title

as if poor Chaucer had never been mentioned in page. The second mode is considerably more ing nious, and consists in making old Geoffrey accompany the author upon these frisking excursions. For example, Mr. Godwin has a fancy to describe a judicial trial. Nothing can! more easily introduced; for Chaucer certainly studied at the Tem ple, and is supposed to have been bred to the bar.

"It may be amusing to the fancy of a reader of Chaucer's works, to represent to himself the young poet accoutred in the robes of a lawyer, examining a witness, fixing upon him the keenness of his eye, addressing himself with anxiety and expectation to a jury, or exercising the subtlety of his wit and judgment in the development of one of those quirks by which a client was to be rescued from the rigour of strict and unfavouring justice. Perhaps Chaucer, in the course of his legal life, saved a thief from the gallows, and gave him a new chance of becoming a decent and useful member of society; perhaps, by his penetration, he discerned and demonstrated that innocence, which, to a less able pleader, would never have been evident, and which a less able pleader would never have succeeded in restoring triumphant to its place in the community, and its fair fame. Perhaps Chaucer pleaded before Tresilian and Brember, and lived to know that those men whose fiat had silenced his argument, or to whose inferiority of understanding, it may be, he was obliged to vail his honoured head, were led to the basest species of execution, amidst the shouts of a brutish and ignorant multitude."-Vol. i, p. 369.

This curious tirade is not to be placed among those occasional flourishes to which authors who affect the striking and the sentimental are so peculiarly addicted. It is not given as a day-dream, in which the writer gives reins to the vivacity of his imagination; but the supposed cases which Mr. Godwin puts without the least authority from the record, are gravely intended as illustrations of the Life of Chaucer. For example, the next sentence informs us "We have a right, however, to conclude, from his early quitting the profession, that he did not love it;" and this averment is followed with a list of the unhappy effects which the study of the law produces on the human understanding and temper. We do not think the profession congenial to the feelings of a youthful poet; but it is probable,

*["Mr. Thynne declares 'it most certaine to be gathered by circumstances of recordes, that the lawyers were not of the Temple till the latter parte of the reygne of Edw. III, at which time Chaucer was a grave manne, holden in greate credyt, and employed in embassye.'"-CAMPBELL-Specimens of the British Poets, vol. ii,

p. 4.]

that he who could stoop to the drudgery of comptroller of the customs, had other reasons for leaving the bar than mere disgust at the profession; for "cockets and dockets," and sugar-casks, and beer-butts, and common-council men" (p. 502), may be supposed to have as benumbing an effect upon the heart and imagination, as cases and precedents, and the ambidexter ingenuity of the bar. Another instance of the laudable manner in which the narrative is bolstered out by imaginary circumstances, occurs where Mr. Godwin treats of Chaucer's confinement in the Tower. The biographer is not satisfied with putting the bard into a dungeon; farther severities are conjured up against him; his apartment is supposed to have been changed for a worse. It is probable that he was considered as a person of inferior consequence, and obliged to yield his apartment to some statesman of loftier title, who was a few days after conducted to the scaffold." Nay, further, it is Mr. Godwin's opinion that his friends were denied access to him, and a mouton or jail-spy quartered in his chamber; both of which suppositions afford a good sentence or two of philosophical condolence.

"It is likely that he was forbidden the visits of his friends; but by the magic power of fancy he called about him celestial visitants. It is likely that a jailor or a turnkey was planted in his apartment, under pretence of checking unlicensed attempts at correspondence or escape, but in reality serving only to exclude him from one of the best inheritances of man, the power of being alone in the silence of elemental nature, and with his own thoughts. Chaucer, however, assisted by the workings of his mind, instead of seeing continually the base groom who attended him, saw only the gods who protected and cheered him in his cell."-Vol. ii, p.

477.

It is needless to examine what foundation exists for such vague suppositions, when we know that Chaucer was so much master of his time and thoughts during his confinement as to compose his Testament of Love. His biographer might with equal plausibility have grafted upon his story a supposed attempt to escape, and given us a Newgate calendar chapter from the horrors of Caleb Williams, or the languors of St. Leon. These assertions rest entirely upon the gratis dictum of Mr. Godwin, and, with a thousand others, are only introduced with an "it is possible," or "it is probable," or indeed the bare conjunction if, which,

having been long renowned for a peace-maker, will doubtless in future be allowed equal virtue in compilation. But we are deeply interested, for our own sake, as well as that of the public, in entering our protest against this mode of book-making. If a biographer be at liberty to introduce into his story a full account of every contemporary subject of disquisition, however little connected with his hero, and can assume the further right of connecting his hero, by virtue of a gratuitous supposition, with whatever scenes he may take a fancy to describe, it is obvious, that unless the author's mercy temper his strength, the rights of the courteous reader are in no small peril. To what length Mr. Godwin might have extended his history, not so much of what Chaucer did actually do, as of what he and all his contemporaries might, could, would, or should have done, cannot now be exactly ascertained. He informs us in his Preface, that after writing about a thousand quarto pages, it was altogether uncertain when he might have drawn to a close. But there exists a superior power, to which even authors must "vail the honoured head," and, fortunately for the Reviewers, Ecce Deus ex Machina!

