The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume I. by Theophilus Cibber
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page 6 of 379 (01%)
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England, when those archives were preserved, before their destruction
was produced by the reformation, or Polydore Virgil had consumed such curious pieces as would have contradicted his framed and fabulous history. He for some reasons believed Oxford or Berkshire to have given birth to this great man, but has not informed us what those reasons were that induced him to believe so, and at present there appears no other, but that the seats of his family were in those countries. Pitts positively asserts, without producing any authority to support it, that Woodstock was the place; which opinion Mr. Camden seems to hint at, where he mentions that town; but it may be suspected that Pitts had no other ground for the assertion, than Chaucer's mentioning Woodstock park in his works, and having a house there. But after all these different pretensions, he himself, in the Testament of Love, seems 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 speaking of Spencer (who was uncontrovertedly born in London) he calls him fellow citizen to Chaucer. The descent 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 second year of Richard II. might have been his sister, or of his kindred. But this conjecture, says Urry,[1] seems 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 sons to possess his fortune; nor is it very likely he could enjoy the family estates mentioned by Leland in Oxfordshire, and at the same time follow such an occupation. Pitts |
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