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The Canterbury Tales, and Other Poems by Geoffrey Chaucer
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the most famous English contemporary of Chaucer, with whom
he had for many years been on terms of admiring friendship --
although, from the strictures passed on certain productions of
Gower's in the Prologue to The Man of Law's Tale,<6> it has
been supposed that in the later years of Chaucer's life the
friendship suffered some diminution. To the "moral Gower" and
"the philosophical Strode," Chaucer "directed" or dedicated his
"Troilus and Cressida;" <7> while, in the "Confessio Amantis,"
Gower introduces a handsome compliment to his greater
contemporary, as the "disciple and the poet" of Venus, with
whose glad songs and ditties, made in her praise during the
flowers of his youth, the land was filled everywhere. Gower,
however -- a monk and a Conservative -- held to the party of
the Duke of Gloucester, the rival of the Wycliffite and
innovating Duke of Lancaster, who was Chaucer's patron, and
whose cause was not a little aided by Chaucer's strictures on the
clergy; and thus it is not impossible that political differences
may have weakened the old bonds of personal friendship and
poetic esteem. Returning from Lombardy early in 1379,
Chaucer seems to have been again sent abroad; for the records
exhibit no trace of him between May and December of that
year. Whether by proxy or in person, however, he received his
pensions regularly until 1382, when his income was increased
by his appointment to the post of Controller of Petty Customs
in the port of London. In November 1384, he obtained a
month's leave of absence on account of his private affairs, and a
deputy was appointed to fill his place; and in February of the
next year he was permitted to appoint a permanent deputy --
thus at length gaining relief from that close attention to business
which probably curtailed the poetic fruits of the poet's most
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