Now kepe yow fro the whyte and fro the rede, And namely fro the whyte wyn of Lepe, That is to selle in Fish-strete or in Chepe. This wyn of Spayne crepeth subtilly In othere wynes, growing faste by, Of which there ryseth swich fumositee That when a man hath dronken draughtes three And weneth that he be at hoom in Chepe, He is in Spayne, right at the toune of Lepe. (_Pardoners Tale_, l. 562, etc.) And it is noteworthy that more than once Chaucer goes out of his way to inveigh against drunkenness:-- A lecherous thing is wyn, and dronkenesse Is ful of stryving and of wrecchednesse * * * * * For dronkenesse is verray sepulture Of mannes wit and his discrecioun. (_Pardoners Tale_, l. 549-559.) Of his early years we know nothing. Probably he lived the life of other boys of that time: Lydgate's portrait of the mediæval school-boy may well stand for a type:-- I had in custom to come to school late Not for to learn but for a countenance, With my fellows ready to debate, To jangle and jape was set all my pleasaunce. Whereof rebuked was my Chevisaunce[1] To forge a lesyng and thereupon to muse When I trespassed myselfe to excuse. * * * * * Loth to rise, lother to bed at eve; With unwashed handes ready aye to dinner; My Paternoster, my Creed, or my Believe Cast at the Cook; lo! this was my manner; Waved with each wind, as doth a reede-spear; Snibbed[2] of my friends such taches[3] for to amend Made deaf eare list nat to them attend. (_Testament._) Leland, with that sublime disregard for anything so prosaic as evidence which characterises sixteenth-century biographers, declares that "Geoffrey Chaucer, a youth of noble birth and highest promise, studied at Oxford University with all the earnestness of those who have applied themselves most diligently to learning.... He left the University an acute logician, a delightful orator, an elegant poet, a profound philosopher, and an able mathematician"; and to this list of accomplishments he afterwards adds, "and a devout theologian." Fifty years later, Speght--to whom lovers of Chaucer are deeply indebted in other respects--equally authoritatively asserts that he was at Cambridge, but as he bases this assertion on a remark-- Philogenet I called am far and near Of Cambridge clerk--