Life of Geoffrey Chaucer Author:William Godwin Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAP. XIX. CHAUCER ENTERS INTO THE SERVICE OF EDWARD III.—MOTIVES OF HIS PREFERMENT. — RESIDES NEAR THE PALACE AT WOODSTOCK.—CHARAC- TER OF THE ENGLISH COURT ... more »IN THE YEAR 1358. —BATTLE OF POITIERS. JrilTHERTO Chaucer has appeared only Chap. as a private individual, and the anecdotes of .... his life are scanty. We are left to reasoning 1S58' and inference, as to the places of his education, and the functions to which he was destined. We are now to see him in a different light. From the thirtieth year of his age, if not sooner, to his death, he was a courtier, the counsellor of princes, employed in various negociations and embassies, and involved in the factions, contentions and intrigues of his time. Chap. Those persons seem to have considered ithe question very superficially, who have j'of been willing to seek in some other principle prom"'' than in his literature, for the cause of the attention which Chaucer experienced in the family of his sovereign. He was employed in various negociations. In like manner, Prior was a negociator, and Addison was a minister; yet they were indebted for their political fortune to their literary performances. Respect But the times of Prior and Addison will paid to genius and afford a very faint image of the attention literature in the early wifa which literature was treated in the courts ages of Europe. of princes at the period we are considering. In later ages literature has been so diffused as to lose its rareness ; and it is well known that rareness is the great recommender of every object among the wealthy and luxurious. A munificent prince in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, might open his hand, and become the patron of almost every scholar and man of genius throughout his dominions. Now talents ar...« less