Chapter IX: Part 9

These circumstances concurred ultimately to work a change and an improvement of taste among the artists themselves, and thus prepared a better æra of sculpture. The partiality of the Italians may be excused, when they attribute the reformation of the art to the single efforts of Canova, although the designs of Flaxman, composed about the same time that the Italian artist was beginning his career, exhibit a more decided feeling for the long-lost purity of the antique, and a more thorough comprehension of the style and language of sculpture, than we find in the works of his continental contemporaries. But it is time to give a more particular account of the subject of this memoir.

Antonio Canova was born A.D. 1757, at Possagno, a small town in the province of Treviso. His father, Pietro Canova, was a stonemason and builder; and the first occupation of the future sculptor taught him to use the chisel with dexterity. At the age of fourteen, he was introduced to the notice of Giovanni Faliero, a Venetian senator, who used annually to pass the autumn near Possagno. By the kind assistance of this nobleman, the young Canova was placed with one Torretti, a sculptor who had studied in Venice, and who resided in a neighbouring town. On the return of this artist to Venice, Canova accompanied him. A year afterwards however Torretti died, and the young sculptor, unwilling to continue with Ferrari, his master’s nephew and heir, established himself in a _studio_ of his own. While with Ferrari, he produced his first work, a pair of baskets of fruit and flowers, done for the noble Faliero. They are still to be seen in the stair-case of the Farsetti palace, in Venice, more generally known as the Albergo della Gran Bretagna. The same patron next employed him on two statues of Orpheus and Eurydice, preserved in the villa of Pradazzi, near Possagno. After one or two other less important performances, he executed his Dædalus and Icarus, for the Procurator Pisani. In all these works he aimed at a close imitation of individual nature, and this was carried so far in the Dædalus, that, when it was afterwards shown in Rome, the sculptor was hardly believed when he asserted that it was not moulded from a living model.

The imitation of the softness, surface, and accidents of skin was an early excellence and a lasting peculiarity of Canova; and however he may have been smitten with the antique statues in Rome, it is certain that, while in Venice, where he remained till the age of twenty-two, he paid little attention to the specimens of ancient art in the Farsetti Gallery. It is probable that the prejudice against the antique, which had prevailed ever since Bernini’s time, was hardly yet effaced in Venice; and if Canova’s admiration of the ancients increased in Rome, it was undoubtedly greatly owing to the opinion and examples of those among whom he had the good fortune to be first thrown.

In 1779, Girolamo Zulian being appointed ambassador of the Republic at Rome, Faliero recommended Canova to his notice. The young sculptor had already determined to visit the metropolis of the arts, and soon followed the ambassador thither. The course of study which he adopted, founded on the comparison of nature with the best specimens of art, showed that he was earnest to improve; and his new patron Zulian, who had introduced him to the distinguished amateurs and artists residing in Rome, recommended him to send for a cast of his Dædalus and Icarus, in order to show them what he had done, and profit by their advice. He did so, and the day on which that group was submitted to the judgment of the connoisseurs was a memorable one for Canova. His work by no means excited unqualified approbation. It was, indeed, so different from the style which was then prevalent, that his judges remained silent, till the generous Gavin Hamilton openly declared, that it was a simple imitation of nature, which showed that the artist had nothing to unlearn; at the same time reminding him, that although the greatest artists had always begun thus, they had subsequently refined their taste by comparison and selection, and their execution by an ampler and larger treatment; all which, aiming at the grandest impressions of nature, but by no means departing from nature, approaches what is called the divine and ideal in art. This opinion, from so good a judge as Hamilton, delighted Zulian, who asked “what was to be done with the young man?” “Give him a block of marble,” said Hamilton, “and let him follow his own feeling.” From this hour the fate of the young artist was decided: Zulian furnished him with a _studio_ and materials, and he began his career in Rome.

Canova always spoke with gratitude of Gavin Hamilton, and acknowledged that he owed to him every sound principle of art. The vast knowledge of the antique which the Scotch artist possessed, gave more than common weight and value to his advice respecting its imitation. Canova’s first work in Rome, was an Apollo crowning himself. The sculptor himself was not satisfied with it, and felt all the difficulty of uniting a purer and broader style with a sufficient attention to the details of nature. His engagements soon after recalled him to Venice, to complete an unfinished work, the statue of the Marquis Poleni, placed in the Prato della Valle, at Padua. It was probably hurried, that he might get back sooner to Rome.

On his return to Rome, he produced his celebrated group of Theseus sitting on the slain Minotaur. The moment chosen was recommended by Hamilton, who observed, that it was generally safer for young artists not to aim at too much action in their subjects. In this composition Canova endeavoured to infuse still more of the style of the antique, and he succeeded so well, that the exhibition of it may be considered an epoch in the art. Quatremère de Quincy (an eminent French sculptor) spoke of it in these words in 1804:—“This group struck foreigners even more than the Romans, who were still attached to their accustomed manner. Nevertheless, Canova, from that time, was considered the sculptor who was destined to restore good taste, and to reduce the art to its grand principles.” The fame which this work gained for its author has been allowed, on all hands, to have been justly awarded; and, after the efforts of the artist to fix his style and define the mode of imitation which he believed to be the best, it may be supposed that the praises he received would have confirmed him in the principles he had formed to himself, and encouraged him to carry them farther. None of his Italian biographers, however, have taken sufficient notice of the fact, that he never followed up the style which is observable in this group. His subsequent works were undoubtedly more refined in execution and more anatomically studied; but it is quite certain that he never approached the breadth of the antique so much in any later works. Hence it would appear that, in this effort, he was in some degree doing violence to his real feelings; and having once established his reputation, he was more likely afterwards to exercise his own unbiassed taste. It was, indeed, some time before he was occupied on a subject which afforded a display of the figure.

