arrested or sued by anybody except on a plea connected with land (see a copy of this document in GODWIN, iv. 299, 300). He must have been sorely pinched in this year, 1398, when twice, on 24 July and 31 July, he obtained a loan of 6s. 8d.

In October another grant of wine was made him, this time not a 'pitcher,' but a tun, to be received in the port of London by the king's chief butler or his deputy. The king's chief butler at that time was Thomas Chaucer.

He was not more satisfactorily placed till the accession of Henry IV, the son of his old patron the Duke of Lancaster (3 Oct. 1399). Four days after Henry came to the throne he granted Chaucer forty marks (261. 138. 4d.) yearly, in addition to the annuity Richard II had given him, so nearly doubling his previous income. This grant may have been made in answer to the poet's appeal appended to the 'Compleynte to his Purse-lines which show that his humour did not desert him amidst all his troubles. Perhaps it is worth noting as possibly significant of Chaucer's character that in a few days he managed to lose his copy of this grant, and also his copy of the grant of 1394. He was furnished with new copies on 13 Oct. He was now, we may presume, in comfortable circumstances, for some two months later, on Christmas eve, 1399, he took a lease for fifty-three years, at the annual rent of 21. 138. 4d., of a house situated in the garden of the Lady Chapel, Westminster. This Lady Chapel occupied the ground now covered by Henry VII's Chapel. Chaucer's house probably remained till a clearance was made for this latter structure. On 21 Feb. 1400 Chaucer received one of his pensions. The following months he was probably ailing, as he did not claim another payment then due to him; and not till June was any part of this payment claimed, and then it was paid not to himself, but to one Henry Somere. This is our last notice of the poet. The inscription on his tomb says he died on 25 Oct. 1400. The date of that inscription is long after the event, but it may have been copied from some older stone, and its accuracy is extremely probable. Being not only a tenant of the abbey, but a distinguished courtier and a distinguished poet, he was buried in what came afterwards to be known as the Poets' Corner, in the east aisle of the south transept, Westminster. In Caxton's time there were some Latin lines in his memory, 'wreten on a table hongyng on a pylere by his sepulture,' composed by one Surigonius, a poet laureat of Milan, beginning:

Galfridus Chaucer vates et fama poesis

Materna hac sacra sum tumulatus humo,

where 'fama poesis maternæ,' we suppose, means the 'glory of my mother-country's poetry.' In 1555 Nicholas Brigham [q. v.], a special admirer of Chaucer's works, himself a poet, erected close by his grave the tomb which is now extant. His wife had probably died, as we have seen, in 1387. Of his 'litel son Lewis,' for whom he compiled the 'Astrolabie' in 1391, we know nothing more. Thomas Chaucer, assumed to be the poet's elder son, is separately noticed.

The great literary work of this third period is the supreme work of Chaucer's life-the Canterbury Tales.' He probably finally fixed on his subject about 1387. Had the scheme been carried out, we should have had some 120 tales. There are a hundred in the Decamerone,' but they are comparatively slight and brief; many of Chaucer's are long and elaborate. Several of his earlier writings were adapted (not always thoroughly) to form a part of it, viz. Palamon and Arcite, the 'Tale of Griselda,' the 'Tale of Constance,' the Tale of Saint Cecilia.' Perhaps the earliest allusion to the 'Canterbury Tales' is made by Gower in the prologue to the secoud (the 1393) edition of the Confessio Amantis'

But for my wittes ben so smale

To tellen every man his tale, &c.

We may well believe that by 1393 a great part of the work as we have it was completed. But no doubt Chaucer was intending to go life, till the time when he could only take on with it, at least till near the close of his pleasure in the translation of Boes of consolation and other bokes of legendes of Seintes, and of Omelies and moralite and devotion.' One would rejoice if this morbid passage, occurring at the close of the 'Persones Tale,' could be shown to be the interpolation of some monk; but as it is we must suppose that to Chaucer there came an hour of reaction and weakness. In the 'Compleynt of Venus,' which is quite a distinct piece from the Compleynt of Mars,' although so commonly printed as a part of it, Chaucer begs that his work may be received with indulgence—

For elde, that in my spirit dulleth me,
Hath of enditing al the sotelte

Welnigh beraft out of my remembrance. So that he felt his powers decaying. On the other hand, the lines Flee from the prees,' known as the 'Good Counseil of Chaucer,' are vigorously written, and they are said to have been written on his deathbed; but this cannot be proved. The lines to his Purse sent to Henry IV, as we have seen, in 1399, are lively; but it does not follow that they were

written in that year. More likely only the 'envoy' was written then. The words out of this towne helpe me by your might' seem to point to some special occasion, and 'I am shave as nere as any frere' is in his old manner. Other pieces belonging to this period are the Envoy to Scogan-certainly written in the days of distress, and possibly enough in 1393, as the references to excessive rains suggest-the 'Envoy to Bukton, and a Balade de Vilage sanz Peinture.' Credibly enough, the last few years of his life Chaucer, for one reason or another, wrote little, and his magnum opus was scarcely touched. In the third period we see him mature. Fully as other influences have acted upon him, what strikes us is his extraordinary originality. For what is best in his best work he is debtor to no man. He is the first great figure of modern English literature, the first great humorist of modern Europe, and the first great writer in whom the dramatic spirit, so long vanished and seemingly extinct, reappears. Except Dante, there is no poet of the middle ages of superior faculty and distinction.

