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The first thing which forcibly strikes our attention in tracing the
Homes and Haunts of the Poets, is the devastation which Time has made
among 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 startingly 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. 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 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_. He was then in the 39th year
of his age. 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
dayly; in the same year a grant, during pleasure, of the office of
Controller of the Custom of Wools, &c., in the port of London. The next
year the king granted him the wardship of Sir Edmund Staplegate's heir,
for which he received £104; and in the following year, some forfeited
wool to the value of £71, 4_s._, 6_d._ 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 dayly pitcher of wine. It is
probable, too, that he was confirmed in his office of controller, though
the instrument has not been produced. In the 13th of Richard II. he
appears to have been clerk of the works at Westminster, &c., 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 honorable employments. Edward
III., in the 46th year of his reign, appointed him, 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; namely, that
of the pitcher of wine dayly, the controllership of the customs of wool
and wine in the port of London, and in the following year of the
wardship of Sir Edmund Staplegate's heir, &c. At the heels of these
grants came also another embassy to France, with Sir Guichard d'Angle
and Richard Stan, according to Froissart, to treat of a marriage between
the Prince of Wales, afterward Richard II., and a 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.
But Chaucer had also his share of life's reverses. In the eleventh year
of Richard II. he had the king's license to surrender his two grants of
twenty marks each, in favor of John Scalby. It is not really known why
he surrendered those grants, but it is supposed that it was owing to his
connection 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 Catharine Swynford,
the duke's mistress, and afterward wife. Chaucer, it seems, had exerted
himself zealously to secure the re-election of John of Northampton as
Lord-mayor of London. There is much mystery attached to the cause of the
riot and its consequences 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. "While
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 mean time, the partisans of his cause, whom he had left at home,
contrived to make their peace, not only without endeavoring 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 rigor, he was promised his pardon if he would
disclose all he knew, and put it in the power of the government to
restore the peace of the city. His former resolution appears now to have
failed him; or, perhaps, indignation at the ungrateful conduct of his
associates, induced him to think disclosure a matter of indifference. It
is certain that he complied with the terms offered; but we are not told
what was the amount of his confession, or what the consequences were to
others, or who they were that he informed against. We know only that he
obtained his liberty, and that an oppressive share of blame and obloquy
followed. To alleviate his regret for this treatment, and partly to
vindicate his own conduct, he now wrote The Testament of Love; and
although this piece, from want of dates and obscurity of style, is not
sufficient to form a very satisfactory biographical document, it at
least furnishes the preceding account of his exile and return."
This account is attended with its difficulties. Chalmers states this
exile to have occurred about the 3d or 4th of Richard II.; Tyrwhitt in
the eleventh of that reign. One thing is certain, that if it occurred in
the eleventh, the whole period of his exile and troubles lasted only two
years; for in the 13th of Richard II. he was in great favor at court,
and made clerk of the works at Westminster. Again, the two years during
which he claimed protection from the king are stated by Chalmers to be
from the 2d of Richard, and by Tyrwhitt, quoting Rymer, are dated from
the twenty-first of that reign. It appears, however, pretty certain that
he was reduced to great pecuniary distress, and obliged to screen
himself from the persecutions of his creditors under the royal grant of
protection. There can be little doubt that Rymer is the correct
authority, and that it occurred in the 21st of Richard. About the time
of the termination of this grant of protection, he would see his
protector also reduced to the need of protection himself; which he did
not find, but was deposed, and succeeded by Henry IV., who confirmed to
our poet the grants of the unfortunate monarch Richard.
Such are the few prominent facts of Chaucer's public life. Where, during
his abode in London, he took up his residence, we have no knowledge.
During the troubles of the court, and during his own, he is said to have
retreated to his favorite Woodstock. This house he had engaged
originally, because the court was then much at Woodstock, and he was
obliged to be in constant attendance on the king. It became his favorite
abode. It was a square stone house, near the Park gate, and long
retained the name of Chaucer's House. Many of the rural descriptions in
his works have been traced to this favorite scene of his walks and
studies. Every trace of it has been long swept away. The other residence
which has acquired fame from connection with Chaucer, is Donnington
Castle, in Berkshire. Tyrwhitt doubts whether it ever really belonged to
him. If it did, he says, it could not have been till after the 16th of
Richard II., for at that time it was in the possession of Sir Richard
Abberbury. He observes, that we have no proof of such purchase, and he
doubts whether the situation of his affairs admitted of such a purchase.