His next work was the monument of Ganganelli (Clement XIV.), placed in the Church de’ Santi Apostoli at Rome; in this he was again fortunate. Its originality and simplicity, for such was the character of the design, compared with the extravagant compositions of preceding artists, gave very general satisfaction; but the advocates of the taste of a former age did not remain silent. Pompeo Battoni, the most celebrated Italian painter of his day, having condescended to accompany Hamilton to see the model of the monument while it was in the clay, observed, in Canova’s hearing, that the young artist had talent, but that it was a pity he had chosen a bad road, and that it would be better to retrace his steps while there was time. Hamilton, in consoling Canova afterwards, reminded him, that it was the style of Pietro da Cortona, Carlo Maratti, and Bernini, which Battoni considered synonymous with excellence; and it was the departure from this, in search of the purer style of sculpture, which he called “the bad road.” The fastidious Milizia, on the other hand, gave this work unqualified approbation.

The monument of Rezzonico (Clement XIII.), which was the next subject the sculptor was invited to treat, was begun in 1787, and only placed in St. Peter’s in 1795. While engaged on this, and the monument of Ganganelli, other works of less extent were from time to time finished. Among these were a group of Cupid and Psyche, a group of Venus and Adonis, which, however, was not executed in marble, and a second composition of Cupid and Psyche, the one in which Psyche is recumbent. These were the works which first procured for their author, among his Italian admirers, the reputation and title of the sculptor of the Graces; and it was in these that a certain effeminacy of style—at least what would be so called by less indulgent critics—seemed to supersede the simplicity, and almost severity, which he had appeared to aim at in the Theseus and Minotaur. To the same period belong most of the bassi relievi of Canova. These were composed and executed when his imagination was warmed by the study of the ancient poets; and although wrought in the intervals of greater occupations, there can be no doubt that they received his mature attention, and exhibited the free expression of his own taste. Of all the works of the artist, these bassi relievi have, perhaps, been most universally and deservedly condemned; but, defective as they are, they are still purer in the forms and drapery than the works of his predecessors.

The monument of Rezzonico completely established Canova’s reputation; the expression and attitude of the kneeling Pope, and the novelty and happy execution of the lions, excited the utmost admiration. The figure of the Genius is again an instance of a total dereliction of the style of the antique, for a soft and pulpy fleshiness without sufficient characteristic marking; but even this was found to be new and agreeable, and the drapery of the figure of Religion was almost the only part of the work which was criticised. On revisiting Venice, after an illness brought on by severe application, the Venetian government commissioned him to execute a monument for the Procurator Angelo Emo, which was afterwards placed in the arsenal. He returned to Rome to execute this work; but first revisited his native village, where he was surprised, and somewhat disconcerted, at finding a fête prepared for his welcome. A deputation of the inhabitants lined the roads to receive him; the streets were strewed with laurel; the bells of the campanile, and the _mortaletti_, usually fired on festivals, saluted him as he entered; and a band of music accompanied him to his mother’s house. The enthusiasm of his countrymen went so far, that a statue was erected to him even in early life, and placed in the Prato della Valle, at Padua.

A group of Venus and Adonis was next completed, and sent to Naples, where it contributed to spread his fame. A new group of Cupid and Psyche, standing, done for Murat, was sent to Paris, and being fortunately one of his best works, it excited a great sensation when exhibited there. The reputation Canova had acquired in Italy naturally provoked a close and keen scrutiny into the merits and defects of this work; but its success was complete, and from that time his great merit was as fully acknowledged in France as elsewhere. Some of his subsequent works exhibited in the Louvre were, it is true, severely criticised, but they always found ardent defenders, and those among the most respectable connoisseurs and artists.

The celebrated kneeling Magdalen, which ultimately became the property of Count Sommariva, and adorned his house in Paris, was Canova’s next performance; it was afterwards, like many of his works, copied, or rather repeated, for other amateurs.

This statue created a still greater sensation than the Cupid and Psyche when it was exhibited in Paris. The well-known Hebe was executed about the same time; this, too, was often repeated, and one copy was exhibited in the Louvre bearing a golden vase and cup, and with the lips and cheeks slightly tinged with vermilion. These innovations were severely objected to by the French critics, while the general taste of this and other works of the artist was still less indulgently treated in London. But the execution of individual parts of his statues was every where allowed to be exquisite, and many a time, in Rome, artists who were his professed rivals have purchased casts of the joints and extremities of his figures as models of perfect imitation: such detached portions have even been mistaken for casts from the antique.

