exhibit, both by their style and subject, the fondness with which the scholars of the age still regarded the works of the monkish historians. The insurrection which shook the throne of the unfortunate Richard to its foundations, was the subject of this strange poem; but neither of the parts of Gower's great work here mentioned was ever printed; and had he produced nothing else, his name, it is most probable, would not now be known. It may, however, be conjectured, that in his employment of French and Latin, he was encouraged by the example of his celebrated cotemporaries in other countries. The fame which had been acquired by the earlier French bards, naturally rendered their language the favourite vehicle for poetry of the lighter species; and the veneration for Latin was still so great, that Petrarch, it is well known, scorned the idea of deriving glory from his compositions in modern Italian.

But the 'Confessio Amantis' amply vindicates our author's claim to the honour of an English writer, while the occasion of its being composed affords a proof of the fame he had acquired by the preceding parts of the poem. While rowing one day on the Thames, the king happened to meet him in the royal barge, and no sooner recognised his person, but gave him a signal to enter. The conversation between the monarch and the poet lasted for some time, and at its conclusion, his Majesty desired him to resume his poetical labours, expressing his wish in the significant phrase, that he would book some new thing.' The command of the king was forthwith obeyed, and Richard proved in this instance at least, a judicious patron. It would afford the reader little instruction to give an abstract of the Confessio Amantis.' An idea, however, of this singular work may be formed from its being simply stated, that it embodies the rules of love laid down by the three very distinct teachers on the subject, the romantic troubadours, the Platonic Italians, and the sensual Ovid. In illustration of these rules, the author expends all the learning of his age, and leaves uncited neither historian nor philosopher of whose works or even of whose name he had ever heard. The strange medley of learning thus brought together, has little beauty to the eye of a modern reader, but if the age be considered in which it appeared, we shall see reason to believe that it was regarded in a far different light by those for whom it was written. Knowledge had then as deep a charm as poetry, and the stories and mysteries told or alluded to by Gower, would thus excite an interest sufficiently strong to atone for any appearance of incongruity. But, besides the defects in the plan of the work, it has others of a more serious kind in its execution. It is generally allowed to exhibit very little invention, to be tame in expression, and to be deficient, in short, in most of those excellencies which characterise the productions of Chaucer. But it is not so much in relation to the genius of the writer as in reference to the age when it was produced, that a work of early date should be considered. The acute observation of Addison in respect to medals, pertains, in one particular, to ancient poems. "The intrinsic value," says he, "of an old coin does not consist in its metal, but its erudition:" and in the same manner, the interest of a poem such as that we are considering, depends less on the intrinsic beauty of the language or conception, than on its relative merit when compared with other productions

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of the same, or an immediately preceding period. But in placing the Vox Amantis' by the side of the romances which, with few exceptions, were the only poems in the language, its superiority is at once evident. The author evinces a just sense of the dignity and fit application of his art: his subject is varied by all the digressions and ornaments, which it only wanted a higher degree of skill to render as splendid and attractive as they were various, and the sentiments are almost throughout full of good sense and dignity. So much valued was the work on these accounts, that Berthelette, the printer, did not hesitate to dedicate his edition to Henry the Eighth, and in his epistle to the monarch, says, among many other things equally laudatory, that "whosoever in reading it doth consider it well, shall find that it is plentifully stuffed, and furnished with manifold eloquent reasons, sharp and quick arguments, and examples of great authority, persuading unto virtue, not only taken out of the poets, orators, history, writers, and philosophers, but also out of the Holy Scripture." To this he adds, that there is, in his opinion, "no man, but that he may, by reading of this work, get right great knowledge, as well for the understanding of many and divers customs, whose reasons, sayings, and histories, are translated into this work, as for the plenty of English words and vulgars, besides the furtherance of the life to virtue."

Gower was far advanced in years when he produced this poem. The most distinguished of his cotemporaries, Chaucer, had been his intimate friend from an early period of their life, and there are allusions in the works of each which show how sincerely both the one and the other esteemed the talents of his companion. Thus, in the 'Confessio Amantis,' the author makes Venus say—

Grete well Chaucer whan ye mete,

As my disciple and my poete,

For in the flours of his youth,
In sundrie wise, as he well couth,
Of detees, and of songes glade,

The which he for my sake made,
The loude fulfilled is over all:
Whereof to him in speciall

Above all other I am most holde.

