[566] The subject of Chaucer's fame is treated at great length in Lounsbury's "Studies in Chaucer, his life and writings," London, 1892, 3 vols. 8vo, vol. iii. ch. vii., "Chaucer in Literary History."
[567] The Chaucer Society, founded by Dr. Furnivall, which has published among other things, the "Six-text edition of the Canterbury Tales"; some "Life Records of Chaucer"; various "Essays" on questions concerning the poet's works; a collection of "Originals and Analogues" illustrative of the "Canterbury Tales," &c. Among modern tributes paid to Chaucer may be added Wordsworth's modernisation of part of "Troilus" (John Morley's ed., p. 165), and Lowell's admirable essay in his "Study Windows."
CHAPTER III.
THE GROUP OF POETS.
The nation was young, virile, and productive. Around Chaucer was a whole swarm of poets; he towers above them as an oak towers above a coppice; but the oak is not isolated like the great trees that are sometimes seen beneath the sun, alone in the midst of an open country. Chaucer is without peer but not without companions; and, among those companions, one at least deserves to be ranked very near him.
He has companions of all kinds, nearly as diverse as those with whom he had associated on the road to Canterbury. Some are continuators of the old style, and others are reformers; some there are, filled with the dreamy spirit of the Anglo-Saxons; there are others who care little for dreams and theories, who are of the world, and will not leave the earth; some who sing, others who hum, others who talk. Certain poems are like clarions, and celebrate the battle of Crécy, of which Chaucer had not spoken; others resemble lovers' serenades; others a dirge for the dead.
I.
The old styles are continued; the itinerant poets, jugglers, and minstrels have not disappeared; on the contrary, they are more numerous than ever. "Merry England" favours them; they continue to play, as under the first Angevins,[568] a very considerable and multiple part, which it is difficult to estimate. Those people, with their vast memory, are like perambulating libraries; they instruct, they amuse, they edify. Passing from county to county, hawking news, composing satirical songs, they fill also the place of a daily gazette; they represent public opinion, sometimes create it, and often distort it; they are living newspapers; they furnish their auditors with information about the misdeeds of the Government, which, from time to time, seizes the most talkative, and imprisons them to keep them silent. The king has minstrels in his service; they are great personages in their way, pensioned by the prince and despising the others. The nobles also keep some in their pay, which does not prevent their welcoming those who pass; they feast them when they have sung well, and give them furred robes and money.[569]