As to the manuscripts of Chaucer, see Furnivall's 'Six Text Edition of the Canterbury Tales, &c.,' an invaluable help to Chaucerian study. As to printed editions, the 'Canterbury Tales' were printed by Caxton in 1475, and again from a better manuscript later; by Wynken de Worde in 1495, and again in 1498; by Richard Pynson in 1493, and again in 1526. Among innumerable later editions of the 'Canterbury Tales' Tyrwhitt's elaborate edition (1775-8) deserves special notice. The first printed collection of all the works attributed to Chaucer was made by W. Thynne in 1532, and again with the addition of the Plowman's Tale' in 1542, and again about 1559, rearranged. Next in 1561 came Stowe's edition; then in 1598 Speght's, which was reissued and revised in 1602, and again, in 1687. Later editors are Urry (1721), Singer (1822), Nicolas (1845), Morris (1866), and Prof. W. W. Skeat, whose critical edition (6 vols. and a supplementary vol. of Chaucerian and other pieces, 1894-7) is the most complete. A facsimile of Thynne's edition of 1532 was issued in 1905. Recent one-vol. editions of the works are 'The Student's Chaucer,' edited by Skeat (1895) and 'The Globe Edition,' edited by A. W. Pollard and others (1898). [The Chaucer Soc. publs.; T. R. Lounsbury's Studies in Chaucer, 3 vols. 1892; Skeat's compl. ed., vol. vi.; Tyrwhitt's Introd. Discourse to Canterbury Tales, 1775-8; Godwin's Life of Chaucer, 4 vols. 2nd ed. 1804; Nicolas's Life of Chaucer in Aldine ed.; Todd's Illustr. of Gower and Chaucer, 1810; Matthew Browne's' Chaucer's England, 2

vols. 1869; John Saunders's Cabinet Pictures of English Life: Chaucer, 1845; Bernhard ten Brink's Chaucer Studien, 1870, and his Chaucer's Sprache und Verkunst, 1884; Morris's Chaucer's Prologue, &c.; Skeat's Man of Lawes Tale, &c.; and also the Prioresses Tale, &c.,inClarendon Press ser.; Henry Morley's English Writers; Ward's Chaucer, in Poetry; Lowell's My Study Windows.] J.W.H. Men of Letters ser.; Warton's Hist. of English

CHAUCER, THOMAS (1367 ?-1434), speaker of the House of Commons, in all likelihood elder son of Geoffrey Chaucer [q. v.], by his wife Philippa, daughter of Sir Payne Roet and sister of Catherine Swnyford, mistress and afterwards wife of John, duke of Lancaster, was probably born in 1367. Early in life he married Matilda, second daughter and coheiress of Sir John Burghersh, nephew of Henry Burghersh [q. v.], bishop of Lincoln, treasurer and chancellor of the kingdom. His marriage brought him large estates, and among them the manor of Ewelme, Oxfordshire. It is evident that his connection with the Duke of Lancaster was profitable to him. He was appointed chief butler to Richard II, ana on 20 March 1399 received a pension of twenty marks a year in exchange for certain offices granted him by the duke, paying at the same time five marks for the confirmation of two annuities of 107. charged on the duchy of Lancaster and also granted by the duke. These annuities were confirmed to him by Henry IV, who appointed him constable of Wallingford Castle, and steward of the honours of Wallingford and St. Valery and of the Chiltern Hundreds, with 401. a year as stipend and 107. for a deputy. About the same time he succeeded Geoffrey Chaucer as forester of North Petherton Park, Somersetshire (COLLINSON, Somersetshire. iii. 62; MR. SELBY in Athenæum, 20 Nov. 1886). On 5 Nov. 1402 he received a grant of the chief butlership for life. On 23 Feb. 1411 the queen gave him the manor of Woodstock and other estates during her life, and on 15 March the king assigned them to him after her death. Chaucer sat for Oxfordshire in the parliaments of 1400-1, 1402, 1405-6, 1407, 1409-10, 1411, 1413, 1414, 1421, 1422, 1425-6, 1427, 1429, 1430-1. He was chosen speaker in the parliament that met at Gloucester in 1407, and on 9 Nov. reminded the king that the accounts of the expenditure of the last subsidy had not been rendered. The chancellor interrupted him, declaring that they were not ready, and that for the future the lords would not promise them. He was chosen again in 1410 and in 1411, when, on making his protestation' and claiming the usual permission of free speech, he was answered by the king that he might speak as other speakers had

given to the college by Chauncey. He collected paintings and prints, coins and books. He died 25 Dec. 1777, and his brother Nathaniel, also a collector, succeeded to his collections. As a man fond of what was ancient, he is appropriately buried in the parish church which claims to be of the most ancient foundation of any in London, St. Peter's on Cornhill. Three sale catalogues, dated 1790, one of pictures, one of coins, and one of books, in the British Museum, are almost the only remaining records of the tastes and learning of Chauncey and his brother.

