laughing fage 

 Carolled his moral fong 



They grew in the park at Donnington-caftle, 

 near Newbery, where Chaucer fpent his latter 



life in ftudious retirement. The largeft of 



thefe trees was called the kings-oak, and 

 carried an erect ftem of fifty feet, before it 

 broke into branches, and was cut into a beam, 



five feet fquare. The next in fize was called 



the queen 's-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 

 pumed 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 blemim, 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 a noble tree, tho inferior to either of the 

 others*. None of them, I mould fuppofe 



* See Evelin's Sylva, p. 227. 



from 