It was five years, however, after this time when these affairs compelled
him to seek the king's protection. There are traditions of his having
settled all his lands on his son Thomas, for whom he had procured a rich
wife. Again, it is true, it is denied that Thomas Chaucer was his son,
or that it is known that he had any son but Lewis, said to be born
twenty years after his marriage. So dubious is every step in this
history. Yet tradition asserts Thomas Chaucer to have been his eldest
son. It is known that Donnington Castle was for many years in the hands
of this Thomas Chaucer; and may it not have been the fact, that the
purchase of Donnington Park, and the settlement of it on his son, must,
together with a diminished income from the change of some of his
affairs, have been the source of his embarrassments? It is certain that
at one time his emoluments were great; he speaks of himself as "once
glorified in worldly wellfulnesse, and having suche goods in welthe as
makin men riche." He was in a fair way to make a fortune, and plant a
family of rank and substance. He was married to the sister of the
favorite mistress and subsequent wife of the powerful and liberal John
of Gaunt; had the favor of the king, Edward III., and his wife that of
the noble Queen Philippa, one of whose maids of honor she had been.
Every thing promised prosperity; the promise was confirmed on the
accession of Richard II., but soon, as we have seen, the scene changed.
He was involved in the troubles of the times, compelled to sacrifice his
offices, and obliged to fly to foreign countries. He then complained, in
his Testament of Love, "of being berafte out of dignitie of office, in
which he made a gatheringe of worldly godes."
Notwithstanding all this cloud of uncertainty, the belief will always
prevail that Donnington was the residence of Chaucer. Evelyn tells us
that there was an oak in the Park which tradition asserted to have been
planted by Chaucer, and which was still called Chaucer's Oak. As his
house at Woodstock is gone, so his castle here is a mere ruin. It is
generally supposed to be at Woodstock that he wrote his Canterbury
Tales, where he, also, is said to have written his Treatise on the
Astrolabe, for the use of his son Lewis; yet if, as asserted, he was
upward of sixty when he commenced the Canterbury Tales, he may have been
in possession also of Donnington during part of the time that he was
writing his great poem. But every thing concerning these particulars is
wrapped in the mists of five hundred years. The only branch of his
family that he mentions by name is his son _Lowis_. The very name of
his wife is a secret. "Historians," says Tyrwhitt, "though they own
themselves totally ignorant of the Christian name of his wife, are all
agreed that her surname was _Rouet_, the same with that of her father
and eldest sister, Catharine Swynford." How _Rouet_ and _Swynford_ can
be the same surname, Tyrwhitt does not tell us. Spite of this, the
commentators have pored into the list of nine _Dunicellæ_ of the Queen
Philippa, to whom the king had granted annuities, and finding no _Rouet_
there, have been resolved to fix, as the future wife of Chaucer, one
Philippa Pykard, whom they did find. These are all rash peerings into
the dark. As no damsel of the name of Rouet was found, the natural
conclusion is that she was already married to Chaucer.
Of Donnington Castle in its present state a few more words may be
acceptable, and this is the account we find given by Mr. Britton, in the
Beauties of England and Wales. "Donnington Castle rears its lofty head
above the remains of the venerable oaks that once surrounded it, on an
eminence northeast of Donnington Grove, and nearly opposite to the
village of Speen, now Newbury. It was formerly a place of much
importance, and, by commanding the western road, gave to its possessors
a considerable degree of authority. When it was originally built is
uncertain, but, from a manuscript preserved in the Cottonian Library, it
appears that it belonged to Walter Abberbury, who paid C. shillings for
it to the king. Hither, about 1397, in the 70th year of his age,
Geoffrey Chaucer, who had purchased it, retired. Alice, his
granddaughter, conveyed it by marriage to William de la Pole, duke of
Suffolk." In this line, and, therefore, in the descendants of Chaucer,
it continued till the reign of Henry VII., when, by the treasonable
practices of the owner, it was escheated to the crown. In the civil wars
it was a post of great consequence, being fortified as a garrison for
the king. During these troubles it was twice besieged; the second time
its siege being raised by the arrival of the king himself. In Camden's
time this castle was entire. He describes it as "a small but very neat
place, seated on the brow of a woody hill, having a fine prospect,
lighted by windows on every side." The remains now consist of the east
entrance, with its two round towers, and a small part of the east wall.
