_Chaucer_ (Vol. vii., p. 356).--No foreign original has ever been found for
Chaucer's "House of Fame." Warton fancied that it had been translated or
paraphrased from the Provençal, but could adduce no proof that it had. Old
Geoffrey may have found the groundwork somewhere, in the course of his
multifarious reading; but the main portion of the structure is evidently
the work of his own hands, as the number of personal details and
circumstances would tend to indicate. The forty lines comprising the "Lai
of Marie," which Chaucer has worked up into the "Nonnes Preestes Tale" of
some seven hundred lines, are printed in Tyrwhitt's Introductory Discourse
to the _Canterbury Tales_, and will be sufficient to show what use he made
of the raw material at his disposal. We may fairly presume that Emerson
never took the trouble to investigate the matter, but contented himself
with snatching up his materials from the nearest quarry, and then tumbling
them out to the public.