annual pension of twenty pounds by the King. This pension, of which
several subsequent notices occur, seems at times to have been paid tardily
or in small instalments, and also to have been frequently anticipated by
Chaucer in the shape of loans of small sums. Further evidence of his
straits is to be found in his having, in the year 1398, obtained letters
of protection against arrest, making him safe for two years. The grant of
a tun of wine in October of the same year is the last favour known to have
been extended to Chaucer by King Richard II. Probably no English
sovereign has been more diversely estimated, both by his contemporaries
and by posterity, than this ill-fated prince, in the records of whose
career many passages betokening high spirit strangely contrast with the
impotence of its close. It will at least be remembered in his favour that
he was a patron of the arts; and that after Froissart had been present at
his christening, he received, when on the threshold of manhood, the homage
of Gower, and on the eve of his downfall showed most seasonable kindness
to a poet far greater than either of these. It seems scarcely justifiable
to assign to any particular point of time the "Ballade sent to King
Richard" by Chaucer; but its manifest intention was to apprise the king of
the poet's sympathy with his struggle against the opponents of the royal
policy, which was a thoroughly autocratical one. Considering the nature
of the relations between the pair, nothing could be more unlikely than
that Chaucer should have taken upon himself to exhort his sovereign and
patron to steadfastness of political conduct. And in truth, though the
loyal tone of this address is (as already observed) unmistakeable enough,
there is little difficulty in accounting for the mixture of commonplace
reflexions and of admonitions to the king, to persist in a spirited
domestic policy. He is to

"Dread God, do law, love truth and worthiness,"