the years 1399 and 1413. The capitals at the beginning of each book are richly gilt and painted in blue, red, and white, but not of very finished workmanship. The handwriting is clear and pointed, like that of the middle of the fifteenth century, and resembles the characters found in the first printed books. This MS. which is a copy of the Lancaster verfion, is remarkable on account of certain confiderable alterations, omiffions, and additions, especially in the latter part of the fifth and in the fixth and seventh books, which are not met with in the majority of the more ancient copies, but which are found in Berthelette's editions of the poem. As our text is compiled from the older MSS. these variations have been carefully indicated, and no paffage has been omitted. This manufcript moreover is not complete, the beginnings of the firft, fifth, seventh and eighth book, having been cut out, probably for the sake of the illuminated pages. On the fly-leaves at the end are several memoranda in different handwritings of the fixteenth century; moftly receipts against various diseases. One of them ftates: "William Downes mee tenet," which fuggefts that the book at that time was neither in royal hands nor the property of the Gower family. The orthography approaches closely that of MS. Harl. 3869, the letters þ and 3 being employed throughout the volume. р These MSS. may be arranged in three claffes; the king's copy, the Lancaster copy, and a third, likewife addreffed to Henry, but with certain alterations in the middle of the work. With the exception of these variations, the text in all the MSS. is alike.

The Confeffio Amantis was firft printed by Caxton and with the following title:

This book is entituled Confeffio Amantis, that is to faye in englysfhe the confeffyon of the louer maad and compyled by Johan Gower fquyer borne in Walys in

the tyme of kyng richard the second, etc. Colophon : Enprynted at Weftmeftre, by me Willyam Caxton, and fynysshed the 2 day of Septembre the fyrst yere of the regne of kyng Richard the thyrd the yere of our lord a thousand cccc, LXXXXIII. (mistake for 1483). Six leaves are appropriated to a table of contents; the text commences on fol. 2, and is continued to fol. 211, leaves 32, 91 and 132 being repeated, and leaf 157 being omitted altogether. At the end the fummary of the poet's three great works and a few of his minor Latin poems are added.

tents.

The next edition, printed by Berthelette, was entitled Jo. Gower, de Confeffione Amantis. Imprinted at London, in Flete-strete by Thomas Berthelette, printer to the kinges grace, An. M. D. XXXII. cum privilegio. Eight preliminary leaves contain the title, a dedication to Henry VIII, an addrefs "To the Reder" on the variations at the beginning and end of the poem, a dedication to king Richard II, the verses about Chaucer, a notice of Gower's tomb in St. Mary Overy's, and a corrected table of conThe text extends from fol. 1 to fol. 191. Befides the alterations in the fifth, fixth, and seventh books, derived from a MS. very fimilar to the Stafford MS, the spelling has been confiderably altered and modernised in this first edition of Berthelette. Old forms, retained by Caxton, as hem and touchend, have been removed, and them and touching substituted. The modernisation has been general at the commencement, but the editor's zeal seems to have flackened afterwards, and many ancient forms have escaped his eye. The promiscuous use of the letters u and v, i and y, for which no rule whatever can be discovered, occurs throughout, as in many books of Henry VIII's time; and a want of correspondence in the rhyme indicates that whole verfes have been omitted.

Berthelette published another edition under the following title: Jo. Gower de confeffione Amantis. Imprinted at London in Fleteftrete by Thomas Berthelette the XII daie of Marche An. M. D. LIIII. cum privilegio. Six preliminary leaves have the fame contents as in his first edition. The text extends from fol. 1 to fol. 191. In this copy the compliment paid to Chaucer is inferted in the text. The spelling is now and then even more modernised than in his first edition, and punctuation, which is wanting altogether in Caxton's edition, and rarely and irregularly inserted in the edition of 1532, has been added throughout.

Blore, in his Sepulchral Antiquities, quoted above, and Chalmers, in his English Poets, mention another edition by Berthelette, dated 1544, of which, however, there is nc copy in the collections of the British Museum.

The text of the Confeffio Amantis in Chalmers' English Poets, is a mere literal reprint of Berthelette's edition of 1554.

Some fragments of the Confeffio Amantis have occafionally been published. Ellis, in his Specimens of Early English Poets, has printed the ftory of Florent from the first book. Todd, in his Illuftrations of Chaucer and Gower has collated the Tale of the Coffres in the fifth book with the Stafford MS. as illuftrating the ftory of the caskets in the Merchant of Venice. And Payne Collier has printed in his Shakespeare Library the ftory of Appollinus of Tyre from the eighth book, according to MS. Harl. 3490.

The present text, founded on Berthelette's first edition, has been carefully collated throughout with the two first mentioned Harleian MSS. in the British Museum. And the third MS. Harl. and MS. Stafford have been used at the particular places, where they become of im

portance. The chief labour, however, confifted in reftoring the orthography and in regulating the metre, both of which had been difturbed in innumerable places by Berthelette. The text of a work like the Confeffio Amantis does not require the same scrupulous attention to every existing MS. as that of an ancient claffical author. Everybody who examines the MSS. of Gower will foon be fatisfied that the principal differences are merely of an orthographical nature. Some spell the word eye as we do now, others have ighe, ize, yhe. After mature confideration, the Saxon letters þ and 3 have been rejected, together with the promiscuous use of y and i, u and v, which does not occur in the oldest MSS. It has been found neceffary that fome rule and symmetry should be obferved, and confequently i and u are used wherever the vowels are required, and y has been left for certain words and proper names, in which it invariably occurs in Latin MSS. of the fame age; as for inftance in ymage, and for a distinct class of words as ayein, yive, where it stands instead of the soft g, the Saxon 3 3, and is confirmed by the oldeft of the Harleian MSS. U instead of v has been retained only in pouer and recouer, where it evidently is not a confonant, but forms a diphthong with the preceding o, the word being pronounced in two fyllables and not like the present poor. In other cafes, and with regard to words of French origin, it has been thought beft to use the old orthography.

The Latin verfes and the marginal Latin index are undoubtedly Gower's own compofition, and have therefore been carefully restored to the shape in which they appear in the first two Harleian MSS. The verses, imitations in the manner of Boethius, like Gower's other Latin poetry, abound in instances of falfe profody and even of bad grammar; they are frequently intricate, and

fometimes nearly unintelligible. As they always head a new fub-divifion, it has been thought useful for the fake of quotation to number them through each book. The Latin profe notes, which in the old editions ftand between and interrupt the text, have been placed in the margin, where they generally occur in the MSS. ferving as a table of contents.

The editor defires to embrace this opportunity to thank his friends Th. Duffus Hardy, Esq., keeper of H. M. Records in the Tower, the Rev. H. O. Coxe, M. A. of the Bodleian Library, Oxford, and W. B. Donne, Esq., of the London Library, for their kind and ready assistance, and Mr. F. R. Daldy, B. A. for the useful Glossary which he has added.

London, May 1856.