His monument was not erected until one hundred and fifty-six years afterward, by Nicholas Brigham.

It stands in the "poets' corner" of Westminster Abbey, and has been the nucleus of that gathering-place of the sacred dust which once enclosed the great minds of England.

The inscription, which justly styles him "Anglorum vates ter maximus," is not to be entirely depended upon as to the "annus Domini," or "tempora vitae," because of the turbulent and destructive reigns that had intervened--evil times for literary effort, and yet making material for literature and history, and producing that wonderful magician, the printing-press, and paper, by means of which the former things might be disseminated, and Chaucer brought nearer to us than to them.
HISTORICAL FACTS .-- The year before Chaucer died, Richard II.

was starved in his dungeon.

Henry, the son of John of Gaunt, represented the usurpation of Lancaster, and the realm was convulsed with the revolts of rival aristocracy; and, although Prince Hal, or Henry V., warred with entire success in France, and got the throne of that kingdom away from Charles VI., (the Insane,) he died leaving to his infant son, Henry VI., an inheritance which could not be secured.