There were several English translations, and one of them was the work of our young "Valettus camerae regis." This translation by Chaucer is lost,[463] but we are aware not only that it existed, but even that it was celebrated; its merit was known in France, and Des Champs, in sending his works to Chaucer,[464] congratulates him, above all things, on having "planted the rose-tree" in "the isle of giants," the "angelic land," "Angleterre," and on being there the god of worldly loves: Tu es d'amours mondains dieux on Albie Et de la Rose en la terre Angelique ... En bon angles le livre translatas. This authority in matters of love which Des Champs ascribes to his English brother-author, is real. Chaucer composed then a quantity of amorous poems, in the French style, for himself, for others, to while away the time, to allay his sorrows. Of them said Gower: The lande fulfylled is over all. Most of them are lost; but we know, from contemporaneous allusions, that they swarmed, and from himself that he wrote "many an ympne" to the God of love, "balades, roundels, virelayes," bokes, songes, dytees, In ryme, or elles in cadence, each and all "in reverence of Love."[465] A few poems, however, of that early period, have reached us. They are, amongst others, his "Compleynte unto Pite"-- Pite, that I have sought so yore ago With herte sore, and ful of besy peyne ... --a rough sketch of a subject that Sidney was to take up later and bring to perfection, and his "Book of the Duchesse," composed on the occasion of the death of Blanche of Lancaster, wife of John of Gaunt. The occasion is sad, but the setting is exquisite, for Chaucer wishes to raise to the Duchess who has disappeared a lasting monument, that shall prolong her memory, an elegant one, graceful as herself, where her portrait, traced by a friendly hand, shall recall the charms of a beauty that each morning renewed. So lovable was she, and so full of accomplishment, That she was lyk to torche bright, That every man may take of light Ynogh, and hit hath never the lesse.[466] Already the descriptions have a freshness that no contemporaries equal, and show a care for truth and a gift of observation not often found in the innumerable poems in dream-form left to us by the writers of the fourteenth century. Tormented by his thoughts and deprived of sleep, the poet has a book brought to him to while away the hours of night, one of those books that he loved all his life, where "clerkes hadde in olde tyme" rhymed stories of long ago. The tale, "a wonder thing" though it was, puts him to sleep, and it seems to him that it is morning. The sun rises in a pure sky; the birds sing on the tiled roof, the light floods the room, which is all painted according to the taste of the Plantagenets. On the walls is represented "al the Romaunce of the Rose"; the window-glass offers to view the history of Troy; coloured rays fall on the bed; outside,