was a gentleman, according to the severest code of chivalric
excellence; always a favorite with ladies, and equally admired by
the knights and barons of a brilliant court. No poet was ever more
honored in his life or lamented in his death, as his beautiful
monument in Westminster Abbey would seem to attest. That monument
is the earliest that was erected to the memory of a poet in that
Pantheon of English men of rank and genius; and it will probably be
as long preserved as any of those sculptured urns and animated
busts which seek to keep alive the memory of the illustrious dead,--
of those who, though dead, yet speak to all future generations.


AUTHORITIES.


Chaucer's own works, especially the Canterbury Tales; publications
of the Chaucer Society; Pauli's History of England; ordinary
Histories of England which relate to the reigns of Edward III. and
Richard II., especially Green's History of the English People; Life
of Chaucer, by William Godwin (4 volumes, London, 1804); Tyrwhitt's
edition of Canterbury Tales; Speglet's edition of Chaucer; Warton's
History of English Poetry; St. Palaye's History of Chivalry;
Chaucer's England, by Matthew Browne (London, 1869); Sir Harris
Nicholas's Life of Chaucer; The Riches of Chaucer, by Charles
Cowden Clarke; Morley's Life of Chaucer. The latest work is a Life
and Criticism of Chaucer, by Adolphus William Ward. There is also
a Guide to Chaucer, by H. G. Fleary. See also Skeat's collected
edition of Chaucer's Works, brought out under the auspices of the
Early English Text Society.