INTRODUCTION (continued 2)

This, it will be seen, is a literary work with due connexion of parts, and not a mere string of sermons. At the same time it must be said that the descriptions of vices and virtues are of such inordinate length that the effect of unity which should be produced by a well-planned design is almost completely lost, and the book becomes very tiresome to read. We are wearied also by the accumulation of texts and authorities and by the unqualified character of the moral judgements. The maxim in l. 25225,

is thoroughly characteristic of Gower, and on the strength of it he holds a kind of perpetual Last Judgement, in which he is always engaged in separating the sheep from the goats and dealing out to the latter their doom of eternal fire. The sentence sounds like a truism, but it contains in fact one of the grossest of fallacies. In short, our author has little sense of proportion and no dramatic powers.

As regards the invention of his allegory he seems to be to some extent original. There is nothing, so far as I know, to which we can point as its source, and such as it is, he is apparently entitled to the credit of having conceived it. The materials, no doubt, were ready to his hand. Allegory was entirely in the taste of the fourteenth century, dominated as it was by the influence of the Roman de la Rose, from which several of Gower’s personifications are taken. The Mariage des Sept Arts was a work of this period, and the marriage of the Deadly Sins was not by any means a new idea. For example in MS. Fairfax 24 (Bodleian Libr.) there is a part of a French poem ‘de Maritagio nouem filiarum diaboli,’ which begins,

And no doubt other pieces of a similar kind exist.

The same is true as regards the other parts of the book, as has been already pointed out; the combination alone is original.

The style is uniformly respectable, but as a rule very monotonous. Occasionally the tedium is relieved by a story, but it is not generally told in much detail, and for the most part the reader has to toil through the desert with little assistance. It must not be supposed, however, that the work is quite without poetical merit. Every now and then by some touch of description the author betrays himself as the graceful poet of the Balades, his better part being crushed under mountains of morality and piles of deadly learning, but surviving nevertheless. For example, the priest who neglects his early morning service is reminded of the example of the lark, who rising very early mounts circling upward and pours forth a service of praise to God from her little throat:

Again, Praise is like the bee which flies over the meadows in the sunshine, gathering that which is sweet and fragrant, but avoiding all evil odours (12853 ff.). The robe of Conscience is like a cloud with ever-changing hues (10114 ff.). Devotion is like the sea-shell which opens to the dew of heaven and thus conceives the fair white pearl; not an original idea, but gracefully expressed:

The lines in which our author describes the life of the beggar show that, though he disapproves, he has a real understanding of the delights of vagabondage, with its enjoyment of the open-air life, the sunshine, the woods, and the laziness:

Other descriptions also have merit, as for example that of the procession of the Vices to their wedding, each being arrayed and mounted characteristically (841 ff.), a scene which it is interesting to compare with the somewhat similar passage of Spenser, Faery Queene, i. 4, that of Murder rocked in her cradle by the Devil and fed with milk of death (4795), and that of Fortune smiling on her friends and frowning on her enemies (22081 ff.).

Contemplation is described as one who loves solitude and withdraws herself from the sight, but it is not that she may be quite alone: she is like the maiden who in a solitary place awaits her lover, by whose coming she is to have joy in secret (10597 ff.). The truly religious man, already dead in spirit to this world, desires the death of the body ‘more than the mariner longs for his safe port, more than the labourer desires his wage, the husbandman his harvest, or the vine-dresser his vintage, more than the prisoner longs for his ransoming and deliverance, or the pilgrim who has travelled far desires his home-coming’ (10645 ff.). Such passages as these show both imagination and the power of literary expression, and the stanzas which describe the agony of the Saviour are not wholly unworthy of their high subject:

The man who wrote this not only showed some idea of the dignified handling of a tragic theme, but also had considerable mastery over the instruments that he used; and in fact the technical skill with which the stanza is used is often remarkable. There is sometimes a completeness and finish about it which takes us by surprise. The directions which our author gives us for a due confession of our sins are not exactly poetical, but the manner in which all the various points of Quomodo are wrapped up in a stanza, and rounded off at the end of it (14869 ff.) is decidedly neat; and the same may be said of the reference to the lives of the holy fathers, as illustrating the nature of ‘Aspre vie’:

In fact, he is a poet in a different sense altogether from his predecessors, superior to former Anglo-Norman writers both in imagination and in technical skill; but at the same time he is hopelessly unreadable, so far as this book as a whole is concerned, because, having been seized by the fatal desire to do good in his generation, ‘villicacionis sue racionem, dum tempus instat, ... alleuiare cupiens,’ as he himself expresses it, he deliberately determined to smother those gifts which had been employed in the service of folly, and to become a preacher instead of a poet. Happily, as time went on, he saw reason to modify his views in this respect (as he tells us plainly in the Confessio Amantis), and he became a poet again; but meanwhile he remains a preacher, and not a very good one after all.

Quotations.—One of the characteristic features of the Mirour is the immense number of quotations. This citation of authorities is of course a characteristic of medieval morality, and appears in some books, as in the Liber Consolationis and other writings of Albertano of Brescia, in an extreme form. Here the tendency is very pronounced, especially in the part which treats of Vices and Virtues, and it is worth while to inquire what range of reading they really indicate. A very large number are from the Bible, and there can be little doubt that Gower knew the Bible, in the Vulgate version of course, thoroughly well. There is hardly a book of the Old Testament to which he does not refer, and he seems to be acquainted with Bible history even in its obscurest details. The books from which he most frequently quotes are Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ecclesiasticus, the proverbial morality of this last book being especially congenial to him. The quotations are sometimes inexact, and occasionally assigned to the wrong book; also the book of Ecclesiasticus, which is quoted very frequently, is sometimes referred to under the name of Sidrac and sometimes of Solomon: but there can be no doubt in my opinion that these Biblical quotations are at first hand. Of other writers Seneca, who is quoted by name nearly thirty times, comes easily first. Some of the references to him seem to be false, but it is possible that our author had read some of his works. Then come several of the Latin fathers, Jerome, Augustin, Gregory, Bernard, and, not far behind these, Ambrose. The quotations are not always easy to verify, and in most cases there is nothing to indicate that the books from which they are taken had been read as a whole. No doubt Gower may have been acquainted with some portions of them, as for instance that part of Jerome’s book against Jovinian which treats of the objections to marriage, but it is likely enough that he picked up most of these quotations at second hand. There are about a dozen quotations from Cicero, mostly from the De Officiis and De Amicitia, but I doubt whether he had read either of these books. In the Confessio Amantis he speaks as if he did not know that Tullius was the same person as Cicero (iv. 2648). Boethius is cited four times, one of the references being false; Cassiodorus and Isidore each four times, and Bede three times. Stories of natural history seem to be referred rather indiscriminately to Solinus, for several of these references prove to be false. Three quotations are attributed by the author to Horace (‘Orace’), but of these one is in fact from Ovid and another from Juvenal. He certainly got them all from some book of commonplaces. The same may be said of the passage alleged to be from Quintilian and of the references to Aristotle and to Plato. ‘Marcial,’ who is quoted three times, is not the classical Martial, but the epigrammatist Godfrey of Winchester, whose writings were in imitation of the Roman poet and passed commonly under his name. The distichs of Cato are referred to five times, and it is certain of course that Gower had read them. Ovid is named only once, and that is a doubtful reference, but the author of the Confessio Amantis was certainly well acquainted at least with the Metamorphoses and the Heroides. Valerius Maximus is the authority for two stories, but it is doubtful whether he is quoted at first hand. Fulgentius is cited twice, and ‘Alphonses,’ that is Petrus Alphonsi, author of the Disciplina Clericalis, twice. ‘Pamphilius’ (i.e. Pamphilus, de Amore) is cited once, but not in such a way as to suggest that Gower knew the book itself; and so too Maximian, but the passage referred to does not seem to be in the Elegies. The quotation from Ptolemy is, as usual, from the maxims often prefixed in manuscripts to the Almagest. Other writers referred to are Chrysostom, Cyprian, Remigius, Albertus Magnus, Hélinand, Haymo, and Gilbert. We know from a passage in the Confessio Amantis that Gower had read some of the works of Albertus, and we may assume as probable that he knew Gilbert’s Opusculum de Virginitate, for his reference is rather to the treatise generally than to any particular passage of it.

