'My maister Chaucer, with his fresh comédies, Is deed, allas! cheef poete of Bretayne, That somtym made ful pitous tragédies; The "fall of princes" he dide also compleyne, As he that was of making soverayne, Whom al this land of right[e] ought preferre, Sith of our langage he was the loodsterre.' The 'fall of princes' refers to the Monkes Tale, as explained in vol. iii. p. 431. He next refers to 'Troilus' as being a translation of a book 'which called is Trophe' (see vol. ii. p. liv.); and to the Translation of Boethius and the Treatise of the Astrolabe. He then mentions many of the Minor Poems (in the stanzas quoted below, p. 23), the Legend of Good Women (see vol. iii. p. xx.), and the Canterbury Tales; and concludes thus:-- 'This sayd poete, my maister, in his dayes Made and composed ful many a fresh ditee, Complaintes, balades, roundels, virelayes, Ful delectable to heren and to see; For which men shulde, of right and equitee, Sith he of English in making was the beste, Praye unto God to yeve his soule reste.' So also, in his Siege of Troye, fol. K 2:-- 'Noble Galfryde, chefe Poete of Brytayne, Among our English that caused first to rayne The golden droppes of Rethorike so fyne, Our rudë language onely t'enlumine,' &c. And again, in the same, fol. R 2, back:-- 'For he our English gilt[e] with his layes, Rude and boystous first, by oldë dayes, That was ful fer from al perfeccioun And but of lytel reputacioun, Til that he cam, and with his poetrye Gan our tungë first to magnifye, And adourne it with his eloquence'; &c. And yet again, at fol. Ee 2:-- 'And, if I shal shortly him discryve, Was never noon [un]to this day alyve, To reken all[e], bothe of yonge and olde, That worthy was his inkhorn for to holde.' Similar passages occur in some of his other works, and shew that he regarded Chaucer with affectionate reverence. Allusions in later authors have only a literary value, and need not be cited in a Life of Chaucer. * * * * * I subjoin (on p. lxii.) a List of Chaucer's genuine works, arranged, as nearly as I can conjecture, in their chronological order. Of his poetical excellence it is superfluous to speak; Lowell's essay on 'Chaucer' in My Study Windows gives a just estimate of his powers. LIST OF CHAUCER'S WORKS. The following list is arranged, _conjecturally_, in chronological order. It will be understood that much of the arrangement and some of the dates are due to guesswork; on a few points scholars are agreed. See further in pp. 20-91 below, &c. Of the Poems marked (a), there seem to have been _two_ editions, (a) being the earlier. The letters and numbers appended at the end denote the _metres_, according to the following scheme. A = octosyllabic metre; B = ballad metre, in Sir Thopas; C = 4-line stanza, in the Proverbes; P = Prose.