ecially on the
falling in love of Cressid, which is worked out with admirable
naturalness. But he comparatively hastens over its pitiable end--the
fifth and last book of his poem corresponding to not less than four
cantos of the "Filostrato." In Chaucer's hands, therefore, the story is
a real love-story, and the more that we are led to rejoice with the
lovers in their bliss, the more our compassion is excited by the
lamentable end of so much happiness; and we feel at one with the poet,
who, after lingering over the happiness of which he has in the end to
narrate the fall, as it were unwillingly proceeds to accomplish his
task, and bids his readers be wroth with the destiny of his heroine
rather than with himself. His own heart, he says, bleeds and his pen
quakes to write what must be written of the falsehood of Cressid, which
was her doom.

Chaucer's nature, however tried, was unmistakeably one gifted with the
blessed power of easy self-recovery. Though it was in a melancholy
vein that he had begun to write "Troilus and Cressid," he had found
opportunities enough in the course of the poem for giving expression to
the fresh vivacity and playful humour which are justly reckoned among
his chief characteristics. And thus, towards its close, we are not
surprised to find him apparently looking forward to a sustained effort
of a kind more congenial to himself. He sends forth his "little book,
his little tragedy," with the prayer that, before he dies, God his
Maker may send him might to "make some comedy." If the poem called the
"House of Fame" followed upon "Troilus and Cressid" (the order of
succession may, however, have been the reverse), then, although the
poet's own mood had little altered, yet he had resolved upon essaying a
direction which he rightly felt to be suitable to his genius.

The "House of Fame" has not been distinctly traced to any one foreign
source; but the influence of both Petrarch and Dante, as well as that
of classical authors, are clearly to be traced in the poem. And yet
this work, Chaucer's most ambitious attempt in poetical allegory, may
be described not only as in the main due to an original conception, but
as representing the results of the writer's personal experience. All
things considered, it is the production of a man of wonderful reading,
and shows that Chaucer's was a mind interested in the widest variety of
subjects, which drew no invidious distinctions, such as we moderns are
pron