portance. The chief labour, however, confifted in reftoring the orthography and in regulating the metre, both of which had been disturbed in innumerable places by Berthelette. The text of a work like the Confeffio Amantis does not require the fame fcrupulous 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 fpell 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 promifcuous ufe of y and i, u and v, which does not occur in the oldest MSS. It has been found neceffary that fome rule and fymmetry 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 diftinct class of words as ayein, yive, where it ftands instead of the soft g, the Saxon 7 3, and is confirmed by the oldeft of the Harleian MSS. U inftead 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 firft two Harleian MSS. The verses, imitations in the manner of Boethius, like Gower's other Latin poetry, abound in inftances of falfe profody and even of bad grammar; they are frequently intricate, and fometimes nearly unintelligible. As they always head a new fub-division, it has been thought useful for the sake 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, Efq., keeper of H. M. Records in the Tower, the Rev. H. O. Coxe, M. A. of the Bodleian Library, Oxford, and W. B. Donne, Efq., of the London Library, for their kind and ready affistance, and Mr. F. R. Daldy, B. A. for the useful Glossary which he has added. London, May 1856. |