princes with whom he lived in intimacy and friendship. It was the
rarity of his gifts, his great attainments, elegant manners, and
refined tastes which made him the companion of the great, since at
that time only princes and nobles and ecclesiastical dignitaries
could appreciate his genius or enjoy his writings.

Although Chaucer had written several poems which were admired in
his day, and made translations from the French, among which was the
"Roman de la Rose," the most popular poem of the Middle Ages,--a
poem which represented the difficulties attendant on the passion of
love, under the emblem of a rose which had to be plucked amid
thorns,--yet his best works were written in the leisure of
declining years.

The occupation of the poet during the last twelve years of his life
was in writing his "Canterbury Tales," on which his fame chiefly
rests; written not for money, but because he was impelled to write
it, as all true poets write and all great artists paint,--ex
animo,--because they cannot help writing and painting, as the
solace and enjoyment of life. For his day these tales were a great
work of art, evidently written with great care. They are also
stamped with the inspiration of genius, although the stories
themselves were copied in the main from the French and Italian,
even as the French and Italians copied from Oriental writers, whose
works were translated into the languages of Europe so that the
romances of the Middle Ages were originally produced in India,
Persia, and Arabia. Absolute creation is very rare. Even
Shakspeare, the most original of poets, was indebted to French and
Italian writers for the plots of many of his best dramas. Who can
tell the remote sources of human invention; who knows the then