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*J. Heywood Lilly

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GEOFFRY CHAUC e r.

T has been obferved that men of eminence in all ages, and diftinguifhed for the fame excellence, have generally had fomething in their lives fimilar to each other. The place of Homer's nativity, has not been more

on Slow varionfly conjectured, or his parents more differently aligned than our author's. Leland, who lived nearest to Chaucer's time of all thofe who have wrote his life, was commiffioned by king Henry VIII, to fearch all the libraries, and religious houfes in England, when thofe archives were preferved, before their deftruction was produced by the reformation, or Polydore Virgil had confumed fuch curious pieces as would have contradicted his framed and fabulous hiftory. He for fome reafons HVOL. I. No 1. B believed

believed Oxford or Berkshire to have given birth to this great man, but has not informed us what thofe reafons were that induced him to believe fo, and at prefent there appears no other, but that the feats of his family were in thofe countries. Pitts pofitively afferts, without producing any authority to fupport it, that Woodstock was the place; which opinion Mr. Camden feems to hint at, where he mentions that town; but it may be fufpected that Pitts had no other ground for the affertion, than Chaucer's mentioning Woodstock park in his works, and having a house there. But after all thefe, different pretenfions, he himself, in theTeftament of Love, feems to point out the place of his nativity to be the city of London, and tho' Mr. Camden mentions the claim of Woodstock, he does not give much credit to it; for fpeaking of Spencer (who was uncontrovertedly born in London) he calls him fellow citizen to Chaucer.

The defcent of Chaucer is as uncertain, and unfixed by the critics, as the place of his birth. Mr. Speight is of opinion, that one Richard Chaucer was his father, and that one Elizabeth Chaucer, a nun of St. Helen's, in the fecond year of Richard II. might have been his fifter, or of his kindred. But this conjecture, fays Urry,* feems very improbable; for this Richard was a vintner, living at the corner of Kirton-lane, and at his death left his house, tavern, and stock to the church of St. Mary Aldermary, which in all probability he would not have done if he had had any fons to poffefs his fortune nor is it very likely he could enjoy the family eftates mentioned by Leland in Oxfordshire, and at the fame time follow fuch an occupation. Pitts afferts, that his father was a knight; but tho' there is no authority to fupport this affertion, yet it is rea

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* Life of Chaucer prefixed to Ogle's ed'tion of that author modernized.

fonable

fonable to 'fuppofe that he was fomething fuperior to a common employ. We find one John Chaucer attending upon Edward III. and Queen Philippa, in their expedition to Flanders and Cologn, who had the King's protection to go over fea in the twelfth year of his reign. It is highly probable that this gentleman was father to our Geoffry, and the fuppofition is ftrengthened by, Chaucer's first application, after leaving the univerfity and inns of law, being to the Court; nor is it unlikely that the fervice of the father should recommend the fon.!

It is univerfally agreed, that he was born in the fecond year of the reign of King Edward III. A. D. 1328. His firft ftudies were in the university of Cambridge, and when about eighteen years of age he wrote his Court of Love, but of what college he was is uncertain, there being no account of him in the records of the Univerfity. From Cambridge he was removed to Oxford in order to compleat his ftudies, and after a confiderable' ftay there, and a ftrict application to the public lectures of the univerfity, he became (fays Leland)" a ready logician, a "fmooth rhetorician, a pleafant poet, a great phi

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lofopher, an ingenious mathematician, and a holy "divine. That he was a great master in aftronomy, "is plain by his difcourfes of the Aftrolabe. That "he was verfed in hermetic philofophy (which pre"vailed much at that time,) appears by his Tale of "the Chanons Yeoman: His knowledge in divi"nity is evident from his Parfon's Tale, and his "philofophy from the Teftament of Love." Thus qualified to make a figure in the world, he left his learned retirement, and travelled into France, Holland, and other countries, where he spent fome of his younger days. Upon his return he entered himfelf in the Inner Temple, where he ftudied the municipal laws of the land. But he had not long profecuted that dry ftudy, till his fuperior abilities were taken notice of by fome perfons of diftinction, by

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