7. That country people, (uplandish men) imitated the practice of the polite, and learnt French, as many do now, _to be told of_. 8. That Cornwail and others, in Trevisa's time, had begun to reform this practice. 9. That French had almost banished the native Saxon from the polite part of the nation, and that the _uplandish_ or western people alone retained it uncorrupted. 10. That the kings of England resided principally in the southern parts of the kingdom, where the land was most fertile, best cultivated, most populous, and most advantageous for commerce. [D], page 59. Chaucer's particular patron was John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. He married Philippa, the sister of Lady Swinford, who before her marriage and after her husband's death, was one of the Duke's family. "Grete well _Chaucer_ when you mete-- Of dittees and of songes glade, The which he----made The londe fulfilled is over all." Gower. Gower is said to have been Chaucer's preceptor. "My maister _Chaucer_--chiefe poet of Bretayne Whom all this lond should of right preferre, Sith of our language he was _the lode starre_, That made first to dystylle and rayne The gold dew dropys of speche and eloquence Into our tungue through his excellence." Lydgate. Chaucer's merit in improving the English language is celebrated by other poets of his time--Occleve, Douglas and Dunbar. They call him the _floure of eloquence_, the _fader in science_, and the _firste fynder of our fayre langage_. He died in 1400. It must however be remarked that Chaucer did not import foreign words, so much as introduce them into books and give them currency in writing. It must further be observed that when I speak of the incorporation of Latin words with the English, I would not be understood to mean that words were taken directly from the Roman tongue and anglicised. On the other hand, they mostly came thro the channel of the Norman or Provençal French; and perhaps we may call them with propriety _French_ words; for they had lost much of their Roman form among the Gauls, Franks and Normans. The most correct account I have seen of the state of the language in the 11th, 12th, 13th and 14th centuries, is in the first volume of Bell's edition of Chaucer. We have the authority of Ingulphus, a historian of credit, for alleging that the French began to be fashionable in England, before the conquest. Edward the Confessor resided many years in Normandy, and imbibed a predilection for the French manners and language. On his accession to the throne of England, in 1043, he promoted many of his Norman favorites to the first dignities in the kingdom; under the influence of the king and his friends, the English began to imitate the French fashions.