He was acquainted, no doubt, with the Legenda Aurea or some similar collection, and he seems to refer also to the Vitae Patrum. The moral and devotional books of his own day must have been pretty well known to him, as well as the lighter literature, to which he had himself contributed (Mir. 27340). On the whole we must conclude that he was a well-read man according to the standard of his age, especially for a layman, but there is no need to attribute to him a vast stock of learning on the strength of the large number of authors whom he quotes.

Proverbs, &c.—Besides quotations from books there will be found to be a number of proverbial sayings in the Mirour, and I have thought it useful to collect some of these and display them in a manner convenient for reference. They are given in the order in which they occur:

Akin to the proverbs are the illustrations from Natural History, real or fictitious, of which there is a considerable number in the Mirour. These are of very various classes, from simple facts of ordinary observation to the monstrous inventions of the Bestiaries, which were repeated by one writer after another with a faith which rested not on any evidence of the facts stated, but upon their supposed agreement with the fitness of things, that is, practically, their supposed aptness as moral lessons, the medieval idea of the animal world being apparently that it was created and kept in being largely for the instruction of mankind. In taking the glow-worm as an illustration of hypocrisy (1130), the lark of joyous thankfulness (5637), the grasshopper of improvidence (5821), the lapwing of female dissimulation (8869), the turtle-dove of constancy (17881), the drone of indolence (5437), the camel of revengeful malice (4417), and the blind kitten of drunken helplessness (8221), the author is merely making a literary use of every-day observation. There are however, as might be expected, plenty of illustrations of a more questionable character. Presumption is like the tiger beguiled with the mirror (1561); the proud man who is disobedient to law is like the unicorn, which cannot be tamed (2101); the devil breaking down the virtue of a man by raising him high in his own conceit is like the osprey, which carries bones high in the air and breaks them by dropping them upon rocks (1849); Envy, who destroys with her breath the honour of all around her, is like the basilisk which kills all vegetation in the place where it is found (3745); the man-faced bird, which pines away because it has slain a man, is produced as a lesson to murderers (5029); the bad father, who teaches his sons to plunder the poor, is like the hawk, which beats its young and drives them from the nest in order that they may learn to kill prey for themselves (7009); the partridge is a lesson against stinginess (7671); the contagiousness of sin is illustrated by the fact that the panther infects other animals with his spots (9253), and yet in another place (12865) the sweetness of the human voice when it utters praise is compared to the fragrance of the panther’s breath. Contemplation is like the ‘chalandre,’ which flies up at midnight to the sky, and when on the earth will not look upon a dying person (10705); the fight between Arimaspians and griffons for emeralds is an image created for our instruction of the contest between the soul of man and the devil (10717); Devotion, who opens herself secretly to heaven and thus attains to the divine contemplation, is like the sea-shell which opens to the dew by night and from it conceives the pearl (10813); the spittle of a fasting man (according to Ambrose) will kill a serpent, and the fast itself will no doubt be effectual against the old serpent our enemy (18025). The bee does not come off well on the whole in these comparisons: he is chosen as the likeness of the idle and luxurious prelate, but this is for reasons which are not in themselves at all obvious, except that he has a sting and is unduly fond of sweets (19345). The prelate who protects his flock from encroachments of the royal or other authority is like the big fish which takes the smaller into its mouth to shelter them from the storm (19909); Humility is like the diamond, which refuses a setting of gold, but is drawn to the lowly iron, a confusion with the load-stone, arising from the name ‘adamant’ applied to both (12463). These are some of the illustrations which are drawn from the domain of Natural History, not original for the most part, but worth noting as part of the literary baggage of the period.

The Author and his Times.—We may gather from the Mirour some few facts about the personality of the author, which will serve to supplement in some degree our rather scanty knowledge of Gower’s life. He tells us here that he is a layman (21772), but that we knew already; and that he knows little Latin and little French,—‘Poi sai latin, poi sai romance’ (21775), but that is only his modesty; he knows quite enough of both. He has spent his life in what he now regards as folly or worse; he has committed all the seven deadly sins (27365); moreover he has composed love poems, which he now calls ‘fols ditz d’amour’ (27340); but for all this it is probable enough that his life has been highly respectable. He comes late to repentance (27299), and means to sing a song different from that which he has sung heretofore (27347), to atone, apparently, for his former misdeeds. We may assume, then, that he was not very young at the time when he wrote this book; and we know that he considered himself an old man when he produced the Confessio Amantis (viii. 3068*) in the year 1390. Men were counted old before sixty in those days, and therefore we may suppose him to be now about forty-six. We may perhaps gather from ll. 8794 and 17649 that he had a wife. In the former passage he is speaking of those who tell tales to husbands about their wives’ misconduct, and he says in effect, ‘I for my part declare (Je di pour moi) that I wish to hear no such tales of my wife’; in the second he speaks of those wives who dislike servants and other persons simply because their husbands like them, and he adds, ‘I do not say that mine does so,’ ‘Ne di pas q’ensi fait la moie.’ If the inference is correct, then his union with Agnes Groundolf in his old age was a second marriage, and this is in itself probable enough. We cannot come to any definite conclusion from this poem about his profession or occupation in life. It is said by Leland that Gower was a lawyer, but for this statement no evidence has ever been produced, and if we may judge from the tone in which he speaks of the law and lawyers in the Mirour, we must reject it. Of all the secular estates that of the law seems to him to be the worst (24805 ff.), and he condemns both advocates and judges in a more unqualified manner than the members of any other calling. He knows apparently a good deal about them and about the ‘customs of Westminster,’ but, judging by his tone, we shall probably be led to think that this knowledge was acquired rather in the character of a litigant than in that of a member of the legal profession. Especially the suggestion of a special tax to be levied on lawyers’ gains (24337 ff.) is one which could hardly have come from one who was himself a lawyer. Again, the way in which he speaks of physicians, whom he accuses of being in league with apothecaries to defraud patients, and of deliberately delaying the cure in order to make more money (24301, 25621 ff.), seems to exclude him quite as clearly from the profession of medicine, the condemnation being here again general and unqualified.

