Chaucer, and in the interval between him and Spenser; but their genius
was not such as to place them in any point of comparison with either of
these celebrated men; and an inquiry into their particular merits or
defects might seem rather to belong to the province of the antiquary,
than be thought generally interesting to the lovers of poetry in the
present day.

Chaucer (who has been very properly considered as the father of
English poetry) preceded Spenser by two centuries. He is supposed to
have been born in London, in the year 1328, during the reign of Edward
III. and to have died in 1400, at the age of seventy-two. He received a
learned education at one, or at both of the universities, and travelled
early into Italy, where he became thoroughly imbued with the spirit and
excellences of the great Italian poets and prose-writers, Dante,
Petrarch, and Boccace; and is said to have had a personal interview with
one of these, Petrarch. He was connected, by marriage, with the famous
John of Gaunt, through whose interest he was introduced into several
public employments. Chaucer was an active partisan, a religious
reformer, and from the share he took in some disturbances, on one
occasion, he was obliged to fly the country. On his return, he was
imprisoned, and made his peace with government, as it is said, by a
discovery of his associates. Fortitude does not appear, at any time, to
have been the distinguishing virtue of poets.--There is, however, an
obvious similarity between the practical turn of Chaucer's mind and
restless impatience of his character, and the tone of his writings. Yet
it would be too much to attribute the one to the other as cause and
effect: for Spenser, whose poetical temperament was an effeminate as
Chaucer's was stern and masculine, was equally engaged in public
affairs, and had mixed equally in the great world. So much does native
disposition predominate over accidental circumstances, moulding them to