Much has been said by the Italian eulogists of Canova of his skill in painting, and a story is told of his having done a pretended portrait of Giorgione on an old panel, which Angelica Kaufmann, and other very sufficient judges, for a time believed to be an original by the Venetian master. Canova’s attempts at painting were regarded with complacency, at least by himself, remarkable as he was for great modesty in speaking of his works in sculpture. He seems never to have forgotten that he was a Venetian, and gloried in the perfections, and almost in the defects, of the painters of that school. It is not impossible that this predilection may have operated in some degree to check his pursuit of the severe style of the ancients in sculpture, and it may, perhaps, account for the picturesque licences which he sometimes indulged in, as, for instance, in the Hebe; but if his efforts in painting were naturally defective in execution, they were still more open to criticism in their invention and taste, and, on the whole, call rather for indulgence than admiration.

The unsettled state of Italy consequent upon the French Revolution, and the troubles in Rome, induced Canova, about the close of the century, to retire for a time to his native province. From thence he accompanied the Senator Rezzonico into Germany, and visited Munich, Vienna, Dresden, and Berlin. At Vienna, he received from Duke Albert of Saxe Teschen, the commission for the monument to Maria Christina of Austria.

His first ambition, however, on returning to Italy, was to embody in a picture some of the impressions he had received from contemplating the galleries of Germany, and particularly the Notte of Correggio; and he actually painted a large altar-piece for the parochial church of Possagno. This work, though since considered unworthy of criticism, was highly extolled at the time it was done. On his return to Rome, he began the model of his celebrated group of Hercules and Lichas, a work which found favour even with those who had objected to the want of manliness of taste in his treatment of most other subjects. It is indeed impossible to contemplate this group, without feeling it to be the production of a man of genius; while the patient elaboration of the anatomical details, and the power and knowledge with which the difficulties of the composition are overcome, have never failed to excite the high praise which is awarded to rare excellence. The originality of the idea has, however, been lately disputed; and a bronze has come to light which, if its history be true, at least proves that some earlier sculptor than Canova had conceived the subject nearly in the same manner. This grand work, first intended for Naples, was purchased by Torlonia, Duke of Bracciano, and is now the principal ornament of the Bracciano Palace in Rome.

Soon after this the Perseus was produced, a statue which, by command of Pius VII., received the unparalleled honour of being placed in the Vatican, in a situation similar to that of the Apollo, or rather to supply its place, for the Apollo at this time was not returned from Paris. The honour was even greater when that statue was restored to Rome, for the Perseus then remained as a companion or pendant to it. The two Pugilists were modelled soon after for the same patron, Pope Pius VII., and were placed, when finished, in the Vatican, together with the Perseus. A cast of the Creugas, one of these figures, exhibited about the same time at Paris, was very generally admired, and very ably and generously defended from the hostile criticisms it called forth, by the sculptor Quatremère de Quincy. The high estimation in which Canova was held, and his zeal for the preservation of the ancient monuments in Rome, as well as the frescoes of the Vatican, induced the Pope to confer on him the appointment and title of Inspector-General of the Fine Arts. Though at first unwilling to assume the responsibility of this charge, Canova at last undertook it; and it appears that his conscientious attention to the duties connected with it, gave a new impulse to the Roman school, and excited in all a zeal and ardour for the preservation of the precious remains of antiquity. The conduct of Canova in furthering the general interests of the arts of his country is worthy of all praise: his private benevolence is well known. It may be said that his happy freedom from jealousy was owing to the quiet security of established fame; but he was equally remarkable for magnanimity when placed in competition with those whom he had reason to regard as possible rivals.

After finishing a model of the colossal statue of the King of Naples, Canova received a flattering invitation to visit the court of Bonaparte, then First Consul; and in obedience to the wishes even of the Pope he proceeded to Paris. His conversations with Bonaparte during this and a subsequent visit have been preserved; and it appears that he lost no opportunity of representing the fallen and impoverished state of Italy (the consequence of the French invasion) to the arbiter of its destinies, whom he dexterously reminded of his Pisan or Florentine origin. His recommendation of the arts in Rome was at least successful, for soon after his return thither ample funds were forwarded by command of Bonaparte for the revival and extension of the Academy of St. Luke, of which Canova was naturally appointed the Director, and for prosecuting the excavations in the Forum. When Canova, in one of his visits to Paris, ventured to ask for the restitution of the statues that had been taken from Rome, the French ruler replied, that “they might dig for more.”