Of all the various ranks of society which he reviews, that of which he seems to speak with most respect is the estate of Merchants. He takes pains to point out both here and in the Vox Clamantis the utility of their occupation and the justice of their claim to reasonably large profits on successful ventures in consideration of the risks which they run (25177 ff.). He makes a special apology to the honest members of the class for exposing the abuses to which the occupation is liable, pleading that to blame the bad is in effect to praise the good (25213 ff., 25975 ff.), and he is more careful here than elsewhere to point out the fact that honest members of the class exist. These indications seem to suggest that it was as a merchant that Gower made the money which he spent in buying his land; and this inference is supported by the manner in which he speaks of ‘our City,’ and by the fact that it is with members of the merchant class that he seems to be most in personal communication. He has evidently discussed with merchants the comparative value of worldly and spiritual possessions, and he reports the saying of one of them,

to the effect that he was a fool who did not make money if he might, for no one knew the truth about the world to come (25915 ff.). He feels strongly against a certain bad citizen who aims at giving privileges in trade to outsiders (26380 ff.), and the jealousy of the Lombards which he expresses (25429 ff.) has every appearance of being a prejudice connected with rivalry in commerce. ‘I see Lombards come,’ he says, ‘in poor attire as servants, and before a year has passed they have gained so much by deceit and conspiracy that they dress more nobly than the burgesses of our City; and if they need influence or friendship, they gain it by fraud and subtlety, so that their interests are promoted and ours are damaged at their will and pleasure.’

If we are to go further and ask in what branch of trade our author exercised himself, it is probable that we may see reason to set him down as a dealer in wool, so enthusiastic is he about wool as the first of all commodities, and so much has he to say about the abuses of the staple (25360 ff.). No doubt the business of exporting wool would be combined with that of importing foreign manufactured goods of some kind. It is known from other sources that Gower was a man who gradually acquired considerable property in land, and the references in the Mirour to the dearness of labour and the unreasonable demands of the labourer (24625 ff.) are what we might expect from a man in that position.

He tells us that he is a man of simple tastes, that he does not care to have ‘partridges, pheasants, plovers, and swans’ served up at his table (26293 ff.); that he objects however to finding his simple joint of meat stuck full of wooden skewers by the butcher, so that when he comes to carve it he blunts the edge of his knife (26237 ff.). We know moreover from the whole tone of his writings that he is a just and upright man, who believes in the due subordination of the various members of society to one another, and who will not allow himself to be ruled in his own household either by his wife or his servants. He thinks indeed that the patience of Socrates is much overstrained, and openly declares that he shall not imitate it:

But, though a thorough believer in the principle of gradation in human society, he emphasizes constantly the equality of all men before God and refuses absolutely to admit the accident of birth as constituting any claim whatever to ‘gentilesce.’ The common descent of all from Adam is as conclusive on this point for him as it was for John Ball (23389 ff.), and he is not less clear and sound on the subject of wealth. Considering that his views of society are essentially the same as those of Wycliff, and considering also his strong views about the corruption of the Church and the misdeeds of the friars, it is curious to find how strongly he denounces ‘lollardie’ in his later writings.

He has a just abhorrence of war, and draws a very clear-sighted distinction between the debased chivalry of his day and the true ideal of knighthood, the one moved only by impulses of vainglorious pride and love of paramours,

and the other, set only on serving God and righting the wrong, represented finely in the character of Prowess:

Above all, our author has a deep sense of religion, and his study has been much upon the Bible. He deeply believes in the moral government of the world by Providence, and he feels sure, as others of his age also did, that the world has almost reached its final stage of corruption. Whatever others may do, he at least intends to repent of his sins and prepare himself to render a good account of his stewardship.

Let us pass now from the person of the author and touch upon some of those illustrations of the manners of the time which are furnished by the Mirour. In the first place it may be said that in certain points, and especially in what is said of the Court of Rome and the Mendicant orders, it fully confirms the unfavourable impression which we get from other writers of the time. Gower has no scruples at any time in denouncing the temporal possessions of the Church as the root of almost all the evil in her, and here as elsewhere he tells the story of the donation of Constantine, with the addition of the angelic voice which foretold disaster to spring from it. Of dispensations, which allow men to commit sin with impunity, he takes a very sound view. Not even God, he says, can grant this, which the Pope claims the power to grant (18493). The Mendicant friars are for him those ‘false prophets’ of whom the Gospel spoke, who should come in sheep’s clothing, while inwardly they were ravening wolves. He denounces their worldliness in the strongest language, and the account of their visits to poor women’s houses, taking a farthing if they cannot get a penny, or a single egg if nothing else is forthcoming (21379), reminds us vividly of Chaucer’s picture of a similar scene. But in fact the whole of the Church seems to our author to be in a wrong state. He does not relieve his picture of it by any such pleasing exception as the parish priest of the Canterbury Tales. He thinks that it needs reform from the top to the bottom; the clergy of the parish churches are almost as much to blame as the prelates, monks and friars, and for him it is the corruption of the Church that is mainly responsible for the decadence of society (21685 ff.). These views he continued to hold throughout his life, and yet he apparently had no sympathy whatever with Lollardism (Conf. Am. Prol. 346 ff. and elsewhere). His witness against the Church comes from one who is entirely untainted by schism. Especially he is to be listened to when he complains how the archdeacons and their officers abuse the trust committed to them for the correction of vices in the clergy and in the laity. With the clergy it is a case of ‘huy a moy, demain a vous’—that is, the archdeacon or dean, being immoral himself, winks at the vices of the clergy in order that his own may be overlooked; the clergy, in fact, are judges in their own cause, and they stand or fall together. If, however, an unfortunate layman offends, they accuse him forthwith, in order to profit by the penalties that may be exacted. ‘Purs is the erchedeknes helle,’ as Chaucer’s Sompnour says, and Gower declares plainly that the Church officials encourage vice in order that they may profit by it: ‘the harlot is more profitable to them,’ he says, ‘than the nun, and they let out fornication to farm, as they let their lands’ (20149 ff.).

Setting aside the Church, we may glean from the Mirour some interesting details about general society, especially in the city of London. There is a curious and life-like picture of the gatherings of city dames at the wine-shop, whither with mincing steps they repair instead of to church or to market, and how the vintner offers them the choice of Vernazza and Malvoisie, wine of Candia and Romagna, Provence and Monterosso—not that he has all these, but to tickle their fancies and make them pay a higher price—and draws ten kinds of liquor from a single cask. Thus he makes his gain and they spend their husbands’ money (26077 ff.). We find too a very lively account of the various devices of shopkeepers to attract custom and cheat their customers. The mercer, for example, is louder than a sparrow-hawk in his cries; he seizes on people in the street and drags them by force into his shop, urging them merely to view his kerchiefs and his ostrich feathers, his satins and foreign cloth (25285 ff.). The draper will try to sell you cloth in a dark shop, where you can hardly tell blue from green, and while making you pay double its value will persuade you that he is giving it away because of his regard for you and desire for your acquaintance (25321 ff.). The goldsmith purloins the gold and silver with which you supply him and puts a base alloy in its place; moreover, if he has made a cup for you and you do not call for it at once, he will probably sell it to the first comer as his own, and tell you that yours was spoilt in the making and you must wait till he can make you another (25513 ff.). The druggist not only makes profit out of sin by selling paints and cosmetics to women, but joins in league with the physician and charges exorbitantly for making up the simplest prescription (25609 ff.). The furrier stretches the fur with which he has to trim the mantle, so that after four days’ wear it is obvious that the cloth and the fur do not match one another (25705 ff.). Every kind of food is adulterated and is sold by false weights and measures. The baker is a scoundrel of course, and richly deserves hanging (26189), but the butcher is also to blame, and especially because he declines altogether to recognize the farthing as current coin and will take nothing less than a penny, so that poor people can get no meat (26227). Wines are mixed, coloured and adulterated; what they call Rhenish probably grew on the banks of the Thames (26118). If you order beer for your household, you get it good the first time and perhaps also the second, but after that no more; and yet for the bad as high a price is charged as for the good (26161 ff.). Merchants in these days talk of thousands, where their fathers talked of scores or hundreds; but their fathers lived honestly and paid their debts, while these defraud all who have dealings with them. When you enter their houses, you see tapestried rooms and curtained chambers, and they have fine plate upon the tables, as if they were dukes; but when they die, they are found to have spent all their substance, and their debts are left unpaid (25813 ff.).

