SIR HARRIS NICOLAS ' S LIFE OF CHAUCER.
Tum Life, written for the Aldine edition of the Works of CHAUCER5 supplies a desideratum in English letters,—namely, as particular an account of the great father of our literature as can be comb posed from known data, without a particle of conjecture, or any thing of inference which is not founded on a sufficient basis, and seen at once to be what it really is. The previous biographies of CHAUCER are either jejune from the paucity of authentic facts, or, as in the case of GODWIN'S ample work, such a vast structure is raised upon scanty foundations, and allusions in the poet's writ-
ings which may or may not have reference to himself, that the book is rather a romance than a life ; whilst the perfect good faith with
which GODWIN puts forward his own inventions as realities, precludes an imaginative picture of manners and literature, such as Mr. KNIGHT has presented in William Shahspere a Biography. In the work before us, on the other hand, every thing is founded upon recorded facts. For CHAUCER was not only a pensioner of the
Crown, but a pluralist in public employ,—financial, in the Customs; architectural and arboricultural, as Surveyor of Palaces and Parks; diplomatic, in various forms : and the exact parsimony of our
ancestors, preserving in the records of public offices an accurate entry of every payment made to every person, with the why and wherefore, has also preserved very full pecuniary particulars relative to GEOFFREY CHAUCER, from which positive proof may be deduced as to his whereabout at the time of payment, and strong inferences as to his circumstances. It is of such factsand such commentaries that the Life before us consists; with additional particulars from legal and heraldic sources, as well as from the poet's own works, and from writers of a nearer age to CHAUCER; the whole collected with an industrious research that not even a zealous antiquary would have undergone with this single object in view, and applied with a discriminating judgment that very few antiquaries possess.
Sir HARRIS NICOLAS' however, is not only the author of the fullest and truest life of CHAUCER that has yet been written, but is in some measure the cause why it was possible to have written it. Looking at the patient drudgery of our English antiquaries, it is not to be supposed that the newly dug-up entries relating to so distinguished a poet would have been overlooked had they been accessible. But the older readers of this journal need not be told of the manner in which the inquirer was debarred from access to our valuable but ill-kept national records; or of the untiring energy by which Sir HARRIS NicoLas laboured for the reform of that abuse, and of which this Life of Geoffrey Chaucer may be considered one of the first fruits.
Those who wish to see the full biographical particulars relating to our poetical father, must refer to the volume : we will only note a few of its leading points, or the inferences that may be drawn from them. The first fact that is known of CHAUCER is derived from his own evidence in the celebrated case about a coat of arms disputed between Lord SCROPE and Sir ROBERT GROSVENOR; where he states that he served in the army with which EDWARD the Third invaded France in the year 1359, (three years after the battle of Poitiers,) and was taken prisoner. The first money- entry relating to CHAUCER is in 1367, when he is supposed to have been about forty ; the last records are of the year 1400, when, on the 21st February, CHAUCER received the pension of twenty pounds granted by HENRY the Fourth ; and on the 5th June following, Si. was received for him by HENRY SOMERE, an official of the Exche- quer. LIG iG said to have died in the eneuing October which Sir Halms NICOLAS thinks probable, from the cessation of entries re- lating to him.
The inferences through all this period of three-and-thirty years show the poet to have been an active man of the world and high in favour with royalty. He was patronized by Joarr of Gaunt, "time- honoured Lancaster," the uncle of RICHARD the Second ; by RICHARD himself when he came to full powers ; and by HENRY the Fourth, son of the Duke of Lancaster, as soon as he had deposed RICHARD. Considering the uncertainty of fortune in those un- settled times, and the sufferings undergone by those who had fallen from their high estate, the life of the poet appears on the whole to have been reasonably prosperous, though not without rubs. In 1386, he was superseded in both his offices in the Customs ; pro- bably, as Sir Helms infers, because he was out of favour with the Duke of GLOUCESTER and others, who had succeeded the Duke of LANCASTER ill the government: but be continued to receive his two pensions. In 1388, he assigned those pensions to one JOHN SCALBY ; which has been considered a proof that he was much dis- tressed: but, although " such an inference is probable," says Sir Halms, " its correctness is by no means certain." In 1389, his fortunes dawned again, on the assumption of power by the young King, and his nominating some of the Lancaster party Ministers; CHAUCER being appointed Clerk of the Works at various places, with a salary of two shillings per diem,—estimated as worth from twenty shillings to thirty-four shillings of our money, so widely do authorities differ. In 1391, he was superseded.
