The confessor declares, that many persons are condemned for disclosing secrets, "In Loves COURTE, as it is said, that lette their tonges gone untide." By Thy SHRIFTE, the author means his own poem now before us, the Lover's CONFESSION. There are also many manifest evidences which lead us to conclude, that this poem preceded Chaucer's CANTERBURY'S TALES, undoubtedly some of that poet's latest compositions, and probably not begun till after the year 1382. The MAN OF LAWES TALE is circumstantially borrowed from Gower's CONSTANTIA": and Chaucer, in that TALE, apparently censures Gower, for his manner of relating the stories of Canace and Apollonius in the third and eighth books of the CONFESSIO AMANTIS". The WIFE OF BATHES TALE is founded on Gower's Florent, a knight of Rome, who delivers the king of Sicily's daughter from the incantations of her step-mother. W I See Chaucer, ibid. v. 4500. And Conf. Amant. Lib. iii. f. 48. a. col. 1. seq. Lib. viii. f. 175. a. col. 2. seq. have just discovered, that the favourite story of Apollonius, having appeared in antient Greek, Latin, Saxon, barbarous Greek, and old French, was at length translated from French into English, and printed in the black letter, by Wyn. kynde Worde, A. D. 1510. 4to. "Kynge Appolyn of Thyre." [See supr. p. 184. Note. A copy is in my possession. [A Greco-barbarous translation of the romance of APOLLONIUS OF TYRE was 4to. made by one Gabriel Contianus', a Grecian, about the year 1500, as appears by a manuscript in the imperial library at Vienna; and printed at Venice in 1509. [See supr. p. 184. Noteh.] Salviati, in his Avvertimenti, mentions an Italian romance on this subject, which he supposes to have been written about the year 1330. Lib. ii. c. 12. Velser first published this romance in Latin at Ausburgh, in 1595. The story is here much more elegantly told, than in the GESTA ROMANORUM. In Godfrey of Viterbo's PANTHEON, it is in Leonine verse. There has been even a German translation of this favorite tale, viz. "Historia APPOLLONI TYRIE et Sidoniæ regis ex Latino sermone in Germanicum translata. August. Vindel. apud Gintherum Zainer, 1471. fol." At the end is a German colophon, importing much the same.— ADDITIONS.] * Lib. i. f. 15. b. col. 2. 1 Γαβριηλ Κοντιάνος. Perhaps Κωνσαντινος. Lambecc. CATAL. BIBL. CESAR. Nesselii SUPPL. tom. i. p. 341. MSS. Græc. CCXLIV. (Vind. et Norinb. 1690. fol.) Pr. “Midėžæv rü Inoš xeiss.” Fin. "Пoinua ἕν ἀποχειρὸς Γαβριὴλ Κοντιάνω,” &c. This is in prose. But under this class of the imperial library, Nesselius recites many manuscript poems in the Greco-barbarous metre of the fifteenth century or thereabouts, viz. The Loves of Hemperius ; Description of the city of Venice; The Romance of Florius and Platzflora; The Blindness and Beggary of Belisarius; The Trojan War; Of Hell; Of an Earthquake in the Isle of Crete, &c. These were all written at the restoration of Learning in Italy. [See vol. i. p. 182. passim.] Although the GESTA ROMANORUM might have furnished both poets with this narrative. Chaucer, however, among other great improvements, has judiciously departed from the fable, in converting Sicily into the more popular court of king Arthur. Perhaps, in estimating Gower's merit, I have pushed the notion too far, that because he shews so much learning he had no great share of natural abilities. But it should be considered, that when books began to grow fashionable, and the reputation of learning conferred the highest honour, poets became ambitious of being thought scholars; and sacrificed their native powers of invention to the ostentation of displaying an extensive course of reading, and to the pride of profound erudition. On this account, the minstrels of these times, who were totally uneducated, and poured forth spontaneous rhymes in obedience to the workings of nature, often exhibit more genuine strokes of passion and imagination, than the professed poets. Chaucer is an exception to this observation: whose original feelings were too strong to be suppressed by books, and whose learning was overbalanced by genius. This affectation of appearing learned, which yet was natural at the revival of literature, in our old poets, even in those who were altogether destitute of talents, has lost to posterity many a curious picture of manners, and many a romantic image. Some of our antient bards, however, aimed at no other merit, than that of being able to versify; and attempted nothing more, than to cloath in rhyme those sentiments, which would have appeared with equal propriety in prose. In lord Gower's library, there is a thin oblong manuscript on vellum, containing some of Gower's poems in Latin, French, and English. By an entry in the first leaf, in the hand-writing, and under the signature, of Thomas lord Fairfax, Cromwell's general, an antiquarian, and a lover and collector of curious manuscripts, it appears that this book was presented by the poet Gower, about the year 1400, to Henry the Fourth; and Y He gave twenty-nine antient manuscripts to the Bodleian library, one of which