In the country the labourers are discontented and disagreeable. They do less work and demand more pay than those of former times. In old days the labourer never tasted wheaten bread and rarely had milk or cheese. Things went better in those days. Now their condition is a constant danger to society, and one to which the upper classes seem strangely indifferent (26425 ff.).

Curious accounts are given of the customs of the legal profession, and when our author comes to deal with the jury-panel, he tells us of a regularly established class of men whose occupation it is to arrange for the due packing and bribing of juries. He asserts that of the corrupt jurors there are certain captains, who are called ‘tracers’ (traiciers), because they draw (treront) the others to their will. If they say that white is black, the others will say ‘quite so,’ and swear it too, for as the tracer will have it, so it shall be. Those persons who at assizes desire to have corrupt jurymen to try their case must speak with these ‘tracers,’ for all who are willing to sell themselves in this manner are hand and glove with them, and so the matter is arranged (25033 ff.). The existence of a definite name for this class of undertakers seems to indicate that it was really an established institution.

These are a few of the points which may interest the reader in the reflection of the manners of society given by our author’s ‘mirror.’ The whole presents a picture which, though no doubt somewhat overcharged with gloom, is true nevertheless in its outlines.

Text.—It remains to speak of the text of this edition and of the manuscript on which it depends.

In the year 1895, while engaged in searching libraries for MSS. of the Confessio Amantis, I observed to Mr. Jenkinson, Librarian of the Cambridge University Library, that if the lost French work of Gower should ever be discovered, it would in all probability be found to have the title Speculum Hominis, and not that of Speculum Meditantis, under which it was ordinarily referred to. He at once called my attention to the MS. with the title Mirour de l’omme, which he had lately bought and presented to the University Library. On examining this I was able to identify it beyond all doubt with the missing book.

It may be thus described:

Camb. Univ. Library, MS. Additional 3035, bought at the Hailstone sale, May 1891, and presented to the Library by the Librarian.

Written on parchment, size of leaves about 12” x 7¾”, in eights with catchwords; writing of the latter half of the 14th century, in double column of forty-eight lines to the column; initial letter of each stanza coloured blue or red, and larger illuminated letters at the beginning of the chief divisions, combined with some ornamentation on the left side of the column, and in one case, f. 58 v^o, also at the top of the page. One leaf is pasted down to the binding at the beginning and contains the title and table of contents. After this four leaves have been cut out, containing the beginning of the poem, and seven more in other parts of the book. There are also some leaves lost at the end. The first leaf after those which have been cut out at the beginning has the signature a iiii. The leaves (including those cut out) have now been numbered 1, 1*, 2, 3, 4, &c., up to 162; we have therefore a first sheet, of which half is pasted down (f. 1) and the other half cut away (f. 1*), and then twenty quires of eight leaves with the first leaf of the twenty-first quire, the leaves lost being those numbered 1*, 2, 3, 4, 36, 106, 108, 109, 120, 123, 124, as well as those after 162.

The present binding is of the last century and doubtless later than 1745, for some accounts of work done by ‘Richard Eldridge’ and other memoranda, written in the margins in an illiterate hand, have the dates 1740 and 1745 and have been partly cut away by the binder. The book was formerly in the library of Edward Hailstone, Esq., whose name and arms are displayed upon a leather label outside the binding, but it seems that no record exists as to the place from which he obtained it. From the writing in the margin of several pages it would seem that about the year 1745 it was lying neglected in some farm-house. We have, for example, this memorandum (partly cut away) in the margin of one of the leaves: ‘Margat ... leved at James ... in the year of our Lord 1745 and was the dayre maid that year ... and her swithart name was Joshep Cockhad Joshep Cockhad carpenter.’ On the same page occurs the word ‘glosterr,’ which may partly serve to indicate the locality.

The manuscript is written in one hand throughout, with the exception of the Table of Contents, and the writing is clear, with but few contractions. In a few cases, as in ll. 4109, 4116, 28941 f., corrections have been made over erasure. The correctness of the text which the MS. presents is shown by the very small number of cases in which either metre or sense suggests emendation. Apart from the division of words, only about thirty corrections have been made in the present edition throughout the whole poem of nearly thirty thousand lines, and most of these are very trifling. I have little doubt that this copy was written under the direction of the author.

As regards the manner in which the text of the MS. has been reproduced in this edition, I have followed on the whole the system used in the publications of the ‘Société des Anciens Textes Français.’ Thus u and v, i and j, have been dealt with in accordance with modern practice, whereas in the MS. (as usual in French and English books of the time) v is regularly written as the initial letter of a word for either u or v, and u in other positions (except sometimes in the case of compounds like avient, avoegler, envers, envie, &c.), while, as regards i and j, we have for initials either i or I (J), and in other positions i. Thus the MS. has vn, auoir, while the text gives for the reader’s convenience un, avoir; the MS. has ie or Ie, iour or Iour, while the text gives je, jour. Again, where an elision is expressed, the MS. of course combines the two elements into one word, giving lamour, quil, qestoit, while the text separates them by the apostrophe, l’amour, qu’il, q’estoit. Some other separations have also been made. Thus the MS. often, but by no means always, combines plus with the adjective or adverb to which it belongs: plusbass, plusauant; and often also the word en is combined with a succeeding verb, as enmangeast, enserroit: in these instances the separation is made in the text, but the MS. reading is recorded. In other cases, as with the combinations sique, sicomme, nounpas, envoie, &c., the usage of the MS. has been followed, though it is not quite uniform.

The final -é (-és) and -ée (-ées) of nouns and participles have been marked with the accent for the reader’s convenience, but in all other cases accents are dispensed with. They are not therefore used in the terminations -ez, -eez, even when standing for -és, -ées, as in festoiez, neez, nor in asses, sachies, &c., standing for assez, sachiez (except l. 28712), nor is the grave accent placed upon the open e of apres, jammes, &c. Occasionally the diaeresis is used to separate vowels; and the cedilla is inserted, as in modern French, to indicate the soft sound of c where this seems certain, but there are some possibly doubtful cases, as sufficance, naiscance, in which it is not written.

With regard to the use of capital letters, some attempt has been made to qualify the inconsistency of the MS. In general it may be said that where capitals are introduced, it has been chiefly in order to indicate more clearly the cases where qualities or things are personified. It has not been thought necessary to indicate particularly all these variations.

The punctuation is the work of the editor throughout; that of the MS., where it exists, is of a very uncertain character.

