The Canterbury tales and Faerie queene &c., &c., &c., ed. for popular perusal with current illustrations and explanatory notes, by D. Laing Purves.

LIFE OF GEOFFREY CHAUCER. I3
placed on a pillar near his grave, bearing the lines, taken from an epitaph or eulogy
made by Stephanus Surigonus of Milan, at the request of Caxton:
"Galfridus Chaucer, vates, etfamapoesis
Maternce, hdc sacrd sum tumulatus humo."
About 1555, Mr Nicholas Brigham, a gentleman of Oxford who greatly admired
the genius of Chaucer, erected the present tomb, as near to the spot where the poet
lay, " before the chapel of St Benet," as was then possible by reason of the" cancelli," which the Duke of Buckingham subsequently obtained leave to remove; that
room might be made for the tomb of Dryden. On the structure of Mr Brigham,
besides a full-length representation of Chaucer, taken from a portrait drawn by his
"scholar" Thomas Occleve, was-or is, though now almost illegible-the following
inscription:
M. S.
QUI FUIT ANGLORUM VATES TER MAXIMUS OLIM,
GALFRIDUS CHAUCER CONDITUR HOC TUMULO;
ANNUM SI QUARAS DOMINI, SI TEMPORA VITXE,
ECCE NOTE SUBSUNT, QUE TIBI CUNCTA NOTANT.
25 OCTOBRIS 1400.
JERUMNARUM REQUIES MORS.
N. BRIGHAM HOS FECIT MUSARUM NOMINE SUMPTUS
1556.
Concerning his personal appearance and habits, Chaucer has not been reticent in
his poetry. Urry sums up the traits of his aspect and character fairly thus: "He
was of a middle stature, the latter part of his life inclinable to be fat and corpulent,
as appears by the Host's bantering him in the journey to Canterbury, and comparing shapes with him.l His face was fleshy, his features just and regular, his
complexion fair, and somewhat pale, his hair of a dusky yellow, short and thin; the
hair of his beard in two forked tufts, of a wheat colour; his forehead broad and
smooth; his eyes inclining usually to the ground, which is intimated by the Host's
words; his whole face full of liveliness, a calm, easy sweetness, and a studious
venerable aspect.... As to his temper, he had a mixture of the gay, the modest,
and the grave. The sprightliness of his humour was more distinguished by his
writings than by his appearance; which gave occasion to Margaret Countess of
Pembroke often to rally him upon his silent modesty in company, telling him, that
his absence was more agreeable to her than his conversation, since the first was
productive of agreeable pieces of wit in his writings,2 but the latter was filled with
a modest deference, and a too distant respect. We see nothing merry or jocose in
his behaviour with his pilgrims, but a silent attention to their mirth, rather than
any mixture of his own.... When disengaged from public affairs, his time was
entirely spent in study and reading; so agreeable to him was this exercise, that he
Chiltern Hundreds; and] the queen of Henry IV. granted him the farm of several of her
manors, a grant subsequently confirmed to him for life by the King, after the Queen's death.
He sat in Parliament repeatedly for Oxfordshire, was Speaker in 1414, and in the same year
went to France as commissioner to negotiate the marriage of Henry V. with the Princess
Katherine. He held, before he died in 1434, various other posts of trust and distinction; but
he left no heirs-male. His only child, Alice Chaucer, married twice; first Sir John Philip;
and afterwards the Duke of Suffolk-attainted and beheaded in 1450. She had three
children by the Duke; and her eldest son married the Princess Elizabeth, sister of Edward IV,
The eldest son of this marriage, created Earl of Lincoln, was declared by Richard III. heirapparent to the throne, in case the Prince of Wales should die without issue; but the death of
Lincoln himself, at the battle of Stoke in 1487, destroyed all prospect that the poet's descendants might succeed to the crown of England; and his family is now believed to be extinct.
1 See the Prologue to Chaucer's Tale of Sir Thopas, page 146.
2 See the " Goodlv Ballad of Chaucer," seventh stanza, page 290.