DITTO OF THOMAS CHAUCER’S POETRY AT THE SAME EPOCH.--DEATH OF KING HENRY THE FOURTH, AND OTHER INDICATIONS OF NATIONAL PROSPERITY. The spring of 1413 was one of extraordinary mildness. It is a matter of deep regret (to us) that there were no newspapers at that period; otherwise we should undoubtedly have had handed down to us many valuable records of enormous primroses, wonderful thorn-blossoms, and belled cowslips, which might not impossibly have equalled in interest to statistics of parallel phenomena in the present day. It is true that parliament was sitting at the time, and the reporters (had such an objectionable class then existed) might have evaded the important duty of chronicling these matters, on the pitiful and unusual plea that they had something better to write about. They do so now-a-days; and often give us nine columns of a parliamentary speech, the valuable substance of which we had all much rather see condensed in a short paragraph surmounted by the heading of “Enormous Cabbage.” Thomas Chaucer, the son of the immortal Geoffry, already alluded to in these pages, has feebly attempted to immortalise the phenomena of this remarkable season in verses which, it will be admitted, at all events, prove his inferiority to his father as a poet. * [Illustration: 240] [Illustration: 241] * In refutation of this proposition, there is but one theory that can be considered as carrying the slightest weight, namely, that Thomas Chaucer _did not_ write the poem here quoted _in extenso_. There is doubtless much that might be said on both sides of the question, which had therefore better be left open. ** English poetry would seem to have had an official descent--the family name of its reputed father being derived from the office of Chauf-cire or Chaff-wax (a dignity still in existence, with, it is said, real functions and an undeniably real salary attached to it) doubtless held by one of his not very remote ancestors. The vanity of restoring the name to its original orthography, instead of adhering to the form it had assumed in the time of the illustrious Geoffry, is another proof of the weakness of Thomas Chaucer’s intellect, if the quality of the above verses were such as to leave the slightest necessity for anything of the kind.