Contractions, &c., are marked in the printed text by italics, except in the case of the word et, which in the MS. is hardly ever written in full except at the beginning of a line. In such words as ꝑest, ꝑfit, ꝑfaire, there may be doubt sometimes between per and par, and the spelling of some of them was certainly variable. Attention must be called especially to the frequently occurring -o̅n̅ as a termination. It has been regularly written out as -oun, and I have no doubt that this is right. In Bozon’s Contes Moralizés the same abbreviation is used, alternating freely with the full form -oun, and it is common in the MSS. of the Confessio Amantis and in the Ellesmere MS. of the Canterbury Tales (so far as I have had the opportunity of examining it), especially in words of French origin such as devocioun, contricioun. In the French texts this mode of writing is applied also very frequently to the monosyllables mon, ton, son, bon, don, non, as well as to bonté, nonpas, noncertein, &c. The scribe of the Mirour writes doun in full once (24625) with do̅n̅ in the same stanza, in Bal. xxi. 4 noun is twice fully written, and in some MSS. of the Traitié (e.g. Bodley 294) the full form occurs frequently side by side with the abbreviation. A similar conclusion must be adopted as regards a̅n̅ (annum), also written aun, gla̅n̅, da̅n̅cer, and the termination -a̅n̅ce, which is occasionally found.

BALADES.

The existence of the Cinkante Balades was first made known to the public by Warton in his History of English Poetry, Sect. xix, his attention having been drawn to the MS. which contains them by its possessor, Lord Gower. After describing the other contents of this MS., he says: ‘But the Cinkante Balades or fifty French Sonnets 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 which I have examined. But if they should be discovered in any other, I will venture to pronounce that a more authentic, unembarrassed, and practicable copy than this before us will not be produced.... To say no more, however, of the value which these little pieces may derive from being so scarce and so little known, they have much real and intrinsic merit. They are tender, pathetic and poetical, and place our old poet Gower in a more advantageous point of view than that in which he has hitherto been usually seen. I know not if any even among the French poets themselves of this period have left a set of more finished sonnets; for they were probably written when Gower was a young man, about the year 1350. Nor had yet any English poet treated the passion of love with equal delicacy of sentiment and elegance of composition. I will transcribe four of these balades as correctly and intelligibly as I am able; although, I must confess, there are some lines which I do not exactly comprehend.’ He then quotes as specimens Bal. xxxvi, xxxiv, xliii, and xxx, but his transcription is far from being correct and is often quite unintelligible.

Date.—The date at which the Cinkante Balades were composed cannot be determined with certainty. Warton, judging apparently by the style and subject only, decided, as we have seen, that they belonged to the period of youth, and we know from a passage in the Mirour (27340) that the author composed love poems of some kind in his early life. Apart from this, however, the evidence is all in favour of assigning the Balades to the later years of the poet’s life. It is true, of course, that the Dedication to King Henry IV which precedes them, and the Envoy which closes them, may have been written later than the rest; but at the same time it must be noted that the second balade of the Dedication speaks distinctly of a purpose of making poems for the entertainment of the royal court, and the mutilated title which follows the Dedication confirms this, so far as it can be read. Again, the prose remarks which accompany Bal. v and vi make it clear that the circumstances of the poems are not personal to the author, seeing that he there divides them into two classes, those that are appropriate for persons about to be married, and those that are ‘universal’ and have application to all sorts and conditions of lovers. Moreover, several of these last, viz, xli-xliv and also xlvi, are supposed to be addressed by ladies to their lovers. It is evident that the balades are only to a very limited extent, if at all, expressive of the actual feelings of the author towards a particular person. As an artist he has set himself to supply suitable forms of expression for the feelings of others, and in doing so he imagines their variety of circumstances and adapts his composition accordingly. For this kind of work it is not necessary, or perhaps even desirable, to be a lover oneself; it is enough to have been a lover once: and that Gower could in his later life express the feelings of a lover with grace and truth we have ample evidence in the Confessio Amantis. No doubt it is possible that these balades were written at various times in the poet’s life, and perhaps some persons, recognizing the greater spontaneity and the more gracefully poetical character (as it seems to me) of the first thirty or so, as compared with the more evident tendency to moralize in the rest, may be inclined to see in this an indication of earlier date for the former poems. In fact however the moralizing tendency, though always present, grew less evident in Gower’s work with advancing years. There is less of it in the Confessio Amantis than in his former works, and this not by accident but on principle, the author avowing plainly that unmixed morality had not proved effective, and accepting love as the one universally interesting subject. When Henry of Lancaster, the man after his own heart, was fairly seated on the throne, he probably felt himself yet more free to lay aside the self-imposed task of setting right the world, and to occupy himself with a purely literary task in the language and style which he felt to be most suitable for a court. In any case it seems certain that some at least of the balades were composed with a view to the court of Henry IV, and the collection assumed its present shape probably in the year of his accession, 1399, for we know that either in the first or the second year of Henry IV the poet became blind and ceased to write.

Form and Versification.—The collection consists of a Dedication addressed to Henry IV, fifty-one (not fifty) balades of love (one number being doubled by mistake), then one, unnumbered, addressed to the Virgin, and a general Envoy. The balades are written in stanzas of seven or eight lines, exactly half of the whole fifty-four (including the Dedication) belonging to each arrangement. The seven-line stanza rhymes ab ab bcc with Envoy bc bc, or in three instances ab ab baa, Envoy ba ba; the eight-line stanza ordinarily ab ab bc bc with Envoy bc bc, but also in seven instances ab ab ba ba with Envoy ba ba. The form is the normal one of the balade, three stanzas with rhymes alike and an Envoy; but in one case, Bal. ix, there are five stanzas with Envoy, and in another, xxxii, the Envoy is wanting. Also the balade addressed to the Virgin, which is added at the end, is without Envoy, and there follows a general Envoy of seven lines, rhyming independently and referring to the whole collection.

The balade form is of course taken from Continental models, and the metre of the verse is syllabically correct like that of the Mirour. As was observed however about the octosyllabic line of the Mirour, so it may be said of the ten-syllable verse here, that the rhythm is not exactly like that of the French verse of the Continent. The effect is due, as before remarked, to the attempt to combine the English accentual with the French syllabic measure. This is especially visible in the treatment of the caesura. In the compositions of the French writers of the new poetry—Froissart, for example—the ten- (or eleven-) syllable line has regularly a break after the fourth syllable. This fourth syllable however may be either accented or not, that is, either as in the line,

or as in the following,

The weaker form of caesura shown in this latter line occurs in at least ten per cent. of the verses in this measure which Froissart gives in the Trésor Amoureux, and the case is much the same with the Balades of Charles d’Orléans, a generation later. Gower, on the other hand, does not admit the unaccented syllable (mute e termination) in the fourth place at all; no such line as this,

is to be found in his balades. Indeed, we may go further than this, and say that the weak syllable is seldom tolerated in the other even places of the verse, where the English ear demanded a strongly marked accentual beat. Such a line as

is quite exceptional.

At the same time he does not insist on ending a word on the fourth syllable, but in seven or eight per cent. of his lines the word is run on into the next foot, as

This is usually the form that the verse takes in such cases, the syllable carried on being a mute e termination, and the caesura coming after this syllable; but lines like the following also occur, in which the caesura is transfered to the end of the third foot:

So xvi. l. 2, xx. l. 20, &c., and others again in which the syllable carried on is an accented one, as

It must be noticed also that the poet occasionally uses the so-called epic caesura, admitting a superfluous unaccented syllable after the second foot, as

So with dame, dames, xix. l. 20, xx. l. 13, xxxvii. l. 18, xlvi. l. 15[K]; and with other words, xxv. l. 8, &c., aime, xxxiii. l. 10, nouche, xxxviii. l. 23, grace, xliv. l. 8, fame. In xx. 1 the same thing occurs exceptionally in another part of the line, the word roe counting as one syllable only, though it is a dissyllable in Mir. 10942. Naturally the termination -ée, as in iii. 2,

does not constitute an epic caesura, because, as observed elsewhere, the final e in this case did not count as a syllable in Anglo-Norman verse.

