Where Chaucer went to school is not known, but that he made good use of his time there, his after-work plainly shows; and we know from it, too, that he must have spent many a pleasant holiday hour-the winter evenings, perhaps, in Bow Lane, or long summer days in the fields around London-in reading the old poetical romances mentioned in the last chapter. While he was yet young, he began to translate one of these, called the "Roman de la Rose," from the French into English; but he did not finish the translation, for he soon found that he was himself a poet, and that he must put his own thought and feeling into English verse.

So Chaucer wrote poetry, sometimes taking an old story or legend which he had met with in his reading, but giving his own version of it, and telling it so as to carry some of his own sound sense of what was true and right, and his own trust and hope, into the minds of others. The French writers loved the rose of the garden, and made it the emblem of the beauty and splendour of a stately, high-born lady; but as soon as Chaucer began to write poetry, he chose for his favourite flower the little English daisy, with its pure white frill and shining gold within, growing anywhere yet looking always up to heaven, and giving joy to rich or poor, the old man, or the little child; and he made it speak of the truth and purity of all good women. He tells us how, when the month of May was come and the birds sang sweetly all day long, he would leave his books, which he loved so well, and go forth into the fields to see the newly-opened flowers; but he says―

"Of all the flowrès in the mead

Then love I most these flowrès white and red,
Such as men callen daisies in their town.

To them have I so great affection,

As I said erst, when comen is the May,
That in my bed there dawneth me no day,
But I am up and walking in the mead,
To see this flower again the sunné spread,

When it upriseth early by the morrow,

That blissful sight softeneth all my sorrow;
So glad am I, when that I have presénce

Of it, to do it allé reverence,

As she that is of allé flowrés flower,
Fulfilled of all virtue and honour,

And ever alike fair and fresh of hue;
And I love it, and ever alike new,

And ever shall till that my hearté die."

And not only did the little daisy live in Chaucer's heart until he died, but he loved, too, through all the years of his long life, the merry May-time, the green fields, the hawthorn hedges white with bloom, the singing of the little birds-all that freshness and gladness which make us rejoice in the spring sunshine, and feel how beautiful God's world is, and what a blessed thing it is to live in it. Chaucer was still a young poet when he left home to go to Court, as attendant upon the young Princes Lionel and John of Gaunt, sons of Edward III. During the year 1358, John of Gaunt-not then "time-honoured Lancaster," but a fine young prince of eighteen-was seeking for his wife the Lady Blanche, daughter of Henry, Duke of Lancaster; and it was probably at this time, before the Lady Blanche had quite made up her mind whether she would marry Prince John or no, that Chaucer wrote a poem, called "The Assembly of Foules" (a foule meaning, at that time, any bird). In this poem, Chaucer imagined that on Valentine's Day Dame Nature called before her all the birds of the air to choose their mates. On her own hand Nature carried her favourite, the most beautiful of them all. This was a female eagle (the Lady Blanche). The cagles, as royal birds, were to choose their mates first; and the finest of them all (Prince John) immediately chose the beautiful bird on Nature's hand. But two other eagles had also fixed on her, and great disputing arose among the birds as to which should have her. At

last it was left to her to decide; and then Nature strongly advised her to favour the suit of the fine young eagle who had spoken first, saying all sorts of things in his praise, as that he was the wisest, the worthiest, and true as steel; but the lady eagle declared that she could not make up her mind at once, and must wait a year.

The next year the Lady Blanche became the wife of John of Gaunt, both of them being then nineteen. They were married in May, and in October Chaucer joined the army which Edward III. led into France, when the French did not pay the ransom he demanded for their King John. Here Chaucer was taken prisoner, but was soon released by the Peace of Bretigni.

Little is known of the next seven years of Chaucer's life; but he seems to have been still engaged in the service of the king or princes, and it was at Court that he became acquainted with Philippa de Rouet, a young lady-in-waiting on Queen Philippa. Chaucer loved this young lady; and it was for her, probably, that he wrote a poem, full of graceful fancies and fairy story, that he called his "Dream." Her sister was a young widow named Catherine Swynford, and she was governess to John of Gaunt's children. After Chaucer and Philippa de Rouet were married, they were both employed in the household of John of Gaunt. In 1369 the Duchess Blanche died, and Chaucer wrote a poem of mourning for her death, called the "Book of the Duchess." In it he speaks of her constant truth and sweetness, and expresses for her husband his great sorrow and loss.

In 1372 Chaucer was sent to Italy to try and arrange with the Duke of Genoa for the choice of some port in England, to which goods might be sent from Italy for sale to English merchants. This visit to Italy was, no doubt, for Chaucer the realisation of one of the bright dreams of his life; and it certainly remained for ever in his memory

as a vivid impression which could not fade away, for Italy was at that time the very home of literature, and especially of poetry. Three of the great poets of the world had scarcely ended their singing when Chaucer went to Italy, and two of them were still living. Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio.

These three poets were

Dante had died about fifty years before, but his influence was still felt. He was a man of deep religious earnestness, always living as in the presence of God; yet his heart was saddened by the sight of the angry strife of parties in his country, and by the corruptions and quarrels among Christians; and he ardently desired to see Italy united as one nation, and Christians living as one flock. His great poem was a religious Allegory in three books. The first is an imaginary visit to Hell, to show the misery of sin; the second to Purgatory, to show the power of repentance and possibility of purification; the third to Paradise, to see the blessedness of the righteous. His guide in Paradise is Beatrice, whom he had known on earth from the time when she was a little child, and who all her life through had always appeared to him the perfect ideal of sweetness and goodness; and now he sees her in heaven as the very personification of heavenly love.

Petrarch was living when Chaucer was in Italy. His most celebrated poems are his sonnets addressed to a lady named Laura, whom he chose, after the fashion of the time, to be the heroine of his verses. When Chaucer saw him, he was writing a story, which he related to him, and which we shall also hear told by-and-by.

The third great Italian poet, Boccaccio, was living at Venice at that time, and Chaucer might have seen him too. He wrote stories in poetry; but his chief work was in prose. It was called the "Decameron." This was a collection of a hundred tales, such as had long been told through Italy and other countries, but which Boccaccio now gathered

together into one book. In order to introduce these stories, he supposed that, during the time of the plague in Florence, seven ladies and three gentlemen left the city to take care of itself, and took care of themselves by shutting themselves up in a country house, to which no one was allowed to come for fear of infection. As they sat out of doors under the trees in the garden, they told one another these stories in order to pass the time.

Chaucer had read some of the works of these poets before; but there is no doubt that his visit to Italy made him much better acquainted with Italian literature, for foreign books, and indeed all books, were rare in England at that time, when each copy had to be written with pen and ink. Italian literature was expressed with more skill and better art than any other at that time, and after Chaucer's return from Italy he shows a greater power of expression in his own works. The influence of the Italian poets is also seen in the choice of subjects for his later poems, as well as in many of the ideas contained in them, but the substance is his own; and it is not the Italian poets who are speaking in his verse, but the English poet Chaucer himself, with his love for truth and right, his trust in God, his kind thoughts about his fellow-men, and, as the ever-constant fruit of these, his abiding cheerfulness and hope.

Two of the poems which he wrote after his return from Italy were "The House of Fame," and "The Legend of Good Women." The influence of Dante is shown in the first of these. It is a dream in which the poet sees the House of Fame on a rock of ice. Many names have been cut there, but most of these are already melted, or melting away. Some, however, of the oldest remain still clear and legible. A crowd of persons was pressing into the house seeking fame; but Chaucer himself would not ask for it, content with the giving to his work his best thought and