"The cause of his removal, and his position and employment during the ensuing three years, must be left to conjecture; a resource which his biographers have freely adopted in filling up this, and the other chasms in the poet's history. All that is known of him is that be received payments as 'late Clerk of the Works' on the 16th of December 1391, 4th of March and 13th of July 1392, and again in 1393; and it is nearly certain that he had no other pension than the 10/. per annum granted to him by the Duke of Lancaster in 1374, and his wages as the King's Esquire, (if indeed any other pecuniary advantage was attached to that situation than an allowance of 40s. half-yearly for robes,) and that he did not hold any office during that period. "On the 28th of February 1394, Chaucer obtained a grant from the King of 20/. for life, payable half-yearly at Easter and Michaelmas; being 6/. 13s. 4d. less than the pensions he surrendered in 1388. fle received his new pension for the first time on the 10th of December 1394; and that he was then poor may be inferred from several advances having been soon after made to him at the Exchequer on account of his annuity, before the half-yearly payments became due. Thus, on the 1st of April 1395, he obtained 101. as a loan on the current half-year's pension, which was repaid on the 28th of May following ; on the 25th of June he borrowed 10/.•' on the 9th of September, 1/. 6s. 8d.; 011 the 27th of November, 81. 6s. 8d.; and on the 1st of March 1396, IL 131. 4d. were paid to him, being the balance of the half-year's pension, of which a large part had been advanced in the preceding November. All these EMS were paid into his own hands. • • • • "As the Issue Rolls of the Exclie9uer from Easter 1396 to Michaelmas 1397 have not been found, no information can be derived from them respecting Chaucer in those years ; but the loss of those records seems to be fully supplied by the entry on the next existing roll. On the 26th of October 1397, John Walden received 10/. for Chaucer, being the balance of 30/. due to him for his pensions for the three preceding half-years; of which 301. he had received 10/. on the 25th of December 1396, 5/. on the 2d of July 1397, and Si. on the 9th of
August in the same year. • "A considerable improvement took place in Chaucer's fortunes on the acces- sion of Henry the Fourth ; his conduct on which event has been the subject of some injudicious remarks. The poet had for the greater part of his life been patronized by the House of Lancaster, and was nearly connected by marriage with its late chief. He must therefore have been personally known to the new Sovereign, to whose favour he had strong pretensions. The King accordingly doubled Chaucer's pension within four days after he came to the throne, by granting him, on the 3d of October 1399, forty marks yearly in addition to the annuity of 20/. which King Richard had given him : but he was destined not long to enjoy the gift.
"Having made oath in Chancery that the letters patent of the 28th of Fe- bruary 1394 and 13th of October 1398, before alluded to, had been accident- ally lost, he procured, on the 13th of October 1399, exemplifications of those records. It would seem that Chaucer closed his days near Westminster Abbey ; for on:Christmas Eve 1399 he obtained a lease, dated at Westminster, by which Robert Hermodesworth, a Monk and Keeper of the Chapel of the Blessed Afary of Westminster, with the consent of the Abbot and Convent of that place, demised to him a tenement situated in the garden of the said chapel, for fifty-three years, at the annual rent of 2/. 13s. 4d. If any part of the rent VMS in arrear for the space of fifteen days, power was given to the lessor to distrain and if Chaucer died within that term, the premises were to revert to the Custos of the said chapel for the time being ; so that in fact the poet had only a life- interest therein."
The fulness of these particulars, after a lapse of nearly five hun- dred years, is gratifying, especially when we consider the paucity of such in relation to many men of genius of a later date. Still, as his biographer has remarked, the want of a life is felt ; and we desire, though in vain, some of those minute traits of character which mark the man.
The only record, as yet discovered, which gives any indications of the man himself, is his own deposition respecting the disputed arms; which Sir HARRIS properly quotes in full. From it we see that the poet honoured Friday Street with his presence, and was a lover and close observer of heraldry ; whilst we may infer that he exercised a spirit of genial inquiry with his fellow men, and had a quiet vein of sarcasm when he pleased' as may be judged by his indirect appreciation of the GROSVENOR family as novi homines. " Geoffrey Chaucer, Esquire, of the age of forty and upwards, armed for twenty-seven years, produced on behalf of Sir Richard Scrope, sworn and ex- amined. Asked, whether the arms, Azure, a bend Or,' belonged, or ought to belong, to the said Sir Richard ; said Yes, for he saw him so armed in France before the town of Retters, (apparently the village of Retiers, near Rennes, in Brittany,) and Sir Henry Scrope armed in the same arms with a white label, and with a banner; and the said Sir Richard armed in the entire arms, 'Azure, with a bend Or '; and so he had seen him armed during the whole expedition, until the said Geoffrey was taken. Asked, how he knew that the said arms appertained to the said Sir Richard ? said, that he had heard say froof 1244 Knights and Esquires that they had been reputed to be chair arms, as common fame and the public voice proved ; and be also said that they had continued their possession of the said arms ; and that all his time he had seen the said arms in banners, glass, paintings, and vestments, and commonly called the arms of Scrope. Asked, if he had heard any one say who was the first an- cestor of the said Sir Richard, who first bore the said arms? said, No, nor had he ever heard otherwise than that they were come of ancient ancestry, and of old gentry, and used the said arms. Asked, if he had heard any one say hew long a time the ancestors of the said Sir Richard had used the said arms ? said, No, but he had heard say that it passed the memory of man. Asked, whether he had ever heard of any interruption or challenge made by Sir Ro- bert Grosvenor, or by his ancestors, or by any one in his name, to the said Sir Richard, or to any of his ancestors ? said, No; but he said that he was once in Friday Street, in London, and as he was walking in the street, he saw hanging a new sign made of the said arms, and he asked what inn that was that had hung out these arms of Scrope, and one answered him and said, No, Sir, they are not hung out for the arms of Scrope, nor painted there for those arms, but they are painted and put there by a Knight of the county of Chester, whom men call Sir Robert Grosvenor ; and that was the first time he ever heard speak of Sir Robert Grosvenor, or of his ancestors, or of any other bearing the name of Grosvenor."
Besides its merit as a life of CHAUCER, this volume is remarkable for its brevity and its labour. The life of the poet, with notices of his family till its supposed extinction, occupies little more than a hundred small pages, with between two and three hundred refer- ences to authorities, many of them original records, and nearly all of an antiquarian kind ; a closeness and condensation which, in these days of wordy diffuseness, may fairly be reckoned among the curiosities of literature.
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