And now it is evident, from what has been said, that we stand upon the eve
of a great movement in history and literature. Up to this time everything
had been more or less tentative, experimental, and disconnected, all
tending indeed, but with little unity of action, toward an established
order. It began to be acknowledged that though the clergy might write in
Latin, and Frenchmen in French, the English should "show their fantasyes
in such words as we learneden of our dame's tonge," and it was equally
evident that that English must be cultivated and formed into a fitting
vehicle for vigorous English thought. To do this, a master mind was
required, and such a master mind appeared in the person of Chaucer. It is
particularly fortunate for our historic theory that his works,
constituting the origin of our homogeneous English literature, furnish
forth its best and most striking demonstration.


CHAUCER'S BIRTH.--Geoffrey Chaucer was born at London about the year 1328:
as to the exact date, we waive all the discussion in which his biographers
have engaged, and consider this fixed as the most probable time. His
parentage is unknown, although Leland, the English antiquarian, declares
him to have come of a noble family, and Pitts says he was the son of a
knight. He died in the year 1400, and thus was an active and observant
contemporary of events in the most remarkable century which had thus far
rolled over Europe--the age of Edward III. and the Black Prince, of Crecy
and Poitiers, of English bills and bows, stronger than French lances; the
age of Wiclif, of reformation in religion, government, language, and
social order. Whatever his family antecedents, he was a courtier, and a
successful one; his wife was Philippa, a sister of Lady Katherine
Swinford, first the mistress and then the wife of John of Gaunt, Duke of