Geoffrey Chaucer was the son of a London vintner, and seems most probably to have been born in 1340. The facts of his early life are involved in obscurity, and we do not know whether his education was due to the wealth and enlightened views of his father, or to his having been early taken under royal patronage. John of Gaunt was never a popular man in English history, but he seems to have had the capacity of attracting to him the great literary characters of his age, for we know that both Chaucer and Wiclif were intimately connected with him. Poetry had at that time become very fashionable, and was cultivated, more especially in France, by men of the highest rank. Chaucer therefore, though of humble birth, might hope to raise himself by his genius to be the friend even of a royal prince. If the date assigned to the _Assembly of Foules_, 1358, be a true one, it must rank as one of his earliest poems. He was then only eighteen years of age, but there are no signs of an unripe intellect about the poem. It is full of the freshness and life which always remained such distinguishing characteristics of Chaucer. The poet has fallen asleep over his book, and he dreams that he is led into a beautiful park, "walled with Green stone." With a few of his light, delicate touches he brings before us the whole scene, the "trees clad with leaves that air shal last," the garden "full of blossomed bow is;" it is the orderly, sweet, fresh landscape that the mediæval poet loved. At last he came to the spot where all the birds were gathered together before the noble goddesse Nature, that, since it was Saint Valentine's day, each might choose his mate. Perched on Nature's hand was a beautiful female eagle, by whom the poet is supposed to have signified the Lady Blanche of Lancaster. Three eagles dispute vehemently as to which of them shall be her mate, and Nature refers the question to the assembly of birds. Each kind of bird chooses a representative to speak for them, and in the speeches of the different birds there is ample scope for Chaucer's playful humour and irony. Characteristic of the spirit of chivalry is the great deference paid by the suitors to the lady herself. She is the "soveraine lady," whom the royal eagle beseeches to be his "through her mercy." No constraint is to be put on her choice, and Nature, as judge, decides that she shall have him on whom her heart is set. She bashfully asks for a year's respite in which to make her choice. This charming little poem may almost be taken as a type of the excellencies of Chaucer. It shows us his love of nature, his vivacity, his humour. Like all that he has written, it reflects faithfully the spirit of his age, and breathes the very atmosphere of chivalry.