failed to draw close that hearts' bond which such kinship at times half
unconsciously knits.

Married or still a bachelor, Chaucer may fairly be supposed, during part
of the years previous to that in which we find him securely established in
the king's service, to have enjoyed a measure of independence and leisure
open to few men in his rank of life, when once the golden days of youth
and early manhood have passed away. Such years are in many men's lives
marked by the projection, or even by the partial accomplishment, of
literary undertakings on a large scale, and more especially of such as
partake of an imitative character. When a juvenile and facile writer's
taste is still unsettled, and his own style is as yet unformed, he eagerly
tries his hand at the reproduction of the work of others; translates the
"Iliad" or "Faust," or suits himself with unsuspecting promptitude to the
production of masques, or pastorals, or life dramas--or whatever may be
the prevailing fashion in poetry--after the manner of the favourite
literary models of the day. A priori, therefore, everything is in favour
of the belief hitherto universally entertained, that among Chaucer's
earliest poetical productions was the extant English translation of the
French "Roman de la Rose." That he made SOME translation of this poem is
a fact resting on his own statement in a passage indisputably written by
him (in the "Prologue" to the "Legend of Good Women"); nor is the value of
this statement reduced by the negative circumstance, that in the
extraordinary tag (if it may be called by so irreverent a name) to the
extant "Canterbury Tales," the "Romaunt of the Rose" is passed over in
silence, or at least not nominally mentioned, among the objectionable
works which the poet is there made to retract. And there seems at least
no necessity for giving in to the conclusion that Chaucer's translation
has been lost, and was not that which has been hitherto accepted as his.
For this conclusion is based upon the use of a formal test, which in truth