That toward Canterbury woulden ride;
The Stables and Chambers weren wide,
And well wee were eased at the best, &c.
By his Travel also in France and Flanders, where he spent much time in his young years, but more in the latter end of the Reign of King Richard the Second; he attained to a great perfection in all kind of Learning, as Bale and Leland report of him: Circa postremos Richardi Secundi annos, Galliis floruit, magnamque illic ex assidua in Literis exercitatione gloriam sibi comparavit. Domum reversus Forum Londinense; & Collegia Leguleiorum, qui ibidem Patria Jura interpretantur frequentavit, &c. About the latter end of King Richard the Second's Days, he flourished in France, and got himself into high esteem there by his diligent exercise in Learning: After his return home, he frequented the Court at London, and the Colledges of the Lawyers, which there interpreted the Laws of the Land. Amongst whom was John Gower, his great familiar Friend, whose Life we wrote before. This Gower, in his Book entituled Confessio Amantis, termeth Chaucer a worthy Poet, and maketh him as it were the Judge of his Works.
This our Chaucer had always an earnest desire to enrich and beautifie our English Tongue, which in those days was very rude and barren; and this he did, following the example of Dantes and Petrarch. who had done the same for the Italian Tongue, Alanus for the French, and Johannes Mea for the Spanish: Neither was Chaucer inferior to any of them in the performance hereof; and England in this respect is much beholding to him; as Leland well noteth:
Anglia Chaucerum veneratur nostra Poetam;
Cui veneris debet Patria Lingua suas.
Our England honoureth Chaucer Poet, as principal;
To whom her Country-Tongue doth owe her Beauties all.
He departed out of this world the 25th. day of October 1400, after he had lived about seventy two years. Thus writeth Bale out of Leland, Chaucerus ad Canos devenit, sensitque Senectutem morbum esse; & dum Causas suas Londini curaret, &c. Chaucer lived till he was an old man, and found old Age to be grievous; and whilst he followed his Causes at London, he died, and was buried at Westminster.