Page:The lives of the poets of Great Britain and Ireland to the time of Dean Swift - Volume 1.djvu/13

 ſonable to ſuppoſe that he was ſomething ſuperior to a common employ. We find one John Chaucer attending upon Edward III. and Queen Philippa, in their expedition to Flanders and Cologn, who had the King's protection to go over ſea in the twelfth year of his reign. It is highly probable that this gentleman was father to our Geoffry, and the ſuppoſition is ſtrengthened by Chaucer's firſt application, after leaving the univerſity and inns of law, being to the Court; nor is it unlikely that the ſervice of the father ſhould recommend the ſon.

It is univerſally agreed, that he was born in the ſecond year of the reign of King Edward III. A. D. 1328. His firſt ſtudies were in the univerſity of Cambridge, and when about eighteen years of age he wrote his Court of Love, but of what college he was is uncertain, there being no account of him in the records of the Univerſity. From Cambridge he was removed to Oxford in order to compleat his ſtudies, and after a conſiderable ſtay there, and a firſt application to the public ledures of the univerfity, he became (ſays Leland) " a ready logician, a ſmooth rhetorician, a pleaſant poet, a great philoſopher, an ingenious mathematician, and a holy-divine. That he was a great mailer in aſtronomy, is plain by his diſcourſes of the Aſtrolabe. That he was verſed in hermetic philoſophy (which prevailed much at that time,) appears by his Tale of the Chanons Yeoman: His knowledge in divinity is evident from his Parſon's Tale, and his philoſophy from the Teſtament of Love." Thus qualified to make a figure in the world, he left his learned retirement, and travelled into France, Holland, and other countries, where he ſpent ſome of his younger days. Upon his return he entered himſelf in the Inner Temple, where he ſtudied the municipal laws of the land. But he had not long proſecuted that dry ſtudy, till his ſuperior abilities were taken notice of by ſome perſons of diſtinction, by B 2