[Munk's Coll. of Phys. 1878, ii. 145; Thomson's History of Royal Society, p. xlii.] N. M.

CHAUNCEY, ICHABOD (d. 1691), physician and divine, the date and place of whose birth are unknown, was chaplain to Sir Edward Harley's regiment at Dunkirk at the time the Uniformity Act was passed. Shortly afterwards he obtained a living in Bristol, and, being ejected for nonconformity, practised physic there for eighteen years, and obtained a considerable practice. In his 'Innocence vindicated' he states that in 1684 he was a M.A. of thirty years' standing, and for twenty had been a licentiate of the London College of Physicians. In 1682 he was prosecuted for not attending church, &c. (35 Eliz. c. i.) His defence was that he accommodated his worship as nearly as he could to that of the primitive church, but he was convicted and fined. In 1684 he was again prosecuted under the same act, and was imprisoned in the common gaol for eighteen weeks before he was tried, when he was sentenced to lose his estate both real and personal, and to leave the realm within three months. From a declaration drawn up by the grand jury, he appears to have been in the habit of defending such dissenters in Bristol as were prosecuted under the various acts relating to religion; but from the 'Records of the Broadmead Meeting, Bristol,' his persecution appears to have originated in the private malice of the town clerk. Chauncey resided in Holland till 1686, when he returned to Bristol, where he died in 1691. His only work is 'Innocence vindicated by a Narrative of the Proceedings of the Court of Sessions in Bristol against I. C., Physician, to his Conviction on the Statute of the 35th Elizabeth,' 1684.

[Lempriere's Biog. Dict.; Records of a Church of Christ Meeting in Broadmead (HanserdKnollys Society); Calamy's Nonconf. Mem. iii. 778 (1805).]

A. C. B.

CHAUNCY, CHARLES (1592-1672), nonconformist divine, fifth and youngest son of George Chauncy of Yardley Bury and New

Place in Gilston, Hertfordshire, by his second wife, Agnes, daughter of Edward Welch of Great Wymondley in the same county, and widow of Edward Humberstone, was baptised at Yardley on 5 Nov. 1592. He received his preliminary education at Westminster, whence he was sent in 1609 to Cambridge and entered at Trinity College, of which society he subsequently became a fellow. He proceeded B.A. in 1613, M.A. in 1617, and was incorporated on that degree at Oxford in 1619. He became B.D. in 1624. Distinguished alike for oriental and classical scholarship, Chauncy, it is said, was nominated Hebrew professor by the heads of houses; but Dr. Williams, the vice-chancellor, wishing to place a friend of his own in that office, made Chauncy professor of Greek, or more probably Greek lecturer in his own college.' On 27 Feb. 1627 Chauncy was presented by his college to the vicarage of Ware, Hertfordshire, which he held until 16 Oct. 1633. He was also vicar of Marston St. Lawrence, Northamptonshire, from 28 Aug. 1633 until 28 Aug. 1637. In each of these preferments his disregard of Laud's oppressive regulations brought him before the high commission court, once in 1630 and again in 1634. On the last occasion he was suspended from the ministry and imprisoned. After some months' confinement he petitioned the court on 4 Feb. 1635-6 to be allowed to submit. A week later he read his submission with bended knee,' and, after being admonished by Laud in his usual style, was released on the payment of costs. The text of his offences, sentence, and submission is set forth in 'Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1635-6,' pp. 123-4, 494-5. For making what he afterwards termed his 'scandalous submission' Chauncy never forgave himself. He had resolved to retire to America, but before going he wrote a solemn Retractation,' which was published at London in 1641. Arriving at Plymouth in New England in December 1637, he acted for some time as assistant to John Reyner, the minister of that place. In 1641 he was invited to take charge of the church at Scituate, a neighbouring town, where he continued for more than twelve years. He suffered frequently from poverty. When the puritans were masters of England, Chauncy was invited home by his old parishioners at Ware, and was about to embark at Boston, when he was persuaded on 2 Nov. 1654 by the overseers of Harvard College, New Cambridge, to become president of that society. He was accordingly inaugurated as successor to Henry Dunster, the first president, on the ensuing 29 Nov. Despite the poor stipend, irregu larly paid, Chauncy continued in this post,