He is reproached for having introduced "a wagon-load of foreign words," i.e.Norman words, which, although frowned upon by some critics, were greatly needed, were eagerly adopted, and constituted him the "well of English undefiled," as he was called by Spenser.

It is no part of our plan to consider Chaucer's language or diction, a special study which the reader can pursue for himself.

Occleve, in his work "_De Regimine Principium"_ calls him "the honour of English tonge," "floure of eloquence," and "universal fadir in science," and, above all, "the firste findere of our faire language." To Lydgate he was the "Floure of Poetes throughout all Bretaine." Measured by our standard, he is not always musical, "and," in the language of Dryden, "many of his verses are lame for want of half a foot, and sometimes a whole one;" but he must be measured by the standards of his age, by the judgment of his contemporaries, and by a thorough intelligence of the language as he found it and as he left it.

Edward III., a practical reformer in many things, gave additional importance to English, by restoring it in the courts of law, and administering justice to the people in their own tongue.

When we read of the _English_ kings of this early period, it is curious to reflect that these monarchs, up to the time of Edward I., spoke French as their vernacular tongue, while English had only been the mixed, corrupted language of the lower classes, which was now brought thus by king and poet into honorable consideration.
HIS DEATH .-- Chaucer died on the 25th of October, 1400, in his little tenement in the garden of St.Mary's Chapel, Westminster, and left his works and his fame to an evil and unappreciative age.