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 reasona