That same Genoese embassy involved important consequences as regarded the fortunes of the poet. On the 8th of June, 1374, only a few months after his return, Edward conferred upon him the lucrative and distinguished office of comptroller of the customs for wool, &c. But the king had not waited until that time to show what he thought of Chaucer's conduct; he had already conferred upon him a marked testimony of his approbation; and at a time and under circumstances that make the blood stir, and the imagination busy itself in a thousand vain attempts to picture what might have been from the knowledge of what was. On St. George's day, the 23rd of April, 1374, when the king would be sitting in high and solemn festival, surrounded by all the chief nobility of the land, and when Chaucer, as one of his own squires, would, as a matter of duty and office, be in attendance on him, Edward conferred upon the poet the grant of a pitcher of wine to be supplied to him daily for life. In the very same year, and after the appointment to the customs, John of Gaunt, as if desiring to show how deeply he sympathised in the poet's prosperity, still further swelled his income by a grant of ten pounds for life. The following year, 1375, brought also its own good gifts, in the shape of two wardships, granted by Edward; from one of which Chaucer received 104_l._, equivalent, according to Godwin's estimate of the comparative value of money then and now, to about some eighteen hundred pounds of the nineteenth century. And now for some years the poet's life appears to have rolled on smoothly, usefully, happily. And although it was a condition expressly made by Edward, that the poet should keep the accounts of the comptrollership with his own hand, and not put off his duties upon a deputy (a wise provision, and fitly made by a king who knew so well how to pay for real services), it is supposed that it was during these busy years that Chaucer produced some of his best miscellaneous poems. The 'Romaunt of the Rose,' a translation from the French work that enjoyed so long a period of popularity, had probably been written long before, in the days when the poet imitated previous writers rather than drew from himself; the dates of the 'Cuckoo and the Nightingale' and some others are unknown; but the 'House of Fame,' a noble poem, and worthy of its suggestive title, bears internal evidence that it was written while its author held the office of comptroller: and some very agreeable information it gives to us of the poet's habits. Jupiter, who addresses the poet personally, tells him he is aware he attends nothing now to tidings of love, nor of nothing else--not even