The oaks of Chaucer are celebrated, in 

 the annals of poetry, as the trees, under which 



the laughing fage 



Carolled his moral fong ' 



They grew in the park at Donnington-caftle, 

 near Newberry, where Chaucer fpent his latter 



life in ftudious retirement. The largeft of 



thefe trees was called the kings-oak^ and 

 carried an erect flem of fifty feet, before it 

 broke into branches, and was cut into a beam, 



five feet fquare. The next in fize was called 



the queens-oak^ and furvived the calamities of 

 the civil wars in king Charles's time; tho 

 Donnington-caftle, and the country around it, 

 were fo often the fcene of action, and defola- 

 tion. It's branches were very curious : they 

 pufhed out from the ftem in feveral uncommon 

 directions ; imitating the horns of a ram, 

 rather than the branches of an oak. When it 

 was felled, it yielded a beam forty feet long, 

 without knot, or blemifh, perfectly ftrait, four 

 feet fquare at the but-end, and near a yard at 



the top. The third of thefe oaks was 



called Chaucer 's, of which we have no parti- 

 culars ; in general, only we are told, that it 



was 