In a similar spirit of compliment Chaucer thus concludes his Troilus and Cresside:

O moral Gower, this boke I directe

To the, and to the philosophical Strode,
To vouchsafe there hede is for to conecte,
Of your benignities and zelis gode.

That similarity of tastes and pursuits for which these distinguished men were conspicuous, was fully sufficient to unite them in friendship when there were so few others of like talent or disposition. But an additional cause has been assigned for their intimacy. While Chaucer possessed the patronage of John of Gaunt, Gower was equally attached to Thomas of Woodstock, duke of Gloucester, the other of the king's uncles who shared in the project of ruling the nation without the interference of the young monarch. In what degree our poet involved himself in political transactions cannot now be determined.

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but it is probable that he, as well as Chaucer, took a deep interest in the events of the times, and that, learned and eloquent as he was, he exercised some influence over the party to which he belonged. Certain it is, that the death of the unfortunate duke of Gloucester was openly and pathetically lamented by him in his poems, and there is reason to think, that he lost no opportunity of expressing his dislike to the measures of Richard's government. His good sense, his prudent and virtuous character, would naturally make him the opponent of violence and licentiousness, the too prominent features of that unfortunate monarch's reign; but it is equally probable, from the same consideration, that his political conduct had no tincture of that dishonesty which was many years after laid to his charge. The Confessio Amantis' was, in the first instance, dedicated to Richard, and the removal of this dedication to make room for that to Henry the Fourth, provoked the vituperative eloquence of more than one critic in a subsequent age. It should, however, have been remembered, that Gower, to all appearance, was never a courtier, and that he was so far from being a renegade to his party, by seeking to honour the new monarch, that he only thereby continued to express opinions which he had advocated throughout his life. But the age and infirmities of the poet were of themselves sufficient to guard him from the supposed dishonesty. In the first year of Henry's reign, the loss of sight cut him off from the business of the world, and put, as he pathetically laments, an end to his career. Universally respected, possessed of great wealth, and satisfied with the fame he had acquired, it is scarcely to be credited, that he would now forfeit his reputation for honesty to acquire the smiles of a monarch, whose favour could do him no service, and with whom he had no errors to propitiate.

Gower was Chaucer's senior, but he survived him about two years. His death took place in 1402, and the sumptuous monument in which his remains are deposited attests both his taste and his munificence. The church of St Saviour's in Southwark, which contains this interesting record, was sometime before his deccase destroyed by fire, and it was solely owing to his large contributions, and the exertions he made, that the venerable church which has excited the admiration of so many generations, rose from its ruins. The most curious feature in the monument under which he is buried, is the representation of his great work, in the form of three gilt volumes, lettered with the respective titles of the parts into which the poem was divided. Deeply imbued with piety, and attention to the rites of the faith which he professed, he founded a chantry at his tomb, and the time-hallowed aisle of St Mary Overee as the church was formerly called-though the ceremonial which the poet instituted is forgotten, is still sacred to his memory.

The fame of Gower has been almost entirely lost sight of in modern times, through the brilliant reputation enjoyed by Chaucer. But it is judiciously observed by Warton, that "if the latter had not existed, the compositions of Gower alone would have been sufficient to rescue the reigns of Edward the Third and Richard the Second from the imputation of barbarism." In some of the minor poems which have surviv ed him, a delicacy of thought and feeling is manifested, as superior to the ordinary style of sentiment prevalent in his age, as was his language

to that of most preceding versifiers. We shall here insert one specimen of his versification from the Florent:'

"My lord," she saide, "grand-merci !'
For of this word that ye now sayn,
That ye have made me sovereign,
My destiny is over passed;

That never hereafter shall be lassed'
My beauty, which that I now have,
Till I betake unto my grave.
Both night and day, as I am now,
I shall alway be such to you.
The kinges daughter of Sicile
I am; and fell but sith a while,
As I was with my father late,
That my step-mother, for an hate
Which toward me she hath begun,
For-shope me, till I hadde won
The love and the sovereinety
Of what knight that in his degree
All other passeth of good name:
And, as men sayn, ye be the same,
The deed proveth it is so.
Thus am I yours for evermo."

