veneris debet Patria Lingua suas_.

Our _England_ honoureth _Chaucer_ Poet, as principal;
To whom her Country-Tongue doth owe her Beauties all.

He departed out of this world the _25th._ day of _October_ 1400, after
he had lived about seventy two years. Thus writeth _Bale_ out of
_Leland, Chaucerus ad Canos devenit, sensitque Senectutem morbum esse_;
_& dum Causas suas_ Londini _curaret_, &c. _Chaucer_ lived till he was
an old man, and found old Age to be grievous; and whilst he followed
his Causes at _London_, he died, and was buried at _Westminster_.

The old Verses which were written on his Grave at the first, were
these;

Galfridus Chaucer, _Vates & Fama Poesis,
Maternae haec sacra sum tumulatus humo_.

_Thomas Occleue_, or _Okelefe_, of the Office of the Privy Seal,
sometime Chaucer's Scholar, for the love he bore to the said _Geoffrey_
his Master, caused his Picture to be truly drawn in his Book, _De
Regimine Principis_, dedicated to _Henry_ the Fifth; according to
which, that his Picture drawn upon his Monument was made, as also the
Monument it self, at the Cost and Charges of _Nicolas Brigham_
Gentleman, _Anno_ 1555. who buried his Daughter _Rachel_, a Child of
four years of Age, near to the Tomb of this old Poet, the _21th_. of
_June_ 1557. Such was his Love to the Muses; and on his Tomb these
Verses were inscribed:

_Qui fuit_ Anglorum _Vates ter maximus olim_,
Galfridus Chaucer, _conditur hoc Tumulo,
Annum si quaeras Domini, si tempora Mortis,
Ecce notae subsunt, quae tibi cuncta notant_;
25 Octobris 1400.
_AErumnarum requies Mors_.
N. Brigham _hos fecit Musarum nomine sumptus_.

About the Ledge of the Tomb these Verses were written;

_Si rogitas quis eram, forsante Fama docebit,
Quod si Fama negat, Mundi quia Gloria transit,
Haec Monumenta lege_.

The foresaid _Thomas Occleve_, under the Picture of _Chaucer_, had
these Verses:

Although his Life be queint, the resemblance
Of him that hath in me so fresh liveliness,
That to put other men in remembrance
Of his Person I have here the likeness
Do make, to the end in Soothfastness,
That they that of him have lost thought and mind,
By this peniture may again him find.

In his foresaid Book, _De Regimine Principis_, he thus writes of him:

But welaway is mine heart wo,
That the honour of _English_ Tongue is dead;
Of which I wont was counsaile haue an