The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland

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Title: The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753)
Volume I.
Author: Theophilus Cibber
Release Date: January 5, 2004 [EBook #10598]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
0. START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIVES OF
POETS, V1 ***
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Anglistica & Americana
A Series of Reprints Selected by Bernhard Fabian, Edgar Mertner, Karl
Schneider and Marvin Spevack
1968
GEORG OLMS VERLAGSBUCHHANDLUNG HILDESHEIM
Theophilus Cibber
The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753)
Vol. I

1968
The present facsimile is reproduced from a copy in the possession of
the Library of the University of Gottingen. Shelfmark: H. lit. biogr. I
8464.
Although the title-page of Volume I announces four volumes, the work
is continued in a fifth volume of the same date. Like Volumes II, III,
and IV, it is by "Mr. CIBBER, and other Hands" and is "Printed for R.
GRIFFITHS".
M.S.
THE
LIVES
OF THE
POETS
OF
GREAT BRITAIN and IRELAND,
To the TIME of
DEAN SWIFT.
Compiled from ample Materials scattered in a Variety of Books, and
especially from the MS. Notes of the late ingenious Mr. COXETER
and others, collected for this Design,
By Mr. CIBBER.
In FOUR VOLUMES.
VOL. I.

MDCCLIII.
VOLUME I.
Contains the
LIVES
O F
Chaucer
Langland
Gower
Lydgate
Harding
Skelton
Barclay

More
Surry Earl
Wyat
Sackville
Churchyard
Heywood

Ferrars
Sidney
Marloe
Green
Spenser
Heywood
Lilly

Overbury
Marsten
Shakespear
Sylvester
Daniel
Harrington

Decker
Beaumont and Fletcher
Lodge
Davies
Goff
Greville L.
Brooke
Day
Raleigh
Donne
Drayton
Corbet
Fairfax

Randolph
Chapman
Johnson
Carew
Wotton
Markham
T.
Heywood
Cartwright

Sandys
Falkland
Suckling
Hausted

Drummond
Stirling Earl
Hall
Crashaw
Rowley
Nash
Ford

Middleton
THE LIVES OF THE POETS.

GEOFFRY CHAUCER.
It has been observed that men of eminence in all ages, and

distinguished for the same excellence, have generally had something in
their lives similar to each other. The place of Homer's nativity, has not
been more variously conjectured, or his parents more differently
assigned than our author's. Leland, who lived nearest to Chaucer's time
of all those who have wrote his life, was commissioned by king Henry
VIII, to search all the libraries, and religious houses in 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
asserts, that his father was a knight; but tho' there is no authority to
support this assertion, yet it is reasonable to suppose that he was
something superior 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 sea in
the twelfth year of his reign. It is highly probable that this gentleman
was father to our Geoffry, and the supposition is strengthened by
Chaucer's first application, after leaving the university and inns