On the whole we may say that Gower treats the caesura with much the same freedom as is used in the English verse of the period, and at the same time he marks the beat of his iambic verse more strongly than was done by the contemporary French poets.

Matter and Style.—As regards the literary character of these compositions it must be allowed that they have, as Warton says, ‘much real and intrinsic merit.’ There is indeed a grace and poetical feeling in some of them which makes them probably the best things of the kind that have been produced by English writers of French, and as good as anything of the kind which had up to that time been written in English. The author himself has marked them off into two unequal divisions. The poems of the first class (i-v) express for us the security of the accepted lover, whose suit is to end in lawful marriage:

From these he passes to those expressions of feeling which apply to lovers generally, ‘qui sont diversement travailez en la fortune d’amour.’ Nothing can be more graceful in its way than the idea and expression of Bal. viii, ‘D’estable coer, qui nullement se mue,’ where the poet’s thought is represented as a falcon, flying on the wings of longing and desire in a moment across the sea to his absent mistress, and taking his place with her till he shall see her again. Once more, in Bal. xv, the image of the falcon appears, but this time it is a bird which is allowed to fly only with a leash, for so bound is the lover to his lady that he cannot but return to her from every flight. At another time (Bal. xviii) the lover is in despair at the hardness of his lady’s heart: drops of water falling will in time wear through the hardest stone; but this example will not serve him, for he cannot pierce the tender ears of his mistress with prayers, how urgent and repeated soever; God and the saints will hear his prayers, but she is harder than the marble of the quarry—the more he entreats, the less she listens, ‘Com plus la prie, et meinz m’ad entendu.’ Again (xiii) his state is like the month of March, now shine, now shower. When he looks on the sweet face of his lady and sees her ‘gentilesse,’ wisdom, and bearing, he has only pure delight; but when he perceives how far above him is her worth, fear and despair cloud over his joy, as the moon is darkened by eclipse. But in any case he must think of her (xxiv); she has so written her name on his heart that when he hears the chaplain read his litany he can think of nothing but of her. God grant that his prayer may not be in vain! Did not Pygmalion in time past by prayer obtain that his lady should be changed from stone to flesh and blood, and ought not other lovers to hope for the same fortune from prayer? He seems to himself to be in a dream, and he questions with himself and knows not whether he is a human creature or no, so absorbed is his being by his love. God grant that his prayer may not be in vain! He removes himself from her for a time (xxv) because of evil speakers, who with their slanders might injure her good name; but she must know that his heart is ever with her and that all his grief and joy hangs upon her, ‘Car qui bien aime ses amours tard oblie.’ But (xxix) she has misunderstood his absence; report tells him that she is angry with him. If she knew his thoughts, she would not be so disposed towards him; this balade he sends to make his peace, for he cannot bear to be out of her love. In another (xxxii) he expresses the deepest dejection: the New Year has come and is proceeding from winter towards spring, but for him there is winter only, which shrouds him in the thickest gloom. His lady’s beauty ever increases, but there is no sign of that kindness which should go with it; love only tortures him and gives him no friendly greeting. To this balade there is no Envoy, whether it be by negligence of the copyist, or because the lover could not even summon up spirit to direct it to his mistress. Again (xxxiii), he has given her his all, body and soul, both without recall, as a gift for this New Year of which he has just now spoken: his sole delight is to serve her. Will she not reward him even by a look? He asks for no present from her, let him only have some sign which may bid him hope, ‘Si plus n’y soit, donetz le regarder.’ The coming of Saint Valentine encourages him somewhat (xxxiv) with the reflection that all nature yields to love, but (xxxv) he remembers with new depression that though birds may choose their mates, yet he remains alone. May comes on (xxxvii), and his lady should turn her thoughts to love, but she sports with flowers and pays no heed to the prayer of her prisoner. She is free, but he is strongly bound; her close is full of flowers, but he cannot enter it; in the sweet season his fortune is bitter, May is for him turned into winter: ‘Vous estes franche et jeo sui fort lié.’

Then the lady has her say, and in accordance with the prerogative of her sex her moods vary with startling abruptness. She has doubts (xli) about her lover’s promises. He who swears most loudly is the most likely to deceive, and some there are who will make love to a hundred and swear to each that she is the only one he loves. ‘To thee, who art one thing in the morning and at evening another, I send this balade for thy reproof, to let thee know that I leave thee and care not for thee.’ In xliii she is fully convinced of his treachery, he is falser than Jason to Medea or Eneas to Dido. How different from Lancelot and Tristram and the other good knights! ‘C’est ma dolour que fuist ainçois ma joie.’ With this is contrasted the sentiment of xliv, in which the lady addresses one whom she regards as the flower of chivalry and the ideal of a lover, and to whom she surrenders unconditionally. The lady speaks again in xlvi, and then the series is carried to its conclusion with rather a markedly moral tone. At the end comes an address to the Virgin, in which the author declares himself bound to serve all ladies, but her above them all. No lover can really be without a loving mistress, for in her is love eternal and invariable. He loves and serves her with all his heart, and he trusts to have his reward. The whole concludes with an Envoy addressed to ‘gentle England,’ describing the book generally as a memorial of the joy which has come to the poet’s country from its noble king Henry, sent by heaven to redress its ills.

Printed Editions.—The Balades have been twice printed. They were published by the Roxburghe Club in 1818, together with the other contents of the Trentham MS. except the English poem, with the title ‘Balades and other Poems by John Gower. Printed from the original MS. in the library of the Marquis of Stafford at Trentham,’ Roxburghe Club, 1818, 4to. The editor was Earl Gower. This edition has a considerable number of small errors, several of which obscure the sense; only a small number of copies was printed, and the book can hardly be obtained.

In 1886 an edition of the Balades and of the Traitié was published in Germany under the name of Dr. Edmund Stengel in the series of ‘Ausgaben und Abhandlungen aus dem Gebiete der romanischen Philologie.’ The title of this book is ‘John Gower’s Minnesang und Ehezuchtbüchlein: LXXII anglonormannische Balladen ... neu herausgegeben von Edmund Stengel.’ Marburg, 1886. The preface is signed with the initials D. H. The editor of this convenient little book was unable to obtain access to the original MS., apparently because he had been wrongly informed as to the place where it was to be found, and accordingly printed the Balades from the Roxburghe edition with such emendations as his scholarship suggested. He removed a good many obvious errors of a trifling kind, and in a few cases he was successful in emending the text by conjecture. Some important corrections, however, still remained to be made, and in several instances he introduced error into the text either by incorrectly transcribing the Roxburghe edition or by unsuccessful attempts at emendation. I do not wish to speak with disrespect of this edition. The editor laboured under serious disadvantages in not being able to refer to the original MS. and in not having always available even a copy of the Roxburghe edition, so that we cannot be surprised that he should have made mistakes. I have found his text useful to work upon in collation, and some of his critical remarks are helpful.

