King Edward III. died in May 1377. To the early years of his successor are referred Chaucer's poems entitled The Black Knight,' ' The Legend of Good Women,' and 'The Flower and the Leaf.' Mr.
Godwin and others have laboured to prove that Chaucer was in dis grace and misery during much of the period from 1384 to 1389. He is represented as having been implicated in the affairs of John de Northampton, in his struggle for the mayoralty of London, and to have been in consequence driven into exile, flying to Hainault, and afterwards to Zealand, and on his return to England being imprisoned in the Tower, whence he was not released but at the expense of some disclosures, which are aaid not to have been creditable to him. But Sir Harris Nicholas has shown that from 1380 to 1388 Chaucer regu larly received his pension with his own hands, which of course dis poses at a blow of the hypothesis of his exile. It is to be remarked further, that in 1386 he was returned a knight of the shire for Kent.
But there is no doubt that about this time he fell into adversity. His offices were taken from him, probably on account of his being regarded as one of the followers of John of Gaunt, who was then in disgrace ; and as a Wicliffite he perhaps met with some persecution. In 1388 he was constrained to sell his two pensions : his wife had died in 1387, and her pension had of course ceased with her life. In 1389 he appears to have regained at least a measure of court favour, as he was then appointed clerk of the works at the king's palaces, and the repairs at Windsor were executed under his direction. This office he however held for only two years. After this—from 1394 to 1398— he appears to have been suffering from great pecuniary distress; but Bolingbroke, immediately on his accession to the crown (1399), con ferred on Chaucer a pension double that he had formerly enjoyed, so that we may hope his last days were spent in comfort.
In the last ten years of his life he seems to have lived retired from public affairs, though receiving from time to time marks of royal favour. A house at Woodstock, which had been assigned to him by
the king, and the castle at Donnington, near Newbury, are believed to have been at this period his usual places of abode. In this part of his life it was that he wrote the Canterbury Tales,' and the tradition, both at Woodstock and at Donnington, is, that portions of the work were written at those places. Chaucer died in London, October 25, 1400, and was buried in the Abbey Church of Westminster. The monument there erected to his memory was a tribute paid to him a century and a half after his decease by Nicholas Brigham.
Chaucer had two 801M, Sir Thomas and Lewis. Sir Thomas was speaker of the House of Commons, and, marrying an heiress of the' house of Burghersh, obtained with her Ewelme in Oxfordshire, and other possessions. He had an only daughter, Alice Chaucer, who married De la Pole, duke of Suffolk.
The Canterbury Tales' were printed by Caxton, but it was not til 1542 that any general collection of his writings was made and corn milted to the press : they have been often reprinted. Mr. Tyrwhitt's edition of the 'Canterbury Tales' is justly celebrated for the purity of the text, which was far superior to that of any previous edition and for the valuable illustrations which be has annexed.
We have noticed in this article Chaucer's principal works, withou t professing to enumerate all. Chaucer was the first great English poet, and he remained the greatest English poet till that place was taken by Shakepere. In sublimity and grandeur of thought he has been ex celled, but in liveliness of imagination, vigour of description, vivacity, and ease, he has few rivals; and, we may add with Hallam, that "as the first original English poet, if we except Langland—as the inventor of our most approved measure—as an improver, though with too much innovation, of our language—and as a faithful witness to the manners of his age, Chaucer would deserve our reverence, if he had not also intrinsic claims for excellences, which do not depend upon any collateral considerations."