About: The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) by Theophilus Cibber

LIVES OF POETS, V1

Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Jayam Subramanian and PG DistributedProofreaders

Anglistica & Americana

A Series of Reprints Selected by Bernhard Fabian, Edgar Mertner, KarlSchneider 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 ofthe Library of the University of Gottingen. Shelfmark: H. lit. biogr.I 8464.

Although the title page of Volume I announces four volumes, the workis continued in a fifth volume of the same date. Like VolumesII, III,and IV, it is by "Mr. CIBBER,and other Hands" and is "Printed forR.GRIFFITHS".

M.S.

THE

LIVES

OF THE

POETS

OF

GREAT BRITAINandIRELAND,

To theTIMEof

DEAN _SWIFT_.

Compiled from ample Materials scattered in a Variety of Books, andespecially from theMS. Notes of the late ingenious Mr. COXETERandothers, collected for this Design,

By Mr. CIBBER.

InFOUR VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

MDCCLIII.

VOLUME I.

Contains the

LIVES

O F

ChaucerLanglandGowerLydgateHardingSkeltonBarclayMoreSurry EarlWyatSackvilleChurchyardHeywoodFerrarsSidneyMarloeGreenSpenserHeywoodLillyOverburyMarstenShakespearSylvesterDanielHarringtonDeckerBeaumont and FletcherLodgeDaviesGoffGreville L. BrookeDayRaleighDonneDraytonCorbetFairfaxRandolphChapmanJohnsonCarewWottonMarkhamT. HeywoodCartwrightSandysFalklandSucklingHaustedDrummondStirling EarlHallCrashawRowleyNashFordMiddleton

THE LIVES OF THE POETS.

* * * *

GEOFFRY CHAUCER.

It has been observed that men of eminence in all ages, anddistinguished for the same excellence, have generally had something intheir lives similar to each other. The place of Homer's nativity, hasnot been more variously conjectured, or his parents more differentlyassigned than our author's. Leland, who lived nearest to Chaucer'stime of all those who have wrote his life, was commissioned by kingHenryVIII,to search all the libraries, and religious houses inEngland, when those archives were preserved, before their destructionwas produced by the reformation, or Polydore Virgil had consumed suchcurious pieces as would have contradicted his framed and fabuloushistory. He for some reasons believed Oxford or Berkshire to havegiven birth to this great man, but has not informed us what thosereasons were that induced him to believe so, and at present thereappears no other, but that the seats of his family were in thosecountries.

Pitts positively asserts, without producing any authorityto support it, that Woodstock was the place; which opinion Mr. Camdenseems to hint at, where he mentions that town; but it may be suspectedthat Pitts had no other ground for the assertion, than Chaucer'smentioning Woodstock park in his works, and having a house there.

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