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CHUSWICK PRESS PRINTED BY C. WHITTINGHAM, TOOKS COURT,

CHANCERY LANE

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HE materials for a biography of John Gower the poet are fcanty, and quite infufficient for a sketch of his perfonal hiftory; and his writings contain very few of thofe allufions to himself which are fo frequently met with in fimilar works. The date of his birth is unknown, and within feventy years of his death his descent and the place of his birth seem to have been entirely forgotten. Caxton, who in 1483 printed the first edition of the Confeffio Amantis, ftyles him, Johan Gower Squyer borne in Walys in the tyme of kyng richard the fecond; Gower being the name of a family of fome repute, refident in a diftrict of South Wales called Gowerland, which occurs occafionally in the public records of the poet's day; but beyond Caxton's affertion, no proof that he was a native of the principality is known to exift. We have no direct evidence

* Henry le Gower, the well known bishop of St. David's, died in 1347. Thomas Gower, Burgenfis ville de Havreford in Suthwallia, occurs on Rot. Pat. 18 Ric. II. p. 1. memb. 22.

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that he was educated either at Oxford or Cambridge, though his great knowledge in all branches of medieval learning, especially as difplayed in his Confeffio Amantis, affords a ftrong prefumption, that he must have been a student at one of the univerfities. It is one of the many inventions of Leland,* that Gower was a lawyer; others have made him a member of the Temple and even a judge; there is however as little proof of such representations as of those respecting Chaucer having belonged to the legal profeffion: nor does it appear that a judge bearing the name of Gower fat on the bench during the fourteenth century. It is certain, however, that he was the owner of much landed property, and received a learned education; and his compofitions in Latin, French and English, prove that he was a highly cultivated English gentleman, and one of the earliest poets in his mothertongue.

The next mention of the poet occurs in Leland, who heard that he belonged to the ancient family of the Gowers of Stitenham in Yorkshire, the ancestors of the marquis of Stafford, which family, tradition states, came from Britanny with William the Conqueror in his expedition to England. This statement has been repeated by Bale, Pitts, and Holinfhed, who contented. themselves with merely copying from Leland; but the late Rev. Henry J. Todd§ has attempted to fupport it by documentary evidence, which, he afferts, remained un

• Commentarii de Script. Brit. p. 414. Coluit forum et patrias leges lucri caufa.

Fofs, Judges of England, iv. p. 28.

Commentarii de Scriptoribus Britannicis, ed. Hall, p. 414. Johannes Goverus, vir equeftris ordinis, ex Stitenhamo, villa Eboracenfis provinciæ, ut ego accepi, originem ducens, etc.

§ Illuftrations of the Lives and Writings of Gower and Chaucer, London, 1810.

noticed up to his time. Mr. Todd's evidence however has, unfortunately for his argument, very little foundation. He expreffes his defire " to connect, according to a proud family tradition, the poet Gower with that illuftrious houfe of the fame name," and conjectures that a remarkable manuscript of the Confeffio Amantis, of which the marquis of Stafford was then in poffeffion, and which is now the property of the earl of Ellesmere, "was a prefent from the author to one of the Gower family foon after the completion of the work."* It will appear hereafter, how very flightly Mr. Todd examined this manufcript. He mentions alfo, as further evidence of this Family connexion, a deed in the archives of the marquis of Stafford executed by Robert de Ranclif of Stitenham, dated the Wednesday next after Eafter, the 19th of April 1346, which was witnessed amongst others by a John Gower. But this charter is indorsed, as Mr. Todd himself remarks, "in the handwriting of at least a century later."† 1346. Johannes Gower, wittnes only S John Gower the poet."

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Mr. Todd has likewife published the poet's last will; but this document has not the slightest reference to Yorkshire, and a number of records exift in which property of the very fame teftator, fituated in feveral fouthern and eastern counties, is mentioned.

Since Todd's publication other particulars have been brought to light, principally through the research of that indefatigable genealogift and antiquary, the late Sir Harris Nicolas, which go far to fhow, that the poet belonged altogether to a different family, and that he was born and dwelt in Kent, where he poffeffed confiderable pro

* Illuftrations of Chaucer and Gower, p. 109.

+ Ibid. p. xviii. 91.

perty. Sir H. Nicolas obferves,* that "the strongest evidence against the opinion, that the poet was of the Yorkshire family of Gower, exifts in the entire difference of their arms." On the poet's tomb in Southwark and on a feal attached to a deed executed by John Gower and dated 1373, the fame coat is emblazoned, thus demonstrating that the poet and this John Gower are one and the same person. These arms are Argent on a chevron, Azure, three leopards' heads, Or. Both crefts are also identical, on a chapeau a talbot paffant. Whereas the Gowers of Stitenham bear Barry, Argent, and Gules, a crofs patee flore, Sable; and for their creft a wolf paffant, Argent, collared and chained, Or. Sir Harris Nicolas on the authority of one of the Cottonian MSS. (Julius C. VII. fol. 152) states that there was living at the fame period another John Gower, who bore a coat entirely different from the two families above mentioned. He was a party to a deed with Ralph Spigurnell and Sir John de Byshopston, dated Westminster, the 20th of August 1359, and enrolled on Rot. Pat. 33 Edw. III. p. 11. membr. 6. By this inftrument the king confirms to him and others certain grants for life made by Roger Mortimer, earl of March. of the manors granted is that of Bridgewater in Somerset, with which the defcendants of the Gowers of Stitenham have only recently been connected.

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In the fourteenth century a family of refpectability of the name of Gower dwelt in Suffolk and probably refided occafionally in Kent, to which attention was first drawn by Weever,† who, when mentioning the epitaph of Sir Robert Gower on his tomb at Brabourne, adds: "From this familie John Gower the poet was defcended." Sir Robert Gower, knight, obtained on the 25th of June

Retrospective Review, Second Series, II. p. 111. + Funeral Monuments, p. 270, fol. 1631.

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