CHAP as the province of inferior talents; but that

XVIII.

on the contrary, the highest geniuses and great masters of intellect regarded themselves as well and nobly employed in the task, and believed that the proper foundation for a superstructure of letters in any language, was to naturalise and make free of that language, the venerable fathers of letters in remote ages and distant countries.

CHAP. XIX.

CHAUCER ENTERS INTO THE SERVICE OF EDWARD
III.-MOTIVES OF HIS PREFERMENT. — RESIDES
NEAR THE PALACE AT WOODSTOCK.-CHARAC
TER OF THE ENGLISH COURT IN THE YEAR 1358.
-BATTLE OF POITIERS.

XIX.

1358.

HITHERTO Chaucer has appeared only CHAP. as a private individual, and the anecdotes of his life are scanty. We are left to reasoning and inference, as to the places of his education, and the functions to which he was destined. We are now to see him in a different light. From the thirtieth year of his age, if not sooner, to his death, he was a courtier, the counsellor of princes, employed in various negociations and embassies, and involved in the factions, contentions and intrigues of his time.

СНАР.

Those persons seem to have considered XIX. the question very superficially, who have Causes of been willing to seek in some other principle Chaucer's than in his literature, for the cause of the

1358.

promho

tion.

Respect paid to

attention which Chaucer experienced in the family of his sovereign. He was employed in various negociations, In like manner, Prior was a negociator, and Addison was a minister; yet they were indebted for their political fortune to their literary perform

ances.

But the times of Prior and Addison will genius and afford a very faint image of the attention

literature

ages of

Europe,

in the early with which literature was treated in the courts of princes at the period we are considering. In later ages literature has been so diffused as to lose its rareness; and it is well known that rareness is the great recommender of every object among the wealthy and luxuri- ous. A munificent prince in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, might open his hand, and become the patron of almost every scholar and man of genius throughout his dominions. Now talents are left to thrive as they can, and be the builders of

XIX.

their own fortune. This is in the order of CHA P. nature; and there are many reasons why we ought not to regret it.

1358.

ous ex

amples,

In the early times to which we have had Miscellanerepeated occasion to refer, princes often considered the superintendence of letters as one of the great functions of their office. We have seen Henry II. dictating to Wace and Benoit the subjects of their compositions. Richard I. is well known to have lived in perpetual intercourse with the poets of his time. Edward I. brought over to England by his patronage Raymond Lully', and Guido dalla Colonna the author of the original Troy Book. Alphonsus X, king of Castille, surnamed the Wise, was the author of several important astronomical discoveries ; and Robert king of Naples declared that, if he must part with his studies or his crown, he should not hesitate in withdrawing himself

a Olaus Borrichius, Conspectus Scriptorum Chemicorum, cap. 24; apud Mangetus, Bibliotheca Chemica.

G. J. Vossius De Historicis Latinis, Lib. II, Cap. Ix, Mongitore, Bibliotheca Sicula, art.-Guido de Columpnis.

XIX.

1358.

CHAP to private life. Even Richard II, weak, indolent and dissipated as he was, aped the spirit of the times, sent for Gower to his barge, and enjoined him to book some new thing. These are only a few of many examples which might be cited.

Examples

of Petrarca

caccio.

But the spirit of patronage, and the distincand Boc- tions bestowed upon men of letters, gradually increased, and never rose to a higher pitch than in the time of Chaucer. Every page of the history of Petrarca and Boccaccio, his contemporaries, is an illustration of this truth. They were both of plebeian birth, and Boccaccio the offspring of illicit love, a circumstance upon which it was the mode of those times to lay the greatest stress. Yet, owing to their literary accomplishments only, they are among the most important personages in the contemporary history of the Italian states. Petrarca in particular was during life courted by cardinals and popes; those among them

who did not love, affected to honour him.

De Sade, Tom. I, p. 446.