How the poet obtained admittance to the court we know not. In the absence of any facts tending to show that he was by birth entitled to expect as a matter of course the remarkable favour that was accorded to him, we do not see why we may not fall back upon the agreeable hypothesis that it was not social rank (though he had as much of it as was indispensable), but intellectual merit that really introduced him there. At all events such a supposition is supported in a remarkable manner by the known nature of his connexion with the man who, next to Edward and his son the Black Prince, occupied in his time the largest share of the attention of the people of England: we refer to John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, the fourth son of Edward, and of course, therefore, the brother of the prince just named. Among the poems of Chaucer there are three which have been looked upon, and no doubt correctly, as illustrating the personal history of the duke as a lover and a husband. In the first of these, 'The Complaint of the Black Knight,' the poet, in a charming passage, describes himself as walking forth on a May morning, and meeting in an arbour the Black Knight, who is bewailing the cruelty of his mistress. It is worthy of observation, that the poem shows how much better the poet felt what did concern him, the beauty of the time and season, than what did not touch very deeply his sympathies, the love-distresses of his friend and patron John of Gaunt. The second work of the series, 'Chaucer's Dream,' shows that the lady's obduracy was, as usual, more apparent than real. The royal lover has married the lady of his heart, Blanche, daughter of the Duke of Lancaster. The third poem, the 'Book of the Duchess,' records the premature death of Blanche in 1369, and the profound grief of her husband. The historical facts relating to John of Gaunt, "time-honoured Lancaster," harmonize so completely with the poetical ones contained in this trio of poems, that there can be no reasonable doubt as to the scope and origin of the latter. And this conviction is of greater value than may be at first apparent. The 'Complaint of the Black Knight,' referring to the duke's courtship, and 'Chaucer's Dream,' referring to the duke's marriage, must have been written--the one a little before and the other a little after that marriage, which took place at Reading, in May, 1359, and was solemnized with great splendour. Knowing then the period and the circumstances of the production of these poems, we shall find, on looking at the one named 'Chaucer's Dream,' that we also know the essential history of the poet's own courtship and marriage. In the other two poems he is thinking chiefly of his friend and patron; in this one he makes all turn toward the expression of his own heartfelt wishes. In the 'Dream' he imagines himself in a lodge, beside a well in the forest, reposing after the fatigues of a hunt. The difficulties