"If I, enamoured of my subject, might have thought no number of pages, or of volumes, too much for its development, it was by no means impossible that purchasers and readers would think otherwise. My bookseller, who is professionally conversant with matters of this sort, assured me, that two volumes in quarto were as much as the public would allow the title of my book to authorize. It would be in vain to produce a work, whatever information it might comprise, which no one will purchase or read: I have therefore submitted to his decision."

Upon perusing this sentence, the cold drops stood upon our brow at contemplating the peril which we had escaped; and while we lauded the gods for Mr. Phillips' tardy interference in our behalf, we marvelled not a little at the good man's easy faith, which had so long deferred it.

From these remarks upon the general structure of the work, we may now descend to view the execution of the plan, such as it is, beginning with what relates to Chaucer, who (pars minima sui) occupies the least share in his own memoirs. It appears to us, that, among the very few facts concerning our bard, which Mr. Godwin has given us, some are assumed without due evidence. For example, we are informed that "having passed through a certain course of educa

tion, Chaucer was removed to the University of Cambridge." The only proof which is brought of this assertion is, Chaucer's having termed himself, in the Court of Love," Philogenet of Cambridge, clerk."" But we cannot see how the acknowledged falsehood of one part of this designation can possibly prove the truth of the rest; or why Chaucer may not have invented a fictitious character to be attached to a false name. It seems to us much such an argument, as might be adduced to prove that the late Mr. Mason resided at Knightsbridge, inasmuch as that was the pretended abode of the facetious Malcolm Macgregor. In like manner, we are very willing to suppose, that the old bard was a man of a jovial and festive habit; but we would rather infer this from his writings, than from supposing that he daily consumed the whole pitcher of wine which was allowed him by the King. Indeed, from the address of the host to Chaucer, we imagine a personage of a grave and downcast appearance, very different from the idea we might form, à priori, of the jolly author of the Canterbury Tales; but it would be as ridiculous to argue from hence, that he was an enemy to mirth, as to hold that, with or without assistance, he daily discussed four bottles of wine, because he received such an allowance from the royal cellar.

The public are indebted to Mr Godwin for the recovery of Chaucer's evidence in a question about bearing arms, occurring betwixt Scrope and Grosvenor;* but the manner in which it is narrated is a good illustration of the strained inferences concerning Chaucer's temper and disposition, deduced by his biographer, from the most common and trivial

Occurences.

"Chaucer was a man of a frank and easy temper, undeformed by haughtiness and reserve, and readily entering into a certain degree of social intercourse on trivial occasions. This particular is strongly confirmed to us by the curious record of his testimony, in the cause of arms between Scrope and Grosvenor. He describes himself as walking in Friday Street, in the city of London, and observing there the arms he had seen always borne by the family of Scrope hung out as a sign. This inconsiderable circumstance immediately excites an interest in the patriarch of the English language, and English poetry. The Scropes were his friends. He accosts a stranger, whom he perceives accidentally standing

*We hold this to be the only circumstance of importance which Mr. Godwin's researches have brought to light; and so far our thanks are due to him.

by, and asks, 'What inn is that which I observe has hung out the arms of Scrope for its sign?'-'Nay,' replied the other, it is no inn, nor are these the arms of Scrope; they are the shield of a Cheshire family of the name of Grosvenor." In Chaucer, the thus addressing himself to a person unknown, is no evidence of a vulgar, indelicate, and undiscriminating mind. It shows that his was a character, not fastidious enough to refuse to interest itself in trifles, and frank, even and affable in his intercourse with mankind."-Vol. ii, p. 569.

And all this is to be inferred from a question asked at a passenger, the fruit probably of momentary curiosity. This mode of drawing characters ought to supersede that of the ingenious Frenchman, who describes them accurately from seeing the party's handwriting.

For,

While Mr. Godwin was thus poring upon a millstone, and proclaiming his discoveries to the world, we are surprised that he has omitted the famous tradition, that Chaucer, while in the Temple, was fined two shillings "for beating a Franciscan friar in Fleet-Street." (See Fuller and Speght). This circumstance, with a proper allowance of possibilities, would have gone some length in eking out a third quarto. in the first place, it is naturally connected with the history of Fleet-Street, aad Fleet-ditch, and the Fleet-Prison, and of Fleta the law-book, and of the fleet or royal navy, with some account of which (so naturally bearing upon the life of Chaucer) the reader must no doubt have been highly gratified. Secondly, the circumstance of the fine, would have happily introduced a history of the silver coinage, with an abbreviate of the Temple records, from the earliest period to the present day; and the political justice of fine and imprisonment might have been discussed in a separate chapter. Thirdly, the mention of the Franciscan would have paved the way with great propriety for a history of the mendicant orders, and have saved Mr. Godwin the trouble and disgrace of foisting it in elsewhere, upon a much more flimsy pretext. (Vol. II, p. 20). But, above all, the cause of the scuffle, and the drubbing itself, would have led to many a learned dissertation. It is probable that one or both parties were in liquor. If so, when, how, or with what liquor did they become intoxicated? Was it with wine of Ape, or of Chepe; with Malverie, or with Hippocras? Was it together, or separately? And can any light be thrown upon the combat, from the similar affray betwixt Justice Shallow when an Inn's of court man, and