His generosity on this occasion, added to the perfidy of his friends in England, who, deserting him, withheld fresh supplies, soon exhausted his resources, and he was forced to return to England, after an absence of about two years. He was scarcely arrived, when he was arrested, and committed prisoner, as is supposed, to the Tower.

During his imprisonment, he was, deprived of both his offices of comptroller of the customs in the port of London, and of comptroller of the small customs. He even appears to have suffered great pecuniary distress at this time: for he obtained, in 1388, a patent permitting him to resign the two pensions of twenty marks each, being all that now remained to him of the bounty of the crown, and which he pro bably exchanged for money to supply his urgent wants.

Chaucer was set at liberty in 1389, probably through the interposition of the queen; though on conditions, the acceptance of which has fixed the principal stain upon his character. As the price of his enlargement, he was required to make an ample confession of what were called his misdemeanors, and to impeach his former associates. To this proposal he con

sented, and as he says himself, in his "Testä ment of Love," offered to prove the truth of his information, according to the custom of the times, by entering the lists with the parties accused. It is but just to acknowledge, that his conduct in this affair, though far from honourable, will nevertheless admit of considerable extenuation. It should be recollected that his former friends, by embezzling his income, and cutting off his resources when abroad, had plotted to starve him. He was not influenced, therefore, simply by the overtures of the court, but stimulated by a natural resentment against treatment thus inhuman. Still the information in question brought upon him a load of ill will, and the charge of being false, lying, base, and ungrateful.

The same year, he received the appointment of clerk of the king's works, in lieu of that of comptroller of the duties of customs. This office related to the erection, repair, and embellishment of the king's mansions, parks, and domains; and among our national records is still to be seen a commission addressed to him, of the date of the 12th of July, 1390, for work to be done at St. George's chapel, in the castle of Windsor. The salary attached to this

employment, was 2s. per day, or 361. 10s. per annum ; in modern money 6571.

At the age of 63, he resigned his office of clerk of the works, after having enjoyed it about twenty months, and retired to a private station, (probably to his house at Woodstock,) as in the conclusions of the Astrolabie, in which there is the date of the 12th of March, 1391, he says, "sufficient for our orizont compounded after the latitude of Oxenford."

After he had been engaged about a twelvemonth in the composition of his Canterbury Tales, he found himself under the necessity, in 1394, of applying to the crown for some increase of resources; and was granted a pension of 201. (in modern money 3601.) per annum, for the remainder of his life. Two years after, John of Gaunt publicly espoused Catherine, lady Swinford, the sister of Chaucer's wife, with whom he had cohabited twenty years. Chaucer thus became connected in family with his illustrious friend and patron, who purchased and bestowed upon him the estate of Donnington castle, near Newbury, in the county of Berks.

After seven years' retirement, we find him again engaged in public affairs; though the

precise nature of his office we are left to conjecture from the description of "a great variety of arduous and urgent political transactions, to be performed and expedited by Chaucer, as well in presence as absence of the king, in various parts of the realm." It seems, that in the execution of this office, he was liable to be disquieted, molested, or impeded by certain persons his competitors, and vexed with suits, complaints, and hostility;" and to prevent which, a patent of protection was granted him, in 1398, by Richard II.

In the autumn of the same year, he received . a grant of a tun of wine yearly, to be delivered to him by the king's chief butler, in the port of London. At this time, he had probably retired again to Donnington castle.

On the usurpation of Henry of Bolingbroke, by the title of Henry IV. Chaucer had his former grants confirmed to him, and also obtained an additional grant of 40 marks per annum; also, his son Thomas was made chief butler to the household, and speaker of the house of commons. In the last year of his life he came to London, where he died the 25th of Oct. 1400.

Chaucer's fame with posterity rests securely

on the merit of his poetical compositions. His prose productions are neither numerous, nor of much importance.

The Testament of Love, his longest work, was written while he was prisoner in the Tower, after he had delivered in his confession, and before he was liberated; or about the month of June, 1389. His chief design in this work, was to remove the odium, not to say calumnies, cast upon his character by his desertion and impeachment of his former associates. In his youth, he had translated Boethius De Consolatione Philosophie, a work which had been composed by the author, while he also was state prisoner, under the reign of Theodoric, king of the Goths. There was some resemblance in the fate of Chaucer, to that of the illustrious Roman-a resemblance which he seems to have contemplated with a gloomy satisfaction.

The work is divided into three books, and is conceived in allegory. It consists principally of a dialogue between the Prisoner and Love, who visits him in his cell, as Philosophy visited the prison of Boethius, and is chiefly interesting, as we are enabled to trace in it the anxious workings of the author's feelings in re