Chaucer | Page 3

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From: ENGLISH MEN OF LETTERS
CHAUCER
BY ADOLPHUS WILLIAM WARD

NOTE.
The peculiar conditions of this essay must be left to explain themselves. It could not have been written at all without the aid of the Publications of the Chaucer Society, and more especially of the labours of the Society's Director, Mr. Furnivall. To other recent writers on Chaucer-- including Mr Fleay, from whom I never differ but with hesitation--I have referred, in so far as it was in my power to do so. Perhaps I may take this opportunity of expressing a wish that Pauli's "History of England," a work beyond the compliment of an acknowledgement, were accessible to every English reader.
A.W.W.

CONTENTS.
CHAPTER 1.
CHAUCER'S TIMES.
CHAPTER 2.
CHAUCER'S LIFE AND WORKS.
CHAPTER 3.
CHARACTERISTICS OF CHAUCER AND OF HIS POETRY.
CHAPTER 4.
EPILOGUE.
GLOSSARY.
INDEX.

CHAUCER.
CHAPTER 1.
CHAUCER'S TIMES.
The biography of Geoffrey Chaucer is no longer a mixture of unsifted facts, and of more or less hazardous conjectures. Many and wide as are the gaps in our knowledge concerning the course of his outer life, and doubtful as many important passages of it remain--in vexatious contrast with the certainty of other relatively insignificant data--we have at least become aware of the foundations on which alone a trustworthy account of it can be built. These foundations consist partly of a meagre though gradually increasing array of external evidence, chiefly to be found in public documents,--in the Royal Wardrobe Book, the Issue Rolls of the Exchequer, the Customs Rolls, and