e, whether as a man of letters or otherwise. So at least
one seems justified in interpreting a remarkable passage in the "House
of Fame," the poem in which perhaps Chaucer allows us to see more
deeply into his mind than in any other. After surveying the various
company of those who had come as suitors for the favours of Fame, he
tells us how it seemed to him (in his long December dream) that some
one spoke to him in a kindly way,

And saide: "Friend, what is thy name?
Art thou come hither to have fame?"
"Nay, forsoothe, friend!" quoth I;
"I came not hither (grand merci!)
For no such cause, by my head!
Sufficeth me, as I were dead,
That no wight have my name in hand.
I wot myself best how I stand;
For what I suffer, or what I think,
I will myselfe all it drink,
Or at least the greater part
As far forth as I know my art."

With this modest but manly self-possession we shall not go far wrong in
connecting what seems another very distinctly marked feature of
Chaucer's inner nature. He seems to have arrived at a clear
recognition of the truth with which Goethe humorously comforted
Eckermann in the shape of the proverbial saying, "Care has been taken
that the trees shall not grow into the sky." Chaucer's, there is every
reason to believe, was a contented faith, as far removed from
self-torturing unrest as from childish credulity. Hence his refusal to
trouble himself, now that he has arrived at a good age, with original
research as to the constellations. (The passage is all the more
significant since Chaucer, as has been seen, actually possessed a very
respectable knowledge of astronomy.) That winged encyclopaedia, the
Eagle, has just been regretting the poet's unwillingness to learn the
position of the Great and the Little Bear, Castor and Pollux, and the
rest, concerning which at present he does not know where they stand.
But he replies, "No matter!

--It is no need;
I trust as well (so God me speed!)
Them that write of this matter,
As though I know their places there."

Moreover, as he says (probably without implying any special allegorical
meaning), they seem so bright that it would destroy my eyes to look
upon them. Personal inspection, in his opinion, was not necessary for
a faith which at some times may, and at others must, take the place of
knowledge; for we find him, at the opening of the "Prologue" to the
"Legend of Good Women," in a passage the tone of which should