also he was at times well supplied with money, and again, as the
political fortunes of his patron John of Gaunt waned, in sore need
of the comforts of life. Witness his "Complaint to His Empty
Purse," the humor of which evidently touched the king and brought
Chaucer another pension.

Two poems of this period are supposed to contain autobiographical
material. In the _Legend of Good Women_ he says:

And as for me, though that my wit be lyte,
On bokes for to rede I me delyte.

Again, in _The House of Fame_ he speaks of finding his real
life in books after his daily work in the customhouse is ended.
Some of the "rekeninges" (itemized accounts of goods and duties) to
which he refers are still preserved in Chaucer's handwriting:

For whan thy labour doon al is,
And hast y-maad thy rekeninges,
In stede of reste and newe thinges
Thou gost hoom to thy hous anoon,
And, also domb as any stoon,
Thou sittest at another boke
Til fully dawsed is thy loke,
And livest thus as an hermyte,
Although thine abstinence is lyte.

Such are the scanty facts concerning England's first great poet,
the more elaborate biographies being made up chiefly of guesses or
doubtful inferences. He died in the year 1400, and was buried in