is a beautiful manuscript of Gower's Confessio Amantis. When the Re cord-tower in St. Mary's abbey at York was accidentally blown up in the grand rebellion, he offered towards to the soldiers who could bring him fragments of that it was given by lord Fairfax to his friend and kinsman sir Thomas Gower knight and baronet, in the year 1656. By another entry, lord Fairfax acknowledges to have received it, in the same year, as a present, from that learned gentleman Charles Gedde esquire, of saint Andrews in Scotland: and at the end, are five or six Latin anagrams on Gedde, written and signed by lord Fairfax, with this title, "In NOMEN venerandi et annosi Amici sui Caroli Geddei." By king Henry the Fourth it seems to have been placed in the royal library: it appears at least to have been in the hands of king Henry the Seventh while earl of Richmond, from the name Rychemond, inserted in another of the blank leaves at the beginning, and explained by this note, "Liber Henrici Septimi tunc Comitis Richmond, propria manu scripsit." This manuscript is neatly written, with miniated and illuminated initials: and contains the following pieces. I. A Panegyric in stanzas, with a Latin prologue or rubric in seven hexameters, on king Henry the Fourth. This poem, commonly called Carmen de pacis Commendatione in laudem Henrici Quarti, is printed in Chaucer's WORKS, edit. Urr. p. 540.-II. A short Latin poem in elegiacs on the same subject, beginning, "Rex cœli deus et dominus qui tempora solus *." [MSS. COTTON. OTHO. D. i. 4.] This is followed by ten other very short pieces, both in French and English, [Latin] of the same tendency.-III. CINKANTE BALADES, or Fifty Sonnets in French. Part of the first is illegible. They are closed with the following epilogue and colophon. the scattered parchments. Luckily, however, the numerous original evidences lodged in this repository had been just before transcribed by Roger Dodsworth; and the transcripts, which formed the ground-work of Dugdale's MONASTICON, consisting of forty-nine large folio volumes, were bequeathed by Fairfax to the same library. Fairfax also, when Oxford was garrisoned by the parliamentary forces, exerted his utmost diligence in preserving the Bodleian library from pillage; so that it suffered much less, than when that city was in the possession of the royalists. * [The minute title of this [Latin poem] is at the close of the English poem, and does not exactly accord with Mr. Warton's assertion: "Explicit carmen de pacis commendatione quod ad laudem et memoriam serenissimi principis domini Regis Henrici quarti suus humilis orator Johannes Gower composuit. Et nunc sequitur Epistola in qua idem Johannes pro statu et salute dicti domini sui altissimi devocius exorat."-TODD.] O gentile Engleterre a toi iescrits, Doignt peas, honour, ioie et prosperite. Expliciunt carmina Johis Gower que Gallice composita BALADES dicuntur.-IV. Two short Latin poems in elegiacs. The First beginning, "Ecce patet tensus ceci Cupidinis arcus." The Second, "O Natura viri potuit quam tollere nemo."-V. A French poem, imperfect at the beginning, On the Dignity or Excellence of Marriage, in one book. The subject is illustrated by examples. As no part of this poem was ever printed, I transcribe one of the stories. Qualiter Jason uxorem suam Medeam relinquens, Creusam Creontis regis filiam sibi carnaliter copulavit. Verum ipse cum duobus filiis suis postea infortunatus [decessit]. Li prus Jason qeu lisle de Colchos Quant Medea meulx qui de etre en repos Si prist la file au roi Creon Creusa Sas joefnes fils queux et jadis en clos Ceo qeu fuist fait pecche le fortuna Towards the end of the piece, the poet introduces an apology for any inaccuracies, which, as an Englishman, he may have committed in the French idiom. Al universite de tout le monde JOHAN GOWER ceste Balade evoie; It is finished with a few Latin hexameters, viz. "Quis sit vel qualis sacer ordo connubialis." This poem occurs at the end of two valuable folio manuscripts, illuminated and on vellum, of the CONFESSIO AMANTIS, in the Bodleian library, viz. MSS. FAIRFAX, iii. And NE. F. 8. 9. Also in the manuscript at All Souls college Oxford, MSS. xxvi. described and cited above. And in MSS. HARL. 3869. In all these, and, I believe, in many others, it is properly connected with the CONFESSIO AMANTIS by the following rubric. "Puisqu'il ad dit CIDEVANT en ENGLOIS, par voie dessample, la sotie de cellui qui par amours aimie par especial, dirra ore apres en FRANCOIS a tout le mond en general une traitie selone les auctors, pour essemplar les amants mariez," &c. It begins, Le creature du tout creature. But the CINQUANTE BALADES, or fifty French Sonne's above mentioned, are the curious and valuable part of lord Gower's manuscript. They are not mentioned by those who have written the Life of this poet, or have catalogued his works. Nor do they appear in any other manuscript of Gower w have examined. But if they should be discovered in any other, I will venture to pronounce, that a more authentic, unembar VOL. II. I |