The present Text.—The text of this edition is based directly on the MS., which remains still in the library at Trentham Hall and to which access was kindly allowed me by the Duke of Sutherland. I propose to describe the MS. fully, since it is of considerable interest, and being in a private library it is not generally accessible.

The Trentham MS., referred to as T., is a thin volume, containing 41 leaves of parchment, measuring about 6¼ in. x 9¼ in., and made up apparently as follows: a⁴, b¹, c⁶, d—f⁸ (one leaf cut out), g¹, h⁴, i² (no catchwords).

The first four leaves and the last two are blank except for notes of ownership, &c., so that the text of the book extends only from f. 5 to f. 39, one leaf being lost between f. 33 and f. 34.

The pages are ruled for 35 lines and are written in single column. The handwriting is of the end of the fourteenth or beginning of the fifteenth century, and resembles what I elsewhere describe as the ‘third hand’ in MS. Fairfax 3, though I should hesitate to affirm that it is certainly the same, not having had the opportunity of setting the texts side by side. There is, however, another hand in the MS., which appears in the Latin lines on ff. 33 v^o and 39 v^o.

The initial letters of poems and stanzas are coloured, but there is no other ornamentation.

The book contains (1) ff. 5—10 v^o, the English poem in seven-line stanzas addressed to Henry IV, beginning ‘O worthi noble kyng.’

(2) f. 10 v^o, 11, the Latin piece beginning ‘Rex celi deus.’

(3) f. 11 v^o—12 v^o, two French balades with a set of Latin verses between them, addressed to Henry IV (f. 12 is seriously damaged). This is what I refer to as the Dedication.

(4) ff. 12 v^o—33, Cinkante balades.

(5) f. 33 v^o, Latin lines beginning ‘Ecce patet tensus,’ incomplete owing to the loss of the next leaf. Written in a different hand.

(6) ff. 34—39, ‘Traitié pour ensampler les amantz marietz,’ imperfect at the beginning owing to the loss of the preceding leaf.

(7) f. 39 v^o, Latin lines beginning ‘Henrici quarti,’ written in the hand which appears on f. 33 v^o.

On the first blank leaf is the following in the handwriting of Sir Thomas Fairfax:

‘S^r. John Gower’s learned Poems the same booke by himself presented to kinge Henry ye fourth before his Coronation.’

(Originally this was ‘att his Coronation,’ then ‘att or before his Coronation,’ and finally the words ‘att or’ were struck through with the pen.)

Then lower down in the same hand:

‘For my honorable freind & kinsman s^r. Thomas Gower knt. and Baronett from

On the verso of the second leaf near the left-hand top corner is written a name which appears to be ‘Rychemond,’ and there is added in a different hand of the sixteenth century:

‘Liber Hen: Septimi tunc comitis Richmond manu propria script.’

On the fifth leaf, where the text of the book begins, in the right-hand top corner, written in the hand of Fairfax:

Then below in another hand:

On the last leaf of the text, f. 39, there is a note in Latin made in 1651 at St. Andrews (Andreapoli) by C. Gedde at the age of seventy, with reference to the date of Henry IV’s reign. Then in English,

‘This booke pertaineth to aged Charles Gedde,’

and inserted between the lines by Fairfax,

‘but now to ffairfax of his gift, Jun. 28. 1656.’

Below follows a note in English on the date of the death of Chaucer and of Gower, and their places of burial.

The first of the blank leaves at the end is covered with Latin anagrams on the names ‘Carolus Geddeius,’ ‘Carolus Geddie,’ or ‘Carolus Geddee,’ with this heading,

‘In nomen venerandi et annosi Amici sui Caroli Geddei Anagrammata,’

and ends with the couplet:

which is not very intelligible, but is perhaps meant to indicate the name of the composer of the anagrams.

In the right-hand top corner of the next leaf there is written in what might be a fifteenth-century hand, ‘Will Sanders vn Just’ (the rest cut away).

As to the statement made by Fairfax that this book, meaning apparently this very copy, was presented by the author to Henry IV, it is hardly likely that he had any trustworthy authority for it. The book must evidently have been arranged for some such purpose; on the whole however it is more likely that this was not the actual presentation copy, but another written about the same time and left in the hands of the author. The copy intended for presentation to the king, if such a copy there were, would probably have been more elaborately ornamented; and moreover the Latin lines on the last leaf, ‘Henrici quarti’ &c., bear the appearance of having been added later. The poet there speaks of himself as having become blind ‘in the first year of king Henry IV,’ and of having entirely ceased to write in consequence; and in another version of the same lines, which is found in the Glasgow MS. of the Vox Clamantis, he dates his blindness from the second year of King Henry’s reign. In any case it seems clear that his blindness did not come on immediately after Henry’s accession; for the Cronica Tripertita, a work of considerable length, must have been written after the death of Richard II, which took place some five months after the accession of Henry IV. It would be quite in accordance with Gower’s usual practice to keep a copy of the book by him and add to it or alter it from time to time; the Fairfax MS. of the Confessio Amantis and the All Souls copy of the Vox Clamantis are examples of this mode of proceeding: and I should be rather disposed to think that this volume remained in the author’s hands than that it was presented to the king. As to its subsequent history, if we are to regard the signature ‘Rychemond’ on the second leaf as a genuine autograph of Henry VII while Earl of Richmond, it would seem that the book passed at some time into royal hands, but it can hardly have come to the Earl of Richmond by any succession from Henry IV. After this we know nothing definite until we find it in the hands of the ‘aged Charles Gedde’ of St. Andrews, by whom it was given, as we have seen, to Fairfax in 1656, and by Fairfax in the same year to his friend and kinsman Sir Thomas Gower, no doubt on the supposition that he belonged to the family of the poet. He must have been one of the Gowers of Stittenham, and from him it has passed by descent to its present possessor.

The text given by the MS. seems to be on the whole a very correct one. For the Cinkante Balades it is the only manuscript authority, but as regards the Traitié it may be compared with several other copies contemporary with the author, and it seems to give as good a text as any. There seems no reason to doubt that it was written in the lifetime of the author, who may however have been unable owing to his failing eyesight to correct it himself. It was nevertheless carefully revised after being written, as is shown by various erasures and corrections both in the French and the English portions. This corrector’s hand is apparently different from both the other hands which appear in the manuscript. The best proof however of the trustworthiness of the text is the fact that hardly any emendations are required either by the metre or the sense. The difficulties presented by the text of the Roxburghe edition vanish for the most part on collation of the MS., and the number of corrections actually made in this edition is very trifling.

In a few points of spelling this MS. differs from that of the Mirour: for example, jeo (ieo) is almost always used in the Balades for je (but ie in Ded. i. 4), and the -ai termination is preferred to -ay, though both occur; similarly sui, joie, li, poi, where the Mirour has more usually suy, joye, ly, poy, &c.

What has been said with reference to the Mirour about the use of u and v, i and j, applies also here (except that the scribe of this MS. prefers i initially to I and sometimes writes u initially), and also in general what is said about division of words, accents and contractions. The latter however in the present text of the Balades and Traitié are not indicated by italics. It should be noted that que in the text stands for a contracted form. The word is qe in the Balades, when it is fully written out, but quil, tanquil, &c., are used in the MS., q̅om must evidently be meant for quom, and we find que frequently in the Mirour. Such forms as auerai, deuera, liuere, &c., usually have er abbreviated, but we also find saueroit (viii. 2), auera (xvi. 3), aueray (xvii. 1), written out fully. Where the termination -ance has a line drawn over it, as in suffica̅n̅ce, fia̅n̅ce (iv. 2), it has been printed -aunce, and so cha̅n̅con (xl. 3); but aun is written out fully. In general it must be assumed that -oun ending a word represents o̅n̅, but in xxi. 4 we have noun written out fully in both cases.