Having modelled the bust of Bonaparte, Canova returned to Italy to complete the colossal statue of Napoleon, now in the possession of the Duke of Wellington. In this work, which he considered an heroic representation, he elevated the forms to his highest conceptions of an abstract style, and, probably in imitation of the statue of Pompey, exhibited the figure naked. The censures which were passed on this bold attempt were most satisfactorily answered by the celebrated Visconti. In Canova’s second visit to Paris, Napoleon himself remarked, that his statue should have been in the ordinary dress, to which Canova replied, “Our art, like all the fine arts, has its sublime language; this language in sculpture is the naked, and such drapery as conveys a general idea.” The extensive monument for Vienna was next finished, and Canova repaired to the Austrian capital to see it put together. The artist’s general deviation from the style of sculpture practised by the ancients, may be illustrated by this work, admirable as it is for its details. The real aperture, or door of the tomb, into which the procession is entering, the literal reality of the steps, the accurately-imitated drapery, and other circumstances, are all nearer to nature than the flesh, the reverse of the principle of the Greeks. The partial or absolute truth of the accessories thus reminds us that colour and life are wanting in the figures—a discovery the spectator should never be permitted to make. Again, the indistinctness which must exist more or less in an assemblage of figures similar in colour (the unavoidable condition of the art), far from being obviated by indiscriminate imitation, requires rather to be counteracted by those judicious conventions which, in some measure, represent the varieties of nature, and constitute the style of sculpture. The Venus for Florence, (afterwards more than once repeated,) and the statues of the Princess Borghese, and the mother of Napoleon, were the next works of Canova. The attitude and treatment of the last seem to have been inspired by the statue of Agrippina; it was completely successful in Paris. After these, the well-known Dancing Nymphs occupied him, and seem to have been favourite works of his own. Although these statues excited more attention in Paris than perhaps any of his former works, and raised his reputation more than ever, they have since been very generally censured as meretricious in their taste. The portrait statues of the Princess Borghese and Madame Letitia, invited many other commissions of the same kind, which it would be long to recount. The monument of Alfieri, and the statues of Hector and Ajax, the latter admirable for their details, but with little of the antique character in their general treatment, were successively produced, together with many busts of individuals and of ideal personages. An opportunity was soon after afforded the sculptor, in a statue of Paris for the Empress Josephine, of exhibiting his best powers to the French critics. He was perhaps better satisfied with this than with any other single figure he had done. It was much admired when exhibited in the Louvre, and Quatremère de Quincy published an eulogium on it.

In 1810, Canova again proceeded to the French capital to receive the commands of Napoleon, and modelled the bust of Maria Louisa. The statue of the Empress, as Concord, and of the Princess Eliza, in the character of a Muse, were finished on his return to Rome. The group of the Graces, and a statue of Peace, were next completed. The colossal horse, first intended to bear Napoleon, and then Murat, was finally surmounted with the statue of Charles III. of Naples, and placed in that city. A recumbent nymph, Canova’s next work, was succeeded by one of his most extraordinary productions, the Theseus and Centaur, a group now in Vienna, where it is placed in a temple built for its reception. Opinions are divided between the merits of this work and of his Hercules and Lichas.

In 1815, when the Allies occupied Paris, Canova was sent there by Pope Pius VII. on an honourable and interesting mission, namely, to intercede with the French government and the invading powers, for the restitution of the works of art which had been torn from Rome by the treaty of Tolentino. The French ministry resisted his application, and it was ultimately by the decision of the Allied Powers, and literally under the protection of foreign bayonets, that Canova removed the objects in question from the Louvre. The gratitude of the Pope to the British government on this occasion led to Canova’s visit to London. The honours he received in England from George IV., then Prince Regent, from the nobility, and the professors of the arts, perhaps even exceeded the homage which had been paid him on the continent; and it ought not to be forgotten, that the great Flaxman, who was among the warmest in welcoming him, wrote a letter to Canova on his return to Rome, which did honour to both, and in which he says, “You will be always a great example in the arts, not only in Italy, but in Europe.”

Canova’s return to Rome, in 1816, was little short of a triumph. The Pope created him Marquis of Ischia, with an annual pension of three thousand crowns; but the noble-minded artist divided this sum, till his death, among the institutions of the arts, in premiums for the young and in aids for the old and decayed. Long was his benevolence to rising artists the general theme of gratitude and regret; and in every case of ill-rewarded industry, or fancied oppression, the exclamation was, “Ah! if Canova were alive!”

The statue of Washington; the Stuart monument in St. Peter’s; the group of Mars and Venus, which was done for George IV.; the Sleeping Nymphs; the recumbent Magdalen, executed for the Earl of Liverpool, were successively produced at this highly-honoured period of his life; and a third monument in St. Peter’s, viz., that of Pope Pius VI.

The last great act of Canova’s life was the foundation of a magnificent church at Possagno, the first stone of which was laid by him July 11, 1819. The monument for the Marquis Salsa Berio, sent to Naples, the figures of which are in basso relievo; seven mezzi relievi for the metopes of the frieze of his church at Possagno, the design of which combines the forms of the Parthenon and the Pantheon; and the beautiful group of the Pietà, or dead Christ in the lap of the Virgin at the foot of the cross, accompanied by the Magdalen, intended for the altar of the same church, were the last works of Canova.

In 1822, he visited Possagno, partly to see the progress of the building, and still more on account of his infirm state of health. After a short stay in the neighbourhood, his illness increased so much that he was forced to repair to Venice for medical assistance; but his recovery was hopeless, and he died October 13, 1822, in the 65th year of his age. Gratitude was among the prominent virtues of Canova, and among his legacies, it is pleasing to observe that the sons of Faliero, his earliest patron, were remembered. He was buried at Possagno; but his funeral obsequies were celebrated throughout Italy, and a statue to his memory was afterwards placed in the Academy of St. Luke, at Rome.

Ample details of Canova’s life, his precepts on art, and conversations with Napoleon, will be found in the account of him by Missirini: for a catalogue and eulogy of his works, Cicognara’s ‘Storia della Scultura’ may be consulted. The memoir of him by that nobleman, together with his own ‘Thoughts on the Arts,’ taken down and recorded by Missirini, will be found in the splendid edition of Canova’s works, engraved in outline by Moses.

