to a pure skeleton, and has no objection to take away even a bone or two from that. Chaucer then was born in 1328, in London; and there doubtless he spent his earliest years, until, as he says, he was "forth-grown." Of his parents we know nothing direct. A long list of persons has been collected, who during the period in question bore the name of Chaucer, which was derived from the old Norman word Chaucier or Chaussier, signifying a shoemaker; and used in that sense during the poet's life by Richard of Hampole, a hermit, who translated the Gospel of St. Mark, and died in 1394. The passage, "There cometh one mightier than I after me, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose," is thus rendered by Richard: "A stalworthier man than I shall come after me, of whom I am not worthy, downfalling or kneeling, to loose the thong of his chawcers." But that the poet's parents were certainly persons of wealth, probably also of consideration, may be assumed from the excellence of the education given to their son, and from the ready access which he found, on entering into public life, to the very person and favour of the sovereign. Chaucer, in a word, was born a gentleman; and the fact is of importance, not only for the incalculable benefit that it involved through the instrumentality of that education, but as showing us still more plainly than otherwise could have been shown the true nobility of the poet's mind. It is Chaucer who tells us, in the 'Wife of Bath's' tale, that he who ever intendeth to perform all kinds of gentle deeds is the greatest gentleman, and that he who will perform none of them-- "He is not gentle, be he duke or earl;" and that the poet here speaks his own sentiments, while relating the sentiments of the knight's apparently aged and hideous bride, is clear from his ballad on the same subject, where it is inculcated that unless a man love virtue and fly vice, "He is not gentle, though he riche seem, All wear he mitre, crown, or diademe."