In the matter of capitals the usage of the MS. is followed for the most part. The punctuation is of course that of the editor, and it may be observed that the previous editions have none.

TRAITIÉ.

This work, which is called by its author ‘un traitié selonc les auctours pour essampler les amantz marietz,’ is a series of eighteen balades, each composed of three seven-line stanzas without envoy, except in the case of the last, which has an additional stanza addressed ‘Al université de tout le monde,’ apologizing for the poet’s French and serving as a general envoy for the whole collection, though formally belonging to the last balade. The stanzas rhyme ab ab bcc, a form which is used frequently in the Cinkante Balades, as also in Gower’s English poem addressed to Henry IV and in the stanzas which are introduced into the eighth book of the Confessio Amantis. There are Latin marginal notes summarizing the contents of each balade, and the whole is concluded by some lines of Latin. As to the date, if we are to regard the Latin lines ‘Lex docet auctorum’ as a part of the work (and they are connected with it in all the copies), we have a tolerably clear indication in the concluding couplet:

This was written evidently just before the author’s marriage, which took place, as we know, near the beginning of the year 1398 (by the modern reckoning), and therefore it would seem that the Traitié belongs to the year 1397. It is true that one MS. (Bodley 294) omits this concluding couplet, but in view of the fact that it is contained not only in all the other copies, but also in the Trin. Coll. Camb. MS., which seems to be derived from the same origin as Bodl. 294, we cannot attach much importance to the omission.

In several MSS. the Traitié is found attached to the Confessio Amantis, and with a heading to the effect that the author, having shown above in English the folly of those who love ‘par amour,’ will now write in French for the world generally a book to instruct married lovers by example to keep the faith of their espousals. But though appearing thus as a pendant to the English work in the Fairfax, Harleian, Bodley, Trin. Coll. Camb., Wadham, Keswick Hall and Wollaton MSS., it does not necessarily belong to it. It is absent in the great majority of copies of the Confessio Amantis, and in the Fairfax MS. it appears in a different hand from that of the English poem and was certainly added later. Moreover the Traitié is found by itself in the Trentham book, and following the Vox Clamantis in the All Souls and Glasgow MSS., in both these cases having been added later than the text of that work and in a different hand. We cannot tell what heading it had in the Trentham or the All Souls MSS., but probably the same as that of the Glasgow copy, which makes no reference to any other work. ‘This is a treatise which John Gower has made in accordance with the authors, touching the estate of matrimony, whereby married lovers may instruct themselves by example to hold the faith of their holy espousals.’ This variation of the heading is certainly due to the author, and we are entitled to regard the Traitié as in some sense an independent work, occasionally attached by the author to the Confessio Amantis, but also published separately.

As to the versification, the remarks already made upon that of the Balades apply also to these poems.

The subject of the work is defined by the title: it is intended to set forth by argument and example the nature and dignity of the state of marriage and the evils springing from adultery and incontinence. The tendency to moralize is naturally much stronger in these poems than in the Cinkante Balades, and they are consequently less poetical. The most pleasing is perhaps xv, ‘Comunes sont la cronique et l’istoire’: ‘Still is the folly of Lancelot and of Tristram remembered, that others by it may take warning. All the year round the fair of love is kept, where Cupid sells or gives away hearts: he makes men drink of one or the other of his two tuns, the one sweet and the other bitter. Thus the fortune of love is unstable: the lover is now in joy and now in torment, but the wise will be warned by others, as a bird avoids the trap in which he sees another caught, and they will not take delight in wanton love.’ Many of the examples are from stories already told in the Confessio Amantis, as those of Nectanabus, Hercules and Deianira, Jason, Clytemnestra, Lucretia, Paulina, Alboin and Rosamond, Tereus, Valentinian.

Text.—Of the Traitié there exist several contemporary copies besides that of the Trentham MS. It is found appended to the Confessio Amantis in MS. Fairfax 3, with a heading which closely connects it with that poem; it occurs among the various Latin pieces which follow the Vox Clamantis in All Souls MS. 98, and again in much the same kind of position in the MS. of the Vox Clamantis belonging to the Hunterian Museum, Glasgow. The first two of these copies are, I have no doubt, in the same handwriting, that which I call the ‘second hand’ of MS. Fairfax 3, and I am of opinion that the third (that of the Glasgow MS.) is so also. This question of the handwritings found in contemporary copies of Gower will be discussed later, when the MSS. in question are more fully described: suffice it to say at present that these copies are all good, and they agree very closely both with one another and with that of the Trentham book, while at the same time they are independent of one another. They have all been collated throughout for this edition. Besides these original copies there is one in Harleian MS. 3869, which appears to be taken from Fairfax 3, and also in the following MSS., in all of which the Traitié follows the Confessio Amantis: Bodley 294, Trinity College, Cambridge, R. 3. 2, Wadham Coll. 13, and the Keswick Hall and Wollaton MSS. Of these Bodley 294 has been collated for this edition, and the rest occasionally referred to.

The MSS. may be tabulated as follows, further description being reserved for the occasions when they are more fully used:—

F.—Fairfax 3, in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, containing the Confessio Amantis, the Traitié pour essampler, ff. 186 v^o-190, and several Latin poems.

S.—All Souls College, Oxford, 98, containing the Vox Clamantis, Cronica Tripertita, a miscellaneous collection of Latin poems, and the Traitié, ff. 132-135.

T.—The Trentham MS., described above.

G.—Hunterian Museum, Glasgow, T. 2. 17, with nearly the same contents as S. The Traitié is ff. 124 v^o-128.

H.—Harleian 3869, in the British Museum, agreeing with F.

B.—Bodley 294, in the Bodleian Library, containing the Confessio Amantis, the Traitié, and a few Latin pieces.

Tr.—Trinity Coll. Camb. R. 3. 2, with nearly the same contents as B.

W.—Wadham Coll. Oxf. 13, Confessio Amantis and Traitié, the latter imperfect at the end.

K.—In the library of J. H. Gurney, Esq., Keswick Hall, Norwich, with the same contents as F.

A.—Lord Middleton’s MS., at Wollaton Hall.

The Traitié has been twice printed: first by the Roxburghe Club from the Trentham MS.[L], and then by Dr. Stengel, in both cases with the Cinkante Balades. The German editor unfortunately took as the basis of his text the copy in B, which is much inferior in correctness to those of several other MSS. which were within his reach[M]. He has also in many cases failed to give a correct representation of the MS. which he follows, and his collation of other copies is incomplete.

The text of the present edition is based upon that of F, which is at least as good as any of the three other copies which I have called contemporary, and has the advantage over two of them that it is perfect, whereas they have each lost a leaf. These four are so nearly on the same level of correctness that it matters little on other grounds which of them we follow. A full collation is here given of T, S and G, and the readings of B are occasionally mentioned. H and K are probably dependent on F. Tr. is a moderately good copy, closely connected with B, but in view of the excellence of the other materials it is not worth collating; A is a manuscript of the same class, but rather less correct. Finally the text of W, which is late and full of blunders, may be set down as worthless.