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CHAUCER.

There is considerable discrepance between the generally received and the probable date of Geoffrey Chaucer’s birth. In the life prefixed to the edition of his works by Speght, it is stated, that he “departed out of this world in the year of our Lord 1400, after he had lived about seventy years.” The biographer’s authority for this is “Bale, out of Leland.” Leland’s accuracy on this, as on many other points, may be doubted, since he believed Oxfordshire or Berkshire to have been the poet’s native county. But Chaucer himself, in his Testament of Love, mentions London as the “place of his kindly engendure.” The received date of his birth is 1328: if that be correct, he was fifty-eight in 1386. But a record in the Appendix to Mr. Godwin’s Life shows that in that year he was a witness on oath, in a question between Sir Richard le Scrope and Sir Robert Grosvenor. The point at issue occasioned an inquiry to be made as to Chaucer’s age, which he stated to be “forty years and upwards.” Eighteen years upon forty is a large _upwards_ on a sworn examination. Mr. Sharon Turner, therefore, in his History of the Middle Ages, suggests, with every appearance of reason, that 1340, or thereabouts, is a date fairly corresponding with the witness’s “forty years and upwards,” and even necessary to vindicate his accuracy in a predicament requiring the most scrupulous adherence to truth. Chaucer might not be certain as to the precise year of his birth; and, in that case, it was natural to fix on the nearest round number. The chronology of his Works must be deeply affected by this difference of twelve years: it will be to be seen whether the few authenticated facts of his life are to be reconciled with this presumptive later date.

_Engraved by J. Thomson._

CHAUCER.

_From a Limning in Occleve’s Poems
in the British Museum._

Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.

_London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street, & Pall Mall
East._
]

Chaucer is represented by Leland to have studied both at Cambridge and at Oxford. At the latter University, he is said to have diligently frequented the public schools and disputations, and to have affected the opinions of Wiclif in religion. “Hereupon,” says Leland, “he became a witty logician, a sweet rhetorician, a pleasant poet, a grave philosopher, and a holy divine.” But Mr. Tyrwhitt thinks that nothing is known as to his education, and doubts his having studied at either University. The evidence that he was of the Inner Temple seems to rest on a record of that house, seen some years afterwards by one Master Buckley, showing that Geoffrey Chaucer was fined two shillings for beating a Franciscan Friar in Fleet Street. Mr. Tyrwhitt complains of the want of date to this record. The sally is plainly a youthful one, and inclines him to believe that Chaucer was of the Inner Temple before he went into the service of Edward III. That he could have been engaged in the practice of the law in after-life, as stated by Leland, is shown by Mr. Tyrwhitt to be utterly inconsistent with his employments under the crown. In the paucity of biographical anecdotes, Chaucer’s personal career will be most satisfactorily ascertained by following the succession of his appointments, as verified by the public documents in Mr. Godwin’s valuable appendices. In 1367, Edward III. granted him, for his good services, an annuity of twenty marcs, payable out of the Exchequer. In 1370, he was sent to the Continent on the king’s business. Two years afterwards, he, with two others, was employed on an embassy to the Doge of Genoa. This negotiation probably regarded the hiring of ships for the king’s navy. In those times, although the necessity for naval armaments was frequent, very few ships were built by the English. This deficiency was supplied by the free states either in Germany or Italy. The age of thirty and thirty-two squares well enough with such appointments. In 1374, the king granted to him a pitcher of wine daily, to be delivered by the Butler of England. At the same time, he made him Comptroller of the Customs of London, for wool, wool-fells, and hides, on condition of his executing the office in person, and keeping the accounts with his own hand. In the following year he obtained from the king the wardship of the lands and body of Sir Edmund Staplegate, a young Kentish heir. In 1377, the last year of King Edward, “Geoffrey Caucher” is mentioned by Froissart as one of those envoys employed abroad, as his protection expresses it, “on the king’s secret service.” The object of the mission is divulged by the French historian; it was a treaty between the Kings of England and France, in which the marriage of Richard with the French Princess Mary was debated; but neither the peace nor the marriage were brought about. Here end both the commissions and benefactions received by Chaucer from Edward III.

Some time after 1370, and before 1381, according to Mr. Turner’s calculation, but in 1360 according to others, Chaucer married a lady who, according to documents taken from Rymer, had been one of the “domicellæ,” damsels, or, in modern court phrase, maids of honour to Queen Philippa. Mr. Turner places the marriage within those limits, on the following grounds:—Chaucer, in his “Treatise on the Astrolabe,” dates an observation as made in 1391, and mentions his son Lewis as being then ten years old. A grant to the queen’s damsel, on quitting her service, is dated 1370, and made to her by her maiden name. The “Astrolabe” and the grant together furnish conclusive evidence in favour of Mr. Turner’s limits; but the current story of the Duke and Duchess of Lancaster having concocted the match, can only be reconciled with the earlier date, as the duchess died in 1369. It is unnecessary to enumerate those various grants made to Chaucer by Richard II., which bear on no other events of his life. An important document of the year 1398, states that the king had ordered Chaucer to expedite several urgent affairs for him, as well in his absence as in his presence, in various parts of England. As a security against alarms expressed by Chaucer respecting suits and other molestations, Richard granted him a protection from arrest, injury, violence, or impediment, for two years. Richard was deposed in August of the following year. In October, Henry IV. confirmed Richard’s donations, with an additional annuity of forty marcs. The last document as to Chaucer is an indenture of lease to him, dated 24th December, 1399, of a tenement in the Priory Garden of Westminster, for a term of fifty-three years. Chaucer, therefore, was active at the end of 1399, and seems, from the length of his lease, still to have thought himself a good life, as he well might, if his age were only sixty; but his biographers (probably because they traced him in no later documents, and thought seventy-two a good old age) in the absence of any other positive evidence, than the date on a monument erected in the sixteenth century, have fixed his death in 1400.

