Note 14 — INTRODUCTION LIFE OF GOWER.

It may here be noted that the poet apparently pronounced his name ‘Gowér,’ in two syllables with accent on the second, as in the Dedication to the Balades, i. 3, ‘Vostre Gower, q’est trestout vos soubgitz.’ The final syllable bears the rhyme in two passages of the Confessio Amantis (viii. 2320, 2908), rhyming with the latter syllables of ‘pouer’ and ‘reposer’. (The rhyme in viii. 2320, ‘Gower: pouer,’ is not a dissyllabic one, as is assumