From childhood C. had shown a morbid familiarity with
the idea of suicide, and had written a last will and testament, "executed
in the presence of Omniscience," and full of wild and profane wit. The
magnitude of his tragedy is only realised when it is considered not only
that the poetry he left was of a high order of originality and
imaginative power, but that it was produced at an age at which our
greatest poets, had they died, would have remained unknown. Precocious
not only in genius but in dissipation, proud and morose as he was, an
unsympathetic age confined itself mainly to awarding blame to his
literary and moral delinquencies. Posterity has weighed him in a juster
balance, and laments the early quenching of so brilliant a light. His
_coll._ works appeared in 1803, and another ed. by Prof. Street in 1875.
Among these are _Elinoure and Juga_, _Balade of Charitie_, _Bristowe
Tragedie_, _AElla_, and _Tragedy of Godwin_.
The best account of his life is the Essay by Prof. Masson.
CHAUCER, GEOFFREY (1340?-1400).--Poet, was _b._ in London, the _s._ of
John C., a vintner of Thames Street, who had also a small estate at
Ipswich, and was occasionally employed on service for the King (Edward
III.
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