We have thought it expedient not to mix up the facts proved by official documents, with the few others to be gleaned from passages in his works. Such as are attested by neither of these vouchers have no claim to implicit credit. In his Testament of Love, he speaks of having “endured penance in a dark prison.” Again, “Although I had little in respect of other great and worthy, yet had I a fair parcel, as methought for the time; I had riches sufficiently to wave need. I had dignity to be reverenced in worship; power methought that I had to keep from mine enemies, and me seemed to shine in glory of renown.” With this picture of former prosperity, he contrasts his present state. “For riches now have I poverty; instead of power, wretchedness I suffer; and for glory of renown, I am now despised and foully hated.” We cannot with certainty connect this reverse of personal fortune with any passage of general history. He alludes to it thus:—“In my youth I was drawn to be assenting, and in my might helping to certain conjurations, and other great matters of ruling of citizens, so painted and coloured, that at first to me seemed then noble and glorious to all the people.” He intimates that he had made some discoveries concerning certain transactions in the city. He was, consequently, exposed to calumny, and the charge of falsehood. To prove his veracity, he offered an appeal to arms, and “had prepared his body for Mars’s doing, if any contraried his saws.” He alludes to his escape out of the kingdom, when we are told by his biographers that he spent his time in Hainault, France, and Zealand, where he wrote many of his books. He himself says, that during his exile those whom he had served never refreshed him with the value of the least coined plate; those who owed him money would pay nothing, because they thought his return impossible. Mr. Godwin, like preceding biographers, refers these personal misfortunes to his support of John Comberton, generally styled John of Northampton, who, in 1382, attempted reform in the city on Wiclif’s principles. This was highly resented by the clergy; Comberton was taken into custody, and Chaucer is stated to have fled the kingdom. Mr. Turner thinks, that as the date assigned to these reverses is purely conjectural, they may be referred with more probability to a later period. He argues that, had Chaucer joined any party against the court, he would not have enjoyed Richard’s continued favour. The protection from the king, in 1398, implies that he was intermeddling in hazardous concerns; and in the Testament of Love, which may be considered as an autobiography composed of hints rather than facts, there is this remarkable passage. “Of the confederacies made by my sovereigns, I was but a servant; and thereof ought nothing in evil to be laid to me wards, sithen as repentant I am turned.” Mr. Turner infers, from the singular protection granted to Chaucer, in the very year when, after Gloucester’s murder, Richard adopted his most illegal and tyrannical measures, that the poet was prosecuted as an accomplice in those measures; that Henry might have thrown him into prison, as implicated in the deposed monarch’s unlawful acts; but on his professions of repentance, and in consideration of his connexion and alliance with his own father, might have pardoned him with others, at his coronation. In this difference of opinion, or rather of conjecture, between the biographers and the historian, we may, perhaps, be allowed to hazard the supposition, that those scattered allusions in the Testament may refer not to the same, but to different periods of evil fortune; indeed, the very expressions quoted seem hardly reconcileable with any one event. The “conjurations, noble and glorious to the people,” seem to point at some measures distasteful to the higher powers: and as both Chaucer and his patron the Duke of Lancaster had adopted many of Wiclif’s tenets, it seems not improbable that the conspiracy alluded to may be identified with that of John of Northampton. Delicately as the circumstance is glossed over by the poet, he appears to have turned what in homely phrase is called _king’s evidence_, the imputation of which he parries by a chivalrous appeal to “Mars’s doing.” This will account for his being received back into royal favour, and for his lending himself in after-time, no longer to the conjurations of the people, in plain English, the rebellion of the commons, but to the confederacies of his sovereigns. If his allusion to his personal misfortunes, and his expressions of conscientious remorse, may be referred to different periods, and to events of opposite character; in that view of the case, neither Mr. Godwin nor Mr. Turner may be in the wrong.

