Skelton. His life. Patronifed by Henry, fifth earl of Northum- A digreffion on the origin of Myfteries. Various origins affigned. Schools. Influence of this practice on the vernacular drama. On the fame principle, plays acted by finging-boys in choirs. Boy- bishop. Fete de Foux. On the fame principle, plays acted by the company of parish clerks. By the Law-focieties in London. Causes of the increase of vernacular compofition in the fifteenth THE HISTORY O F ENGLISH POETRY. I SECT. I. F Chaucer had not exifted, the compofitions of John Gower, the next poet in fucceffion, would alone have been fufficient to rescue the reigns of Edward the third and Richard the fecond from the imputation of barbarism. His education was liberal and uncircumfcribed, his course of reading extensive, and he tempered his feverer studies with a knowledge of life. By a critical cultivation of his native language, he laboured to reform its irregularities, and to establish an English style. In these respects he resembled his friend and cotemporary Chaucer: but he participated no confiderable portion of Chaucer's fpirit, imagination, and See fupr. vol. i. pag. 342. It is certain that they both lived and wrote together. But I have confidered Chaucer first, among other reafons hereafVol. II. B ter given, as Gower furvived him. Chaucer died October 25, 1400, aged 72 years. Gower died, 1402. elegance. elegance. His language is tolerably perfpicuous, and his verfification often harmonious: but his poetry is of a grave and fententious turn. He has much good fenfe, folid reflection, and useful obfervation. But he is ferious and didactic on all occafions: he preferves the tone of the scholar and the moralift on the most lively topics. For this reason he feems to have been characterised by Chaucer with the appellation of the MORALL Gower. But his talent is not confined to English verfe only. He wrote alfo in Latin; and copied Ovid's elegiacs with fome degree of purity, and with fewer falfe quantities and corrupt phrases, than any of our countrymen had yet exhibited fince the twelfth century. Gower's capital work, confifting of three parts, only the laft of which properly furnishes matter for our prefent enquiry, is entitled SPECULUM MEDITANTIS, VOX CLAMANTIS, CONFESSIO AMANTIS. It was finished, at least the third part, in the year 1393. The SPECULUM MEDITANTIS, or the Mirrour of Meditation, is written in French rhymes, in ten books. This tract, which was never printed, displays the general nature of virtue and vice, enumerates the felicities of conjugal fidelity by examples felected from various authors, and defcribes the path which the reprobate ought to pursue for the recovery of the divine grace. The Vox CLAMANTIS, or the Voice of one crying in the Wilderness, which was also never printed, contains feven books of Latin elegiacs. This work is chiefly historical, and is little more than a metrical chronicle of the infurrection of the commons in the reign of king Richard the fecond. The best and most beautiful manufcript of it is in the library of All Souls college at Oxford; with a dedication in Latin verfe, addreffed by the author, < Troil. Creff. ad calc. pag. 333. edit. Urr. ut fupr. d CONFESS. AMANT. Prol. fol. 1. a. col. 1. Imprinted at London, in Fletefrete, by Thomas Berthelette, the xii. daie of March, ann. 1554, folio. This edition is here always cited. e Bibl. Bodl. MSS. Bodl. NE. F. 8. And MSS. Fairf. 3. 9. when when he was old and blind, to archbishop Arundel'. The CONFESSIO AMANTIS, or the Lover's Confeffion, is an English poem, in eight books, first printed by Caxton, in the year 1483. It was written at the command of Richard the second; who meeting our poet Gower rowing on the Thames near London, invited him into the royal barge, and after much converfation requested him to book fome new thing". This tripartite work is reprefented by three volumes on Gower's curious tomb in the conventual church of Saint Mary Overee in Southwark, now remaining in its antient ftate; and this circumftance furnishes me with an obvious opportunity of adding an anecdote relating to our poet's munificence and piety, which ought not to be omitted. Although a poet, he largely contributed to rebuild that church. in its present elegant form, and to render it a beautiful pattern of the lighter Gothic architecture: at the fame time he founded, at his tomb, a perpetual chantry. It is on the last of thefe pieces, the CONFESSIO AMANTIS, that Gower's character and reputation as a poet are almost entirely founded. This poem, which bears no immediate reference to the other two divifions, is a dialogue between a lover and his confeffor, who is a priest of Venus, and, like the myftagogue in the PICTURE of Cebes, is called Genius. Here, as if it had been impoffible for a lover not to be a good catholic, the ritual of religion is applied to the tender paffion, and Ovid's Art of Love is blended with the breviary. In the course of the confeffion, every evil affection of the human heart, which may tend to impede the progrefs or counteract the fuccefs of love, is fcientifically fubdivided; and its fatal effects exemplified by a variety of appofite stories, extracted f MSS. Num. 26. It occurs more than once in the Bodleian library; and, I believe, often in private hands. There is a fine manufcript of it in the British Museum. It was written in the year 1397, as appears B 2 by the following line, MSS. Bodl. 294. from |