"Nobles and heralds, by your leave,
Here lies what once was Matthew Prior,
The son of Adam and of Eve—
Can Bourbon or Nassau claim higher?"
Not far from this monument I found one of a youth crowning a bust, beneath which were theatrical emblems, the inscription stating it was to Barton Booth, an actor and poet, who died in 1733, and was the original Cato in Addison's tragedy of that name.
The tomb of Geoffrey Chaucer—the father of English poetry, as he is called—is an ancient, altar-like structure, with a carved Gothic canopy above it. The inscription tells us,—
"Of English bards who sung the sweetest strains,
Old Geoffrey Chaucer now this tomb contains;
For his death's date, if, reader, thou shouldst call,
Look but beneath, and it will tell thee all."