The gateway is in good preservation, and the place for the portcullis
may still be seen. A staircase winds up the south tower to the summit of
the castle, which commands a beautiful view of the Hampshire Hills and
the intermediate country.
It has been the fate of the places celebrated by Chaucer in his
exquisite Canterbury Tales to retain something of their identity beyond
all that might have been expected from the rapid changes, especially of
late years, in England. The Tabard Inn, Southwark, from which his
pilgrims set out, still exists, or at least partly so, under the name of
the Talbot. This old inn is within view of London Bridge, on the left
hand going thence down High-street in the borough. It is evidently the
very inn which Dickens had in view when he described the one where
Pickwick originally encountered Sam Weller. This once famous old hostel
has indeed existed, but has fallen into decay, and sunk in rank. London
has spread, and changed the importance of its localities. In the city,
and at the west end, multitudes of splendid hotels have sprung up: the
ancient Tabard is gone down to a very ordinary house of entertainment.
Once it occupied, no doubt, the frontage on both sides of its gateway,
now it is confined to the right hand; and although the ancient yard and
ancient galleries present themselves to your view as you enter, you find
the premises occupied by at least half a dozen different tenants and
trades. Here is the inn, on the right hand; on the left are offices of
wine-merchants and others. Under the old galleries is the warehouse of a
London carman, and huge bales of goods lie before it, to go off by wagon
or by rail-road. Wagons belonging to this establishment are going in
and out, and gigs and chaises are drawn up on the further side of the
inn. There are life and trade here still; but the antiquity and dignity
of the ancient Tabard are broken up. The frontage, and about half the
premises, were once destroyed by fire; the remainder, occupying the
lower end of the court, exists in all its antiquity. The old wooden
gallery, supported on stout wooden pillars, and with a heavy wooden
balustrade, is roofed over; above are steep red-tiled roofs, with
dormer-windows, bearing every mark of being very old. In front of this
gallery hangs a large painting, long said to be a picture of the
pilgrims entering Canterbury. A horseman is disappearing through the
city gateway, and others are following; but the whole is so
weather-beaten that it is difficult to make out. The painting seems to
have possessed considerable merit, and it is a pity it is not restored.
Tyrwhitt says, "They who are disposed to believe the pilgrimage to have
been real, and to have happened in 1383, may support their opinion by
the following inscription, which is still to be read upon the inn, now
called the Talbot, in Southwark: 'This is the inn where Sir Geoffrey
Chaucer and the twenty-nine pilgrims lodged in their journey to
Canterbury, anno 1383.'" Though the present inscription is evidently of
a very recent date, we might suppose it to have been propagated to us by
a succession of faithful transcripts from the very time; but, unluckily,
there is too good reason to be assured that the first inscription of
this sort was not earlier than the last century.
We learn from Speght, who appears to have been inquisitive about this
inn in 1597, that "this was the hostelry where _Chaucer_ and the other
pilgrims met together, and with _Henry Bailey_, their host, accorded
about the manner of their journey to Canterbury." Within the gallery was
a large table, said to be the one where the pilgrims were entertained.
It is now divided into four bed-rooms, where the guests of the inn still
sleep, on the very floor occupied by the pilgrims upward of 500 years
ago. And, indeed, how much longer? The building existed probably long
before Chaucer's days, who has been dead 446 years. It is one of the
greatest antiquities and curiosities of London, so few of the like kind
being spared by the fire, and still fewer by modern changes and
improvements.
In Canterbury, also, the pilgrim's inn is said to have continued to the
present time, no longer, indeed, existing as an inn, but divided into a
number of private tenements in High-street. The old inn mentioned by
Chaucer was called the Checkers. It stands in High-street, at the corner
of the lane leading to the Cathedral, just below the parade, on the
left-hand side going into Canterbury. Its situation was just that which
was most convenient for the pilgrims to Thomas à Becket's tomb. It was a
very large inn, as was necessary for the enormous resort of votaries to
the shrine of this pugnacious saint. It is now divided into several
houses, and has been modernized externally, having no longer a trace of
having been an inn. The way to the court-yard is through a narrow
doorway passage, and round the court you see the only evidences of its
antiquity, remains of carved wood-work, now whitewashed over.
