AUTHORITIES. Chaucer's own works, especially the Canterbury Tales; publications of the Chaucer Society; Pauli's History of England; ordinary Histories of England which relate to the reigns of Edward III. and Richard II., especially Green's History of the English People; Life of Chaucer, by William Godwin (4 volumes, London, 1804); Tyrwhitt's edition of Canterbury Tales; Speglet's edition of Chaucer; Warton's History of English Poetry; St. Palaye's History of Chivalry; Chaucer's England, by Matthew Browne (London, 1869); Sir Harris Nicholas's Life of Chaucer; The Riches of Chaucer, by Charles Cowden Clarke; Morley's Life of Chaucer. The latest work is a Life and Criticism of Chaucer, by Adolphus William Ward. There is also a Guide to Chaucer, by H.G. Fleary. See also Skeat's collected edition of Chaucer's Works, brought out under the auspices of the Early English Text Society. CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. * * * * * A. D. 1446-1506. MARITIME DISCOVERIES. About thirteen hundred years ago, when Attila the Hun, called "the scourge of God," was overrunning the falling empire of the Romans, some of the noblest citizens of the small cities of the Adriatic fled, with their families and effects, to the inaccessible marshes and islands at the extremity of that sea, and formed a permanent settlement. They became fishermen and small traders. In process of time they united their islands together by bridges, and laid the foundation of a mercantile state. Thither resorted the merchants of Mediaeval Europe to make exchanges. Thus Venice became rich and powerful, and in the twelfth century it was one of the prosperous states of Europe, ruled by an oligarchy of the leading merchants.