Chaucer "ayed at London 25 Octob. Ann. 1400, as appeares by the inscription upon his Tombe at Saint Peters in Westminster Abby in an Isle on the South Side of the Church. Mr. Nicholas Brigham built this Marble Monument to his Memory, the true Pourtraicture whereof I have caused to be exactly graved in Brasse, and placed in page 226. There was formerly round the ledge of the Tombe these following Verses, but now no remainder of them left.

Si rogites (etc.)

The Picture of Chaucer is now somewhat decay'd, but the Graver has recovered it after a Principal left to Posterity by his worthy Schollar Tho. Occleve, who hath also these Verses upon it. (Hoccleve is cited.) Before Mr. Brigham built the aforesaid Monument it seemes Chaucer had a Stone layd over his Grave upon which was ingraved this following Epitaph:

Galfridus Chaucer Vates & fama Poesis,

Materna hac sacra sum tumulatus humo."

Antony à Wood, in his Fasti Oxonienses, 1691-2, does not give epitaph or arms; he says, in his account of Cowley, "in the south cross isle, or large isle joyning to the south side of the choir, was buried near to the place where the reliques of Jeff. Chaucer had been lodged."

John Dart, author of the life of Chaucer first planned for the Urry Chaucer of 1721, includes in his Westmonasterium (etc.), 1743, a full page engraving of the monument, by J. Cole, to face p. 83 of vol. I. His discussion of Chaucer in the text is mainly a complaint of the changes made by the editors in his Life of the poet above mentioned, but he gives a brief biographical notice, in which he says that Chaucer was born in London in 1328; that “his father, as I take it, was one Sir John Chaucer, employ'd in foreign affairs by Edward III"; that Chaucer died in the second year of Edward III, aged 72, and was buried before the Chapel of St. Bennet, "where his stone of broad Grey Marble, as I take it, was not long since remaining, but was taken up when Mr. Dryden's Monument was erected, and sawn to mend the Pavement." Dart also says that "upon the corner Pillar of St. Bennet's Chapel hung antiently a leaden Plate" with Chaucer's epitaph by Surigonus of Milan; he records that Nicholas Brigham erected the present tomb "about the year 1555", and says that he put the tomb "in a convenient Place, as near his Grave as he could, on which was formerly painted his Picture in a Blank on the North side the epitaph, but now quite defac'd. It was exactly like the Painting of Ocklefe, printed before the old Editions, and was remaining in Mr. Ashmole's Time, who in one of his Treatises, has given us the Monument. . . . There was formerly round the

Verge of the Tomb these Verses “‘Si rogitas'" (etc. see above). "On the Inside of the Tomb was his Arms, now gone, but the same are painted over it under the Arch of the Church Wall."

The full-page engraving which accompanies the text shows the epitaph as cited above, four lines of Latin, the date, a single line of Latin, and the line giving Brigham's name; below this appears the date 1556. A shield of the arms is on each side of the epitaph, and in each of the sculptured quatrefoils on the front of the tomb; the epitaph is above the tomb itself, under the canopy, upon the wall at the back of the recess.

In Neale and Brayley's History and Antiquities of the Abbey Church of St. Peter, Westminster, London 1818-1823, II: 265, occurs the passage cited by Sir Harris Nicolas in his Life of Chaucer, upon Chaucer's tomb and epitaph. Neale and Brayley say: "In front of the Tomb are three pannelled divisions of starred quatrefoils, containing sculptured shields, on which the arms of Chaucer are alone distinguishable, through the partial decomposition and crumbling state of the marble: the same arms may be traced in an oblong compartment at the back of the recess, where also, are some remains of the following Inscription, now almost obliterated from similar circumstances"; (the epitaph is then given as by Camden above cited, but with v everywhere written for u, and the date 1550 below the line containing Brigham's name). It is then added that the whole of the recess and the canopy have recently been colored black.

In the Nineteenth Century for August, 1897, p. 336, Henry Troutbeck, coroner for Westminster, states that he examined Chaucer's bones when they were exposed in the digging of Browning's grave, and that from the measurements which he made of some of the larger bones, he judges the poet to have been about five feet six inches tall.

d) Connection with Thomas Chaucer, etc.

The filiation of Thomas Chaucer, a wealthy landowner and conspicuous political figure of the fifteenth century, to Geoffrey Chaucer, was first asserted by Thomas Gascoigne, died 1458, in his Dictionarium Theologicum, which is in MS in the library of Lincoln College, Oxford, and is not yet printed as a whole, though extracts were published by Thorold Rogers as Loci e Libro Veritatum, Oxford, 1881. The passage on Thomas Chaucer, not printed by Rogers, was quoted by Hales, Athen. 1888 I: 404, reprinted Folia Litteraria 1893 pp. 110-111. Skeat, I:1, quotes a sentence; and see Chalmers' English Poets, I, page x. In the life of Chaucer prefixed to the Speght of 1598, see ante, Thomas appears as Geoffrey's son in the stemma drawn up by the antiquary Glover. The remark

follows, by Speght or Stow, that "some hold opinion (but I know not upon what grounds) that Thomas Chaucer was . . . rather some Kinsman" whom Geoffrey Chaucer brought up. The LifeRecords, part IV, pp. 51-57, discuss the question at length, and take up the theory mentioned by Speght or Stow; suggestion is even made as to the real name of him who was called Thomas Chaucer. A work upon the subject is announced by the Chaucer Society.

