o. Many a ramble must they have taken
together through the green fields in summer time, and many a flask of
canary must have passed between them on winter evenings. Could the
diary of Philippa Chaucer have been published after her death, as most
certainly it would have been in this century, it would doubtless have
contained conversations as interesting as those in the pages of
Boswell.

Chaucer constantly received proofs of King Edward's favor. At one time
a pitcher of wine was sent daily to the poet by his sovereign, and
when this was discontinued, he was given an equivalent in money. Late
in life a close connection was formed between the families of Chaucer
and of his old friend, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. Philippa
Chaucer's sister, Catherine Swynford, who became early a widow,
entered the Duke of Lancaster's household as a governess to the
children of his first duchess.

The poet's own domestic life seems to have been very happy. Philippa
appears to have been to him a bold and faithful helpmate in his
journey through this world; and we believe that, could we trace
closely her household influence, we should find that she first began
to work the golden thread of religion into his life; for,
notwithstanding that great coarseness which unluckily makes the
"Canterbury Tales" unavailable as a book for family reading, but which
we must chiefly impute to the customs of the age, Chaucer was, in the
main, a religious man, and his poems are, in the main, religious
poems. Chaucer was certainly a good father, and attended as far as he
could to the education of his boys. His "Astrolabe," a work on
astronomy, was written for his little Lewis, who was probably his
father's pet.

On Richard II. coming to the throne, Chaucer got somewhat into
trouble, through his leaning toward the side of the people in the
civil broils which disturbed the early part of that king's reign. Some
of the poet's biographers say he was so violent in his partisanship
that he was obliged to fly from the wrath of government to Holland;
but this is most decidedly a myth. Chaucer's nature was not of that
stuff of which martyrs are made. He certainly, it is true, inclined to
the popular cause. His friend and patron, the Duke of Lancaster, was
the chief leader of the liberal party. No doubt the poet disliked
tyranny in any form, and no doubt he wished to see the Church of Rome
purged from her worst abuses. Very likely, also, he may have sometimes
gone