"It was," says Marsh, "a calm, allegorical exposition of the corruptions of the state, of the church, and of social life, designed not to rouse the people to violent resistance or bloody vengeance, but to reveal to them the true causes of the evils under which they were suffering, and to secure the reformation of those grievous abuses by a united exertion of the moral influence which generally accompanies the possession of superior physical strength."

The

It was written about 1362, and attained a wide popularity, no fewer than forty-five manuscripts being still extant. opening lines are as follows:

66

"In a somer seson whan soft was the sonne,
I shope me in shroudes 1 as I a shepe 2 were,
In habite as an heremite unholy of workes,
Went wyde in this world wondres to here.
As on a May mornynge on Malverne hulles,3
Me byfel a ferly of fairy, 4 me thoughte;
I was wery forwandred 5 and went me to reste
Under a brode banke bi a bornes side,

And as I lay and lened and loked in the wateres,
I slombred in a slepyng it sweyved so merye."

35. Gower.- John Gower, a contemporary and friend of Chaucer, was of noble family. In dedicating a book to him, Chaucer styled him the "moral Gower," a term which has since adhered to his name and which indicates the prevailing purpose of his poetry. He wrote three principal poems, the Speculum Meditantis" in French, which has been lost, the "Vox Clamantis" in Latin, and the "Confessio Amantis" in English. The "Confessio Amantis," or "Lover's Confession," is a dialogue between a lover and a priest of Venus. It is written in smooth iambic tetrameter verse, and contains, somewhat after the manner of the "Decameron," a succession of tales drawn from Ovid, French "Chansons le Geste," the Bible, Boccaccio, and other sources. "Gower had some effect,"

1 Arrayed myself in garments.

2 Shepherd.

3 Hills.

Wonder of enchantment.
Weary with wandering.
• Brook.
7 Sounded.

says Hallam, "in rendering the language less rude, and exciting a taste for verse; if he never rises, he never sinks low; he is always sensible, polished, perspicuous." In the original prologue, Gower tells us that the poem was written at the request of Richard II., who met him while rowing on the Thames:

"And so befell as I came nigh
Out of my bote, whan he me sigh,
He bad me come into his barge.
And whan I was with him at large,
Amonges other thinges said,

He hath this charge upon me laid
And bad me do my besinesse,
That to his highe worthynesse
Some newe thing I shoulde boke,
That he himself it mighte loke
After the forme of my writing."

36. Sources of Modern English.-The language of Wycliffe's version of the Bible and of Gower's "Confessio Amantis" is in the Mercian dialect, or in the language spoken in central England. Chaucer wrote in the same dialect. It was largely through the influence of these three great writers, together with the influence of Oxford and Cambridge, that the language of central England gained the ascendency over the dialect of northern and southern England, and became the mother of Modern English.

GEOFFREY CHAUCER.

37. His Pre-eminence.— Above all his contemporaries of the fourteenth century stands the figure of Geoffrey Chaucer. Among all the writers that we have considered, he is the first to show the spirit and freedom of the modern world. Two recent poets have accorded him generous recognition and praise. In his "Dream of Fair Women," Tennyson calls him "the morning star of song,"

"Dan Chaucer, the first warbler, whose sweet breath

Preluded those melodious bursts that fill

The spacious times of great Elizabeth
With sounds that echo still."

In a sonnet on Chaucer, Longfellow says:

"He is the poet of the dawn, who wrote

The Canterbury Tales, and his old age
Made beautiful with song; and as I read,
I hear the crowing cock, I hear the note
Of lark and linnet, and from every page

Rise odors of ploughed field or flowery mead."

Like Homer in Greece, Chaucer stands preeminent in the early literature of England; and among the great English poets of subsequent ages, not more than three or four Shakespeare, Spenser, Milton, Tennyson - deserve to be placed in the same rank.

38. Early Life.- As with some other great writers, comparatively little is known of Chaucer's life. The most painstaking investigations have been comparatively fruitless in details. He was born in London about 1340. His father was a vintner, and it is not improbable that Geoffrey sometimes lent him assistance. In the "Pardoner's Tale" there is an interesting passage which shows Chaucer's acquaintance with the different French and Spanish wines, and which contains a warning against the dangers of drunkenness:

"A lecherous thing is wyne, and dronkenesse
Is full of stryving and of wretchednesse."

Nothing definite is known in regard to his education. The opinion formerly held that he studied at Cambridge or Ozford is without satisfactory foundation. Yet his works shov that he was a man of learning. Besides his knowledge of French and Italian, he was acquainted with the classics, and with every other branch of scholastic learning current in his day.

39. Various Offices. In 1359 he accompanied Edward III. in an invasion of France; and having been captured by the French, he was ransomed by the English king for sixteen