Few particulars of Chaucer’s private history are to be gathered from his poems. In his Dream, of which Blanche, Duchess of Lancaster, is the subject, the poet describes himself as a victim to nervous melancholy from habitual want of sleep, accompanied with a dread of death. The translation of Boethius, and occasional quotations from Seneca and Juvenal, attest that he retained through life his juvenile acquaintance with the Latin classics. The chronology of his works must be rendered doubtful by the uncertainty respecting that of his life. Mr. Turner places the time of his death later than 1400, but before 1410. The poet is said to have had the unusual honour of being brother-in-law to a prince of the blood, by the marriage of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, with Catherine, widow of Sir Hugh Swinford, and sister to Chaucer’s wife. He is said to have lived at Woodstock at a late period of his life, and finally, to have retired to Donnington Castle on the Duke of Lancaster’s death. By his wife, Philippa, he had two sons, Thomas and Lewis. Thomas was Speaker of the House of Commons in the reign of Henry IV., ambassador to France and Burgundy, and discharged other public duties. Chaucer’s principal biographers are Leland, Thomas Speght, Mr. Tyrwhitt, and Mr. Godwin. The work of the latter would have been more valuable had it been less voluminous, less discursive, and less conjectural. Mr. Tyrwhitt’s edition of the Canterbury Tales is a model of criticism on an old English classic. His Introductory Discourse on the Language and Versification of Chaucer will enable its readers to form just and clear ideas of the history of our ancient tongue, and Chaucer’s peculiar use of it.

Chaucer was held in high estimation by his most distinguished contemporaries. John the Chaplain, who translated Boethius into English verse, as Chaucer had into prose, calls him the Flower of Rhetoric. Occleve laments him with personal affection as his father and master, and styles him the honour of English tongue. Lydgate, the monk of Bury, mentions him as a chief poet of Britain; the loadstar of our language; the notable rhetor. Dryden says, in the preface prefixed to his Fables,—“As Chaucer is the father of English poetry, so I hold him in the same degree of veneration as the Grecians held Homer, or the Romans Virgil; he is a perpetual fountain of good sense, learned in all sciences, and therefore speaks properly on all subjects; as he knew what to say, so he knows also when to leave off, a continence which is practised by few writers, and scarcely by any of the ancients, excepting Virgil and Horace.”

Our account of his principal works must be brief. The Romaunt of the Rose is professedly a translation of the French Roman de la Rose. It is a long allegory, representing the difficulties and dangers encountered by a lover in the pursuit of his mistress, who is emblematically described as a Rose, and the plot, if so it may be called, ends with his putting her in a beautiful garden.

Troilus and Creseide is for the most part a translation of the Filostrato of Boccaccio, but with many variations and large additions. As a tale, it is barren of incident, although, according to Warton, as long as the Æneid; but it contains passages of great beauty and pathos.

The story of Queen Annelida and false Arcite is said to have been originally told in Latin. Chaucer names the authors whom he professes to follow. “First folwe I Stace, and after him Corinne.” The opening only is taken from Statius, so that Corinne must be supposed to have furnished the remainder; but who she was has never yet been discovered. False Arcite is a different person from the Arcite of the Knight’s Tale. It is probable therefore that this poem was written before Chaucer had become acquainted with the Teseide of Boccaccio.

The opening of the Assembly of Foules is built on the Somnium Scipionis of Cicero. The description of a garden and temple is almost entirely taken from the description of the Temple of Venus in the Fourth Book of the Teseide. Mr. Tyrwhitt suspects this poem to allude to the intended marriage between John of Gaunt and Blanche of Lancaster, which took place in 1359.

Warton, in his History of English Poetry, intimates his belief that the House of Fame was originally a Provençal composition. But Mr. Tyrwhitt differs from him in opinion, and states that he “has not observed, in any of Chaucer’s writings, a single phrase or word which has the least appearance of having been fetched by him from the South of the Loire.” With respect to the matter and manner of his compositions, Mr. Tyrwhitt adds, that he “shall be slow to believe that in either he ever copied the poets of Provence,” or that he had more than a very slender acquaintance with them. The poem is an allegorical vision; a favourite theme with all the poets of Chaucer’s time, both native and foreign.

The Flower and the Leaf was printed for the first time in Speght’s edition of 1597. Mr. Tyrwhitt suggests a doubt of its correct ascription to Chaucer; but it seems to afford internal evidence of powers at all events congenial with those of Chaucer, in its description of rural scenery and its general truth and feeling. Dryden has modernised it, without a suspicion of its authenticity.

Chaucer’s prose works are—his Translation of Boethius, the Treatise on the Astrolabe, and the Testament of Love. The Canterbury Tales were his latest work. The general plan of them is, that a company of Pilgrims, going to Canterbury, assemble at an inn in Southwark, and agree that each shall tell at least one tale in going and another on returning; and that he who shall tell the best tales shall be treated by the rest with a supper at the inn, before they separate. The characters of the Pilgrims, as exhibited in their respective Prologues, are drawn from the various departments of middle life. The occurrences on the journey, and the adventures of the company at Canterbury, were intended to be interwoven as Episodes, or connected by means of the Prologues; but the work, like its prototype the Decameron, was undertaken when the author was past the meridian of life, and was left imperfect. Chaucer has, in many respects, improved on his model, especially in variety of character and its nice discrimination; but the introductory machinery is not contrived with equal felicity. Boccaccio’s narrators indulge in the ease and luxury of a palace; a journey on horse-back is not the most convenient opportunity of telling long stories to a numerous company.

