unable to picture an army without it, and we find him relating how, from
ancient Troy,--

Hector and many a worthy wight out went
With spear in hand, and with their big bows bent.

No wonder that when the battles were fought by the people itself, and when
the cost of the wars was to so large an extent defrayed by its self-
imposed contributions, the Scottish and French campaigns should have
called forth that national enthusiasm which found an echo in the songs of
Lawrence Minot, as hearty war-poetry as has been composed in any age of
our literature. They were put forth in 1352, and considering the unusual
popularity they are said to have enjoyed, it is not impossible that they
may have reached Chaucer's ears in his boyhood.

Before the final collapse of the great King's fortunes, and his death in a
dishonoured old age, the ambition of his heir, the proudest hope of both
dynasty and nation, had overleapt itself, and the Black Prince had
preceded his father to the tomb. The good ship England (so sang a
contemporary poet) was left without rudder or helm; and in a kingdom full
of faction and discontent the future of the Plantagenet throne depended on
a child. While the young king's ambitious uncle, John of Gaunt, Duke of
Lancaster (Chaucer's patron), was in nominal retirement, and his
academical ally, Wyclif, was gaining popularity as the mouthpiece of the
resistance to the papal demands, there were fermenting beneath the surface
elements of popular agitation, which had been but little taken into
account by the political factions of Edward the Third's reign, and by that
part of its society with which Chaucer was more especially connected. But
the multitude, whose turn in truth comes but rarely in the history of a
nation, must every now and then make itself heard, although poets may seem