IT has been too unkindly said of Chaucer’s prose, that it is valuable chiefly because it is Chaucer’s. The same critics who say this assert that he is indebted to other writers whom he translates or paraphrases for the wisdom of “The Tale of Melibeus,” from which the essay “On Getting and Using Riches” is extracted. It must be remembered, however, that paraphrasing and imitating were esteemed cardinal literary virtues in the time of Chaucer, as they were in the Augustan age at Rome. But even if his prose is denied all claim to originality, it is still the best prose English of its age, and some knowledge of it is necessary for all who wish to understand the growth of the English language and its literature.

  Chaucer’s birthplace is not known, nor is the exact year of his birth; but London claims him, and the weight of authority puts the date of his birth at about 1340. The year of Dante’s death was 1321, so that Chaucer was almost his contemporary, as he was actually the contemporary of Petrarch whom, it is said, he met when he went to Italy in 1372 on a diplomatic mission for the king of England. From the great masters of the Italian revival of learning, he caught the spirit and learned the art which made him the “Father of English Poetry.” He was the son of a London vintner and very little is known of his early years. He was a soldier under Edward III. in France, and when the French captured him the king paid £16 for his ransom. This was in 1360 and he was in favor at court under Edward and under Richard II., both of whom employed him in the diplomatic service. He became comptroller of customs for the port of London about the year 1374, and in 1386 he was chosen to Parliament as a knight of the shire from Kent. He was pensioned by Henry IV., who came to the throne in 1399—a year before Chaucer’s death, the date of which is established by his epitaph as October 25th, 1400. These facts sufficiently indicate that he was a court favorite and his language is far from being the English vernacular of his day. It is English, however, and not French, for during his lifetime (1362) the court gave up the attempt to establish French as legally the language of England and restored to the law courts the Saxon dialect of the common people. Chaucer’s English has a Saxon base; but, in addition to Norman French and Latin derivatives, he uses many direct coinages from the Italian, few of which took root in the language.