[1] After Godwin had sent to press his biography of Chaucer, a deposition on the poet's age in the Herald's College detected the whole erroneous arrangement: as the edifice so ingeniously constructed had fallen on the aërial architect, he alleged truly that the deposition "contradicted the received accounts of all the biographers;" in fact, they had repeated original misstatements. The appendix, therefore, to the history of this modern biographer stands as a perpetual witness against its authenticity;--there are some histories to which an appendix might prove to be as fatal. In this dilemma, our bold sophist was "absurd and uncharitable enough" to add one more conjecture to his "Life of Chaucer,"--that "the poet, from a motive of vanity, had been induced _to state on oath_ that he was about forty when, in truth, he was fifty-eight!"--Hippisley's "Chapters on Early English Literature," 85. [2] It has been alleged by more than one writer, that this mysterious affair relates to the election for the mayoralty of John of Northampton, a Wickliffite and a Lancastrian. But Mr. Turner, whose researches are on a more extended scale than any of his predecessors, truly observes that--"There are other periods besides the one usually selected to which the personal evils which Chaucer complains of are applicable."--"Hist. of England," v. 296. It is as likely to have occurred when Nicholas Brambre, a confidential partisan of government in the City, appointed to the mayoralty by his party, caught "the Freemen" by ambushes of armed men, and turned the Guildhall into a fortress. At such a time "Free Elections" might have been considered by Chaucer as something "noble and glorious for all the people." [3] Dreams. [4] Better. [5] Autobiography of an Opium-Eater.--"Tait's Mag." August, 1835. [6] Coleridge's "Table-Talk." [7] So unskilful or so incurious was Warburton in the language of our ancient poets, that in his notes on Pope he quotes the following lines of Chaucer-- "Love wol not be _constreined_ by maistrie. Whan maistrie cometh, the _God_ of love anon _Beteth_ his wings, and _farewel_, he is gon"-- from Urry's edition, in which they appear thus transformed and corrupted: Love will not be _confined_ by maisterie. When maisterie comes, the _Lord_ of love anon _Flutters_ his wings, and _forthwith_ is he gone. [An excellent example of the superior vigour of Chaucer may be seen in an original passage of his "Palamon and Arcite," contrasted with Dryden's tamer modernization of the same, in "Curiosities of Literature," vol. ii. p. 107.--ED.]