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The best means of gaining a knowledge of Chaucer's character and personal appearance is to read his writings, and this is in fact the only way now open to us. In his "Life Records of Chaucer," Part II., published by the Chaucer Society in 1876, Mr. Furnivall quotes two descriptions of the poet in his old age, written in the sixteenth century. One, which is rather too completely a work of the imagination, exhibits "wittie Chaucer," sitting "in a chaire of gold covered with roses, writing prose and risme, accompanied by the spirites of many kinges, knyghtes, and faire ladies, whom he pleasantly besprinkled with the sweete water of the welle consecrated unto the muses." The other is more matter of fact, though probably incorrect in its details.

"His stature was not very tall;

Leane he was; and his legs were small,
Hos'd within a stock of red;

A button'd bonnet on his head,

From under which did hang, I weene,
Silver haires both bright and sheene.
His beard was white, trimmed round;
His countenance blithe and merry found.
A sleevelesse jacket, large and wide,
With many pleights and skirtes side,
Of water chamlet did he weare:
A whittell by his belt he beare.

His shooes were corned broad before;
His inckhorne at his side he wore,
And in his hand he bore a booke:

Thus did the auntient Poet looke."

From this we turn to the Canterbury Tales, and find, in the conversation introductory to the Ryme of Sir Thopas, the following lines :—

"Oure Hoost japen tho bigan,

And thanne at erst he looked up-on me,

And seyde thus: 'What man artow?' quod he;
'Thou lookest as thou woldest fynde an hare,
For evere up-on the ground I se thee stare.
Approche neer, and looke up murily.

Now war you, sires, and lat this man have place;
He in the waast is shape as wel as I ;
This were a popet in an arm tenbrace,
For any womman smal and fair of face.
He semeth elvyssh by his contenaunce,
For un-to no wight dooth he daliaunce." "

The impression conveyed by this description is that the poet was somewhat corpulent, with a small and intelligent face, and a meditative look, and that he was reserved before strangers. No testimony except his works is needed to prove that he was a severe student, and we can readily believe that the traits which he assigns himself in the "House of Fame" were in reality his own. There we are informed that

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he was no meddler in the affairs of his neighbors, and that when he had finished his daily labors at the customs office, instead of taking rest, or searching for news, he went to his house to sit like a hermit over a new book, dumb as a stone, till his eyes were dazed, though he was no enemy to the pleasures of the table.

In estimating the genius of Chaucer it has been too much the mode to consider him as simply the poet of the Canterbury pilgrimage, and to delineate him as ever tripping through flowery meads, or, if resting, luxuriating in the shade of some flower-embosomed arbor, always enjoying holiday and singing with the thoughtlessness of his own nightingales. A careful study of his life and of all that he wrote shows him to have been a far different character. Joyous he was, and full of lightsomeness, and he often overflowed with wit and humor and good-fellowship, but these traits are by no means inconsistent with the earnestness and other more serious characteristics which mark and distinguish the typical Englishman, are they not rather essential to it?

Chaucer's was a well-balanced nature. His acquirements and accomplishments were multi

form. He was, first of all, a gentleman and in sympathy with all that belonged to the best life of the upper classes in England in his day. He was a courtier, thoroughly educated in every department of court service, from the humble duties of page to the weighty responsibilities and delicate offices of the foreign ambassador. He was a man of affairs, able to negotiate at Genoa for the extension of British trade, or to look out for violators of, the revenue laws in the busy city of London. His practical knowledge enabled him to superintend the king's works when that service involved repairing the palace of Westminster, or simply building a scaffolding from which a royal party might view the jousts. He could negotiate with a foreign power for peace, or urge his sovereign's claim to the hand of a French princess; he was equally at home in an interview with a Petrarch, or in studying an innkeeper from whom he might draw the jolly host of the Tabard. The most tedious dissertations on penance did not daunt him when he wished to prepare a sermon with which his poor Parson should close the series of the Pilgrims' tales. He could dwell day after day upon the discussions of a Boethius in search of

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the consolations of Philosophy; and he evidently spared no pains to make himself familiar with the words and doctrines of the Vulgate Bible. He knew all the intricacies of the arts of the astrologers, physicians, alchemists, and guileful men of religion, and he estimated each at its true value. He knew the literature of Rome, of Italy, and of France, and had read much of it in the original languages; above all, he knew the English people, their language and books, - knew just how to paint their peculiar traits and life, and how to fuse the composite elements of their speech into one language which should thenceforth be accepted as the national tongue.

Chaucer's life was one of hard work, and it was his thoroughness that enabled him to produce so much that is permanent. His literary and public life were kept almost entirely distinct, and it is but glimpses of his own doings and of the more private affairs about him that we find in his writings. He suffers not his pen to dwell upon the subjects which the author of Piers the Plowman so diligently elaborated, the sufferings of the people, "progress," "reform," are utterly ignored by him ; nor does he permit himself to treat of the stir