biographers; but the authentic notices of Chaucer during the
years 1372-1373, as shown by the researches of Sir Harris
Nicolas, are confined to the facts already stated; and we are left
to answer the question by the probabilities of the case, and by
the aid of what faint light the poet himself affords. We can
scarcely fancy that Chaucer, visiting Italy for the first time, in a
capacity which opened for him easy access to the great and the
famous, did not embrace the chance of meeting a poet whose
works he evidently knew in their native tongue, and highly
esteemed. With Mr Wright, we are strongly disinclined to
believe "that Chaucer did not profit by the opportunity . . . of
improving his acquaintance with the poetry, if not the poets, of
the country he thus visited, whose influence was now being felt
on the literature of most countries of Western Europe." That
Chaucer was familiar with the Italian language appears not
merely from his repeated selection as Envoy to Italian States,
but by many passages in his poetry, from "The Assembly of
Fowls" to "The Canterbury Tales." In the opening of the first
poem there is a striking parallel to Dante's inscription on the
gate of Hell. The first Song of Troilus, in "Troilus and
Cressida", is a nearly literal translation of Petrarch's 88th
Sonnet. In the Prologue to "The Legend of Good Women",
there is a reference to Dante which can hardly have reached the
poet at second- hand. And in Chaucer's great work -- as in The
Wife of Bath's Tale, and The Monk's Tale -- direct reference by
name is made to Dante, "the wise poet of Florence," "the great
poet of Italy," as the source whence the author has quoted.
When we consider the poet's high place in literature and at
Court, which could not fail to make him free of the hospitalities
of the brilliant little Lombard States; his familiarity with the