The works of Chaucer, notwithstanding the encomiums of four successive centuries, emanating from poets and critics of the highest renown and first authority, are little read excepting by antiquaries and philologers, unless in the polished versions of Dryden and Pope. This is principally to be attributed neither to any change of opinion respecting the merit of the poet, nor to the obsoleteness of the language; but to the progressive change of manners and feelings in society, to the accumulation of knowledge, and the improvement of morals. His command over the language of his day, his poetical power, and his exhibition of existing characters and amusing incidents, constitute his attractions; but his prolixity is ill suited to our impatient rapidity of thought and action. Unlike the passionate and natural creations of Shakspeare, which will never grow obsolete, the sentiments of Chaucer are not congenial with our own: his love is fantastic gallantry; he is the painter and panegyrist of exploded knight-errantry. Hence the preference of the Canterbury Tales above all his other works; because the manners of the time are dramatized, in other ranks of life than that of chivalry; his good sense, and capacity for keen observation are called forth, to the exclusion of conventional affectations. With respect to his prose, it is curious as that “strange English” and “ornate style,” adopted by him as a scholar for the sake of distinction, rather than as a specimen of the language and mode of expression characteristic of his age.

]

SOBIESKI.

So rapid and complete has been the decay of the Ottoman empire as an aggressive power, that any person now living, unacquainted with history anterior to the date of his own birth, would treat the notion of danger to Christian Europe from the ambition of Turkey, as the idle fear of an over-anxious mind. Yet there was a time, and that within a century and a half, when Popes summoned the princes of Europe to support the Cross, and the Eastern frontier of Christendom was the scene of almost constant warfare between Christian and Moslem. That period of danger was to Poland a period of glory; and the brightest part of it is the reign of the warrior-king, John Sobieski. It proved, indeed, no better than an empty glitter, won at a vast expense of blood and treasure, the benefits of which were chiefly reaped by the faithless and ungrateful Austria.

_Engraved by J. Thomson._

JOHN SOBIESKI.

_From an original Picture, in the
Gallery of the Louvre._

Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.

_London, Published by Charles Knight, Pall Mall East._
]

Sobieski was the younger son of a Polish nobleman, high in rank and merit. He was born in 1629. The death of his brother, slain in warfare with the Cossacks of the Ukraine, in 1649, placed him in possession of the hereditary titles and immense estates of his house. To these distinctions he added high personal merits, an athletic body, a powerful, active, and upright mind, and, as the result proved, the qualities which make a general and statesman. It is no wonder therefore that, in the wars carried on by Poland during his youth against Tartars, Cossacks, and Swedes, he won laurels, though the Republic gained neither honour nor advantage. At an early age he acquired the confidence of Casimir, the reigning king of Poland, and was employed in various services of importance. On the revolt of Lubomirski, Grand Marshal of Poland, Sobieski was invested with that office, and soon after made Lieutenant-General (if we may so translate it) of the Polish army. In that capacity he led the royal troops against Lubomirski. The king’s obstinacy forced him to give battle at a disadvantage, and he was defeated, July 13, 1666; but the blame of this mishap was universally thrown on the right person, while the skilful conduct of Sobieski’s retreat obtained general admiration.

He married Marie de la Grange d’Arquien, a French lady of noble birth, who had accompanied the queen into Poland. She was a woman of wit and beauty, who exercised throughout life an unusual and unfortunate influence over a husband devotedly attached to her. Aided by her favour with her mistress, Sobieski obtained the highest military office, that of Grand General, in 1667. Happy for Poland, that in this instance favour and merit went hand in hand: for a host of fourscore thousand Tartars broke into the kingdom, when its exhausted finances could not maintain an army, and its exhausted population could hardly supply one. By draining his own purse, pledging his own resources, and levying recruits on his immense estates, the General raised his troops from twelve to twenty thousand, and marched fearlessly against a force four times as great. The scheme of his campaign was singularly confident, so much so as to excite the disapprobation even of the intrepid Condé. He detached eight thousand men in several corps, with secret orders, and took post with the remaining twelve thousand in a fortified camp at Podahiecz, a small town in the Palatinate of Russia, to stand the attack of eighty thousand Tartars, while his detachments were converging to their assigned stations. The assault was renewed for sixteen successive days; and day after day the assailants were repulsed with slaughter. On the seventeenth, Sobieski offered battle in the open field. A bloody contest ensued; but while victory was doubtful, the Polish detachments appeared on the Tartar flanks, and turned the balance. Disheartened by their loss, the Tartars made overtures of peace, which was concluded equally to the satisfaction of both the belligerents, October 19, 1667.

The circumstances attendant on the abdication of Casimir, in 1668, and the election of his successor Michael Wiesnowieski, do not demand our notice, for Sobieski took little part in the intrigues of the candidates, or the deliberations of the Diet. The new king wept and trembled as he mounted a throne to which he had never aspired, and which he protested himself incapable to fill; and the event proved that he was right. Yet, when he had tasted the sweets of power, he looked jealously on the man most highly esteemed and most able to do his country service, and therefore most formidable to a weak and suspicious prince. The Ukraine Cossacks had been converted by oppression from good subjects into bad neighbours, and on the accession of Michael they again raised the standard of war. Partly by negotiation, partly by force, the Grand General reduced all the country from the Bog to the Dniester in the campaign of 1671, and he received the thanks of the Republic for performing such eminent services with such scanty means. It is still more to his credit that he interfered, not for the first time, in favour of the revolted Cossacks, and insisted on their being received into allegiance with kindness, and encouraged to good behaviour by equitable and friendly treatment.