The old age of Chaucer, like that of too many men of genius, is said to
have been stormy, and not unvisited by necessity. We are informed that
he went from Woodstock to Donnington Castle, and thence to London, to
solicit a continuance of his annuities, in which he found such
difficulties as probably hastened his death. It has been said, how could
this be? How could a man with lands and a castle be in such necessity?
and it has been attributed to the desire of his biographers to excite an
undue sympathy for their subject, that they have represented him in his
old age as avaricious. Probably, if we knew all the circumstances, the
whole would be clear enough. We know so little of Chaucer's real, and
especially of his domestic history, that we may pronounce, as falsely as
presumptuously, in saying he could not be in need. Who shall say that
because Chaucer casually mentions only one son, that he might not have
half a dozen? Who shall say what misfortunes may have visited his old
age? These were changeable and troublesome times. His biographers have
settled his castle and estate on his son Thomas; and if he had other
sons to provide for, and his annuities were not paid, these are causes
enough for pecuniary difficulty.
The general opinion is, that he died October 25th, in the year 1400,
being seventy-two years of age. According to Wood, he never repented of
his reflections on the clergy of his times, but upbraided himself
bitterly with the licentious portions of his writings, often crying out
at the approach of death, "Woe, woe is me, that I can not recall and
annul those things; but, alas! they are now continued from man to man,
and I can not do what I would desire." He was buried in Westminster
Abbey, in the great south aisle, but no monument was raised to his
memory till a century and a half after his decease, when Nicholas
Bingham, a gentleman of Oxford, a poet and great admirer of Chaucer,
erected the plain altar, now so well known, having three quatrefoils,
and the same number of shields, at the north end of a magnificent
recess, formed by four obtuse arched angles. The inscription and figures
are now almost obliterated.
Like himself, his great work, the Canterbury Tales, lay buried for
upward of seventy years in manuscript. Caxton, the first English
printer, selected these tales as one of the earliest productions of his
press, and thus gave to the world what it will never again consent to
lose. Spite of the rude state of the language when he wrote, the
splendor of his genius beams and burns gloriously through its inadequate
vehicle. Time, which has destroyed his house at Woodstock, and beaten
down his castle at Donnington, has not been able to effect the same ruin
on his poems. The language has gone on perfecting and polishing; a host
of glorious names and glorious works have succeeded Chaucer and the
Canterbury Tales, making England affluent in its literary fame as any
nation on earth; but, from his distant position, the father of English
poetry beams like a star of the first magnitude in the eternal
hemisphere of genius. Like Shakspeare, he has, for the most part, seized
on narratives already in existence to employ his art upon, but that art
is so exquisite that it has stamped immortal value on the narrative. The
life and the characters he has represented to us are a portion of the
far past, rescued for us from the oblivion that has overwhelmed all that
age besides. We gaze on the living and moving scenes with an interest
which the progress of time can only deepen. To the latest ages men will
read and say, "Thus, in the days of Wickliffe, of John of Gaunt, and
Richard II., did men and women look, and act, and think, and feel; thus
did a great poet live among them, and send them down to us, and to all
posterity, ten thousand times more faithfully preserved than by all the
arts of Egypt and the East." Quaint as they are, they are the very
quintessence of human nature. They live yet, fresh and vivid, passionate
and strong, as they did on their way to the tomb of St. Thomas, upward
of five hundred years ago. They can never die; they can never grow old;
and amid them the poet, Englishman every inch, lives, and laughs, and
quaffs his cup of wine, and tells his story, and chuckles over his
jokes, or listens to the narratives of all those around him, with a
relish of life that he only could feel or could communicate. There is an
elastic geniality in his spirit, a buoyant music in his numbers, a soul
of enjoyment in his whole nature, that mark him at once as a man of a
thousand; and we feel in the charm that bears us along a strength that
will outlast a thousand years. It is like that of the stream that runs,
of the wind that blows, of the sun that comes up, ruddy as with youth,
from the bright east on an early summer's morning. It is the strength of
nature living in its own joyful life, and mingling with the life of all
around in gladdening companionship. For a hundred beautiful pictures of
genuine English existence and English character; for a world of persons
and things that have snatched us from the present to their society; for
a host of wise and experience-fraught maxims; for a many a tear shed,
and emotion revived, and laugh of merriment; for many a happy hour and
bright remembrance, we thank thee, Dan Chaucer, and just thanks shalt
thou receive a thousand years hence.