ed the "Decameron" which
suggested the very form of the "Canterbury Tales," the earliest of which,
such as those of the Doctor, the Man of Law, the Clerk, the Prioress, the
Franklin, and the Squire, may probably be referred like the Parliament of
Foules and the House of Fame to this time of Chaucer's life. But even while
changing, as it were, the front of English poetry Chaucer preserves his own
distinct personality. If he quizzes in the rime of Sir Thopaz the wearisome
idleness of the French romance he retains all that was worth retaining of
the French temper, its rapidity and agility of movement, its lightness and
brilliancy of touch, its airy mockery, its gaiety and good humour, its
critical coolness and self-control. The French wit quickens in him more
than in any English writer the sturdy sense and shrewdness of our national
disposition, corrects its extravagance, and relieves its somewhat ponderous
morality. If on the other hand he echoes the joyous carelessness of the
Italian tale, he tempers it with the English seriousness. As he follows
Boccaccio all his changes are on the side of purity; and when the Troilus
of the Florentine ends with the old sneer at the changeableness of woman
Chaucer bids us "look Godward," and dwells on the unchangeableness of
Heaven.

[Sidenote: The Canterbury Tales]

The genius of Chaucer however was neither French nor Italian, whatever
element it might borrow from either literature, but English to the core;
and from the year 1384 all trace of foreign influence dies away. Chaucer
had now reached the climax of his poetic power. He was a busy, practical
worker, Comptroller of the Customs in 1374, of the Petty Customs in 1382, a
member of the Commons in the Parliament of 1386. The fall of the Duke of
Lancaster from power may have deprived him of employment for a time, but
from 1389 to 1391 he was Clerk of the Royal Works, busy with repairs and
building at Westminster, Windsor, and the Tower. His air indeed was that of
a student rather than of a man of the world. A single portrait has
preserved for us his forked beard, his dark-coloured dress, the knife and
pen-case at his girdle, and we may supplement this portrait by a few vivid
touches of his own. The sly, elvish face, the quick walk, the plump figure
and portly waist were those of a genial and humorous man; but men jested at
his silence, his abstraction, his love of study. "Thou lookest as thou
wouldest find an hare," laughs the host,