Tho was pleasance and joy enough;
Each one with other play'd and lough;s
They lived long, and well they far'd,
And clerkes, that this chance heard,
They written it in evidence,

To teach, how that obedience
May well fortune a man to love,
And set him in his lust above.

By his habit of moralizing in the lighter productions of literature, Gower did a greater service to his countrymen than is commonly placed to his credit. The duty of teaching had been long confined to the clergy, and superstition and self-interest had, in a great measure, deprived that order of its ability to inculcate morality with a free and healthy spirit. Legends and anathemas are neither of them good supports of virtue, and it was in these that the bulk of the priesthood chiefly dealt. When men of sense and probity in the world began to set forth the worth of holiness and truth, unblended with the errors, and free from the fierceness of superstition or pride, a new tone was given to popular opinion; the maxims of piety and virtue had a freer circulation and literature was allowed a place by the altar and the throne, because it was henceforth to perform an important part in the improvement of the human character. Gower was among the first to effect this valuable purpose, and his name, consequently, ought to be had in remembrance, not only for the confessedly great share he took in the formation of our language, but for the still greater benefit he conferred on the general cause of literature and morality.

Many thanks.

• It befell.

• Lessened.
'Mis-shaped.

• Laughed.

Chaucer.

BORN CIRC. A. D. 1328.-DIED CIRC. A. D 1400.

HITHERTO Our poetry may be considered as only struggling to make its escape from the enchaining but gradually relaxing frosts of winter; we are now to look upon it-to borrow the beautiful similitude of Mr Warton-as suddenly visited by an influence like to that of those "cloudless skies and that tepid atmosphere which sometimes gladden for a single day an English spring, and fill the hearts of men with the visionary prospect of a speedy summer." Our poetic annals, in so far as they are really worth tracing for the gratification of poetic feeling, may be fairly said to commence with the name of Geoffrey Chaucer. The events of Chaucer's life, in so far as they are really known to us, may be soon told, although most of his biographers have, by means of numberless disputes and conjectures, spun out the detail of them to very considerable length, and the latest writer who has undertaken the task, Mr Godwin, has actually contrived, without the aid of almost a single new fact, to extend the narrative over two quarto volumes. Nay, he tells us in his preface, that he was inclined to go on till he had written four quartos instead of two, had not his publisher assured him that the public would not sympathize with so swollen a structure blown out of such scanty materials. In truth, of the few incidents of the poet's history which rest upon authentic testimony, nearly all are mere naked dates; and of those which have been repeated by his successive biographers from more questionable sources, most are extremely doubtful, and some are quite improbable, or proved to be unfounded. Various accounts have been given even of the place of his birth; but he himself, in one of his prose pieces, his Testament of Love,' seems expressly to intimate that he was a native of London. Of his family nothing whatever can be said to be known. Some suppose him to have been of noble descent; while others, judging by the name-which, in old French, signifies a breeches-maker-conclude that he must have sprung from a plebeian stock. A common tradition is that his father was one Richard Chaucer, who kept a tavern, according to Stowe, in the Royal street, at the corner of Kirton-lane, and was buried in 1348 in his parish church of St Mary Aldermary, to which he left his house and its appurtenances. The old editors of his works, and most of the other writers who mention the circumstance, tell us that he was born in the year 1328. But the original authority upon which this date rests is not known; and doubts have been sometimes entertained of its correctness. Mr Godwin, in consequence of the language of a recently discovered document, was at one time inclined to fix his birth so late as 1344; but on farther consideration, he reverted to the common opinion. He certainly received a learned education, and most probably studied at one of the universities, but whether at Oxford or Cambridge is doubtful. Most of his biographers make him to have attended both, as the easiest way of reconciling the accounts of different authorities. From the university they transfer him to the Middle, or, as some will have it, the Inner Temple; but for the be lief that he ever was a student of law, there is little or no foundation