Furnivall published in Notes and Queries, 1872 I: 381 ff., a poem by Lydgate addressed to Thomas Chaucer on the occasion of his departure to France upon ambassade, in which no mention is made of any relation between Thomas and Geoffrey; the same text is printed in Mod. Phil. 1:331-5. Furnivall regards this as strong proof against the filiation, since Lydgate's admiration for the elder Chaucer would certainly lead him to mention the connection if any existed. Kittredge, Nan 1894 II: 309, considers this inference unnecessary, as Lydgate was writing a mere occasional poem. In Acad. 1901 II: 597 Furnivall repeats his argument, opposing a letter printed ibid. p. 572.

Minor notes are in N. and Q. 1872 I: 436, 468, 493, II : 15; 1884 I: 364; 1891 II: 47, 109, 215, 338; 1900 I: 146 and refs. there given; Acad. 1874 I65, 94; Athen. 1888 I: 404, 436, 468.

Koch, Chronology, pp. 18-20, opposes filiation.

In the Bell Chaucer of 1854, vol. VIII p. 130, is a note on Thomas Chaucer, as follows: "In searching the Bodleian Library for MSS for this edition, a curious fact was discovered, which, though possibly known to Tyrwhitt, has not been mentioned by him or any subsequent editor. In the volume marked Fairfax 16 are contained, in addition to The Compleynte of Mars and Venus, and other poems, by Geoffrey Chaucer, some short pieces by one Thomas Chaucer. This person was probably the poet's eldest son or a kinsman, who, according to a tradition prevalent in Speght's time, was educated by his more celebrated relative. To this Thomas Chaucer, therefore, might very probably be traced many of those short pieces published by Speght, but properly rejected from later editions of the works of Geoffrey Chaucer."

Bell is here in error. The MS Fairfax 16 contains no pieces marked as by Thomas Chaucer, but in another Bodleian MS, the Shirley codex Ashmole 59, the envoy of the Venus is marked in the margin as by Thomas Chaucer, see Anglia 30: 326-7.

In the New England Historical and Genealogical Register, vol. LI, there is printed, to face p. 389, a genealogical tree of the Manning family, from which it appears that one Simon Manning de Codham, Kent, who was living in the 46th year of Edward III and the fifth of Richard II, married "Catharina soror Galfridi Chawcer

militis celeberrimi Poetae Anglicani." From this union several well known New England families, among them the Higginsons and Prescotts, claim descent. Henry F. Waters, the compiler of the notes to this tree, see ibid. pp. 403, 405 in especial, assigns MS Harley 1548 as the source of his information, which reference is correct. The Harleian Catalogue says that this MS was written and tricked by Richard Mundy, and that the copy of the Visitation Book of the County of Kent which it contains, whence this genealogy is taken, is from that made and taken in 1619, 1620, 1621 by John Philpot Rouge Dragon, for William Camden Clarencieux. A note by the cataloguer says: "Herein I find many enlargements by Mr. Mundy and by Mr. Robert Dale; but mostly by the former."

C. Portraits of Chaucer

The Chaucer Society published in their second series, 1900, "The Portraits of Geoffrey Chaucer", by M. H. Spielmann; this work was reviewed by Koch, Engl. Stud. 30 : 445-50.

Spielmann attaches by far the greatest value to the halflength executed by order of Hoccleve on the margin of leaf 91 in MS. Harley 4866. This he reproduces; reproductions are also to be found e. g. in Life Records, part II frontispiece, Skeat I, frontispiece, Garnett and Gosse's Engl. Lit. vol. I, to face p. 140. There is a description in Trial Forew. pp. 93-4, and one by Lowell in his essay on Chaucer, in My Study Windows.

Chaucer is depicted, from fancy, by painters of the Canterbury Pilgrimage, see under Pictures of the Pilgrims at the close of Section III here. A bust by George Frampton, R. A., exhibited in the Royal Academy, 1903, has been placed in the Guildhall, London.

Previous partial lists of Chaucer's portraits are in the Dict. Nat. Biog., art. Chaucer. Many allusions to portraits, usually of no authenticity, may be found in the columns of Notes and Queries.

D. Chaucer as a Character in Fiction

Chaucer appears as a character in Robert Greene's Vision (about 1590?); in Ben Jonson's masque of The Golden Age Restored (1615), in the first recension of Gay's Wife of Bath (see p. 298 here), in E. L. Blanchard's Friar Bacon (1863), in à Beckett and Stanfield's operetta of The Canterbury Pilgrims (1884), and in Percy Mackaye's Canterbury Pilgrims (1903). See also James White's Adventures of John of Gaunt, Dublin (1790), 2 vols., described Anglia 25:251; and Florence Converse's novel entitled Long Will, Boston, 1903.

Landor's Imaginary Conversations include one between Chaucer, Boccaccio, and Petrarch.