of the English language. It was the policy of the Norman princes to deprefs, with unrelenting firmness, the inhabitants of the country which their arms had won. Though feveral of them were lovers of learning, they had no conception of any learning that was not Latin or French. They defpifed the rude barbarity of the Saxons, and employed every means to bring their language into neglect and contempt. Few of the nobles, or of the dignified clergy, could exprefs themselves in it, even on the most ordinary fubjects. "Our laws, our pleadings, our parliamentary difcuffions, and our deeds of inheritance, were all in French. The very boys at fchool were confined to tranflate the phrafeology of the Latin claffics into that language." And thus, as Mr. G. obferves, "that language which, in its conftituent members, is the fame which has fince been immortalized in the writings of Shakespeare, Bacon, and Milton, was, at this time, threatened with total extinction." (Pp. 19, 20.)

Of whatever learning was then in the kingdom, London poffeffed fo large a fhare as induced fome of our old writers to ftyle it the third univerfity. Sir George Buck, Knt. wrote " A Treatife of the Foundations of all the Colleges, Ancient Schools of Privilege, and of Houses of Learning, and Liberal Arts, within and about the most famous Citie

of

of London," which treatife is commonly annexed to Stow's Annales or General Chronicle of England." William Fitz Stephen, the hiftorian and friend of Becket, has treated with fome minuteness the ftudies which, in his time, were pursued in this metropolis. He informs us that three principal churches in London, fuppofed to be St. Paul's, St. Peter's Cornhill, and St. Peter's Westminster, had their respective schools of notable privilege and of venerable antiquity. Of the exercises which, on holidays, were performed in these and other schools of name, he gives a curious account. In fome of them, doubtlefs, Chaucer became acquainted with the Roman writers. As yet few, if any, cultivated Greek, of which language it does not appear that the poet had any knowledge. "The words of Homer, Pindar, Demofthenes, and Thucydides," fays Mr. G. in terms which favour, we think, of affectation, "never founded in his ears, or rolled from his tongue. He never drank from their pure and primæval wells of poetry; he held no intercourse with their manly fenfe, and their ardent paffion for liberty." (P. 23.) Even the nobler Latin Claffics were then deserted. The favourite Roman poets were Ovid, Lucan, Statius, and Prudentius. With regard to profe, the scholars of those days took lefs delight in the works of Cirero and of Livy, than in the quaint unnatural ftyle of Seneca and of Boethieus, or in the defultory collections of Macrobius and of Valerius Maximus. "To thefe they added the Latin compofitions of authors who had preceded, by a century or two, the period in which they lived. The Bellum Trojanum and the Antiocheis of Jofeph of Exeter, and the Phillippid of Guillaume le Breton, were particularly admired; and the Alexandreid of Gaultier de Chatillon was equalled with the most perfect productions of antiquity." (Ibid.)

From p. 24 to p. 186 of his first volume, Mr. G. gives us, in fe. ven chapters, a very interefting and particular account of the an:ulements, pursuits, modes of thinking, principles of taste, and other habits of our ancestors in the 14th century. From thefe chapters we could felect almost numberlefs extracts, which would furnish high gratification to our readers. But the limits within which we are neceffarily confined will admit but of few and circumfcribed fpecimens of the entertainment which our author has prepared for his readers. To those who take pleasure in fuch inquiries, we ftrongly recommend the work itfelf, by the perufal of which they will be richly rewarded. With the following delineation of the features of the old romance we were highly pleased:

"The nature and plan of the greater part of the romances of this period are fufficiently known, and, indeed, have been confecrated and preferved to all future ages in the beautiful fictions of Ariofto and Tasso. A lady fhut up in durance and diftrefs was commonly to be relieved by the prowess of fome redoubted knight. Her champion had not only to encounter every natural and human oppofer: his antagonists were giants of the most incredible fize and ftrength, hyppogryphs and dragons, animals whofe breath was fire, and whofe fcales were iron: he was beleagured with every fpe