falvement tener." This work is occafionally met with in manuscript, and has been partially printed.* The contents, examples from mythology, and history, correfpond with the title. But there are fifty French Ballads, found only in a very valuable MS. in the poffeffion of the duke of Sutherland, and printed in 1818 for the Roxburghe Club, which are undoubtedly the productions of the poet's younger years. They are tender in fentiment and not unrefined with regard to language and form, especially if we confider that they are the work of a foreigner. They treat of love in the manner introduced by the Provençal poets, which was afterwards generally adopted by those in the north of France. A few fpecimens cannot fail to give a favourable idea of Gower's skill and expreffion. Balade xv. "Com lefperver qe vole par creance qe vo prefence ades ne voie Mon coer remanit qe point ne fe remue. "Soubtz vo conftreignte et foubtz vo governance Amour mad dit qe jeo me fupple et ploie, Mon coer remanit qe point ne fe remue. Balades and other Poems by John Gower; Roxburghe Club, 1818. "Si come le Mois de May lefprees avance, "A vostre ymage est tout ceo qe jeo proie, "Sicom la nief, quant le fort vent tempefte, Ma dame, enfi mon coer manit en tempefte, Plufque la mort meftoie celle oie Qeft en danger falt qil mera supplie. "Vers vous, ma bone dame, horpris cella, Qe danger manit en votre compainie, Qeft en danger falt qil mera fupplie." A few lines are preserved in the fame manuscript, in which "Al Univerfite de tout le monde There are no indications of the dates of his French productions, but that the poet in later days ftill used this language appears from fome French verfes addreffed to king Henry IV. after his acceffion, and preferved in the fame volume. Soon after the rebellion of the Commons in 1381, an event which made a great impreffion on his mind, he wrote that fingular work in Latin diftichs, called Vox Clamantis, of which we poffefs an excellent edition by the Rev. H. O. Coxe, printed for the Roxburghe Club, in 1850. The name, with an allufion to St. John the Baptift, feems to have been adopted from the general clamour and cry then abroad in the country. The greater bulk of the work, the date of which its editor is inclined to fix between 1382 and 1384 is rather a moral than an historical effay; but the first book describes the infurrection of Wat Tyler in an allegorical disguise; the poet having a dream on the 11th of June 1381, in which men affume the shape of animals. The second book contains a long fermon on fatalism, in which the poet shows himself no friend to Wiclif's tenets, but a zealous advocate for the reformation of the clergy. The third book points out how all orders of society must suffer for their own vices and demerits; in illuftration of which he cites the example of the fecular clergy. The fourth book is dedicated to the cloistered clergy and the friars, the fifth to the military, the fixth contains a violent attack on the lawyers, and the feventh fubjoins the moral of the whole, represented in Nebuchadnezzar's dream, as interpreted by Daniel. There exist several other small Latin poems, written generally in the medieval (leonine) hexameter, viz: Cronica Tripartita, containing a mere outline of the latter part of Richard II.'s reign and vindicating the acceffion of Henry IV, printed in the fame volume. Latin verses, addreffed to Henry IV. and fome others, about the poet's old age and blindness, published from the duke of Sutherland's MSS. Carmen de variis in amore paffionibus breviter compilatum. Contra Demonis aftuciam in caufa lollardie, in MS. Harl. 3869, fol. 362. In the lift of his writings Gower himself affigned the third and last place to his English poem, the Confeffio Amantis. There is reafon to believe that he was induced to compose in his native tongue when he was an old man, by the great fuccefs which his friend Chaucer had achieved by his English works. The exact date of the poem has not been ascertained, but there is internal evidence, in certain copies, that it existed in the year 1392-3. As this point involves a queftion of grave importance with respect to the author's behaviour and position in the political events of the day, it will be necessary to enter more fully into the fubject. He unquestionably iffued two editions of the work, which, however, as will be distinctly seen in the present edition, vary from each other only at the commencement and at the end; the one being dedicated to king Richard II, the other to his coufin Henry of Lancafter, earl of Derby. In the king's copy the poet describes at length, how he came rowing down the Thames at London one day, and how he met king Richard, who, having invited him to step into the royal barge, commanded him to write a book upon fome new matter. In that addreffed to Henry he says, that the book was finished :— "the yere fixtenthe of king Richard," an important fact, which has been hitherto overlooked by all writers on the subject, including even Sir H. Nicolas,* who states that Gower did not dedicate his work to Henry until he had afcended the throne. But this date in conjunction with the other fact, that in the Confeffio Amantis Henry is never called king, nor duke of Hereford, nor duke of Lancaster, but fimply Henry of Lancaster, and the circumstance, that in a marginal note occurring in all copies which contain the dedication to him, he is styled Dominus Henricus de Lancaftria, tunc Derbie comes (a title, which he bore in the year 1392-3), entirely prove, that the work, which he had formerly dedicated to the king, was now addreffed to the earl. The one verfion abounds in expreffions of the deepest loyalty towards his fovereign, for whofe fake he intends to write some newe thing in English; the other mentions the year of the reign of king Richard II, is full of attachment to Henry of Lancaster : and "with whom my herte is of accorde," purports to appear in English for England's fake. * Life of Chaucer, p. 39. |