even into many political secrets, and found opportunities of studying the human type in numerous individuals and according to the varieties developed by rank in life, education, age, and sex. ... Nothing has been preserved from his early writings. ... The fact is very remarkable that from the first, or at least from a very early period, Chaucer wrote in the English language--however natural this may seem to succeeding ages in 'The Father of English Poetry.' The court of Edward III. favored the language as well as the literature of France; a considerable number of French poets and 'menestrels' were in the service and pay of the English king. {814} Queen Philippa, in particular, showing herself in this a true daughter of her native Hainault, formed the centre of a society cultivating the French language and poetry. She had in her personal service Jean Froissart, one of the most eminent representatives of that language and poetry; like herself he belonged to one of the most northern districts of the French-speaking territory; he had made himself a great name, as a prolific and clever writer of erotic and allegoric trifles, before he sketched out in his famous chronicle the motley-colored, vivid picture of that eventful age. We also see in this period young Englishmen of rank and education trying their flight on the French Parnassus. ... To these Anglo-French poets there belonged also a Kentishman of noble family, named John Gower. Though some ten years the senior of Chaucer, he had probably met him about this time. They were certainly afterwards very intimately acquainted. Gower ... had received a very careful education, and loved to devote the time he could spare from the management of his estates to study and poetry. His learning was in many respects greater than Chaucer's. He had studied the Latin poets so diligently that he could easily express himself in their language, and he was equally good at writing French verses, which were able to pass muster, at least in England. ... But, Chaucer did not let himself be led astray by examples such as these. It is possible that he would have found writing in French no easy task, even if he had attempted it. At any rate his bourgeois origin, and the seriousness of his vocation as poet, threw a determining weight into the scale and secured his fidelity to the English language with a commendable consistency." _B. Ten Brink, History of English Literature, book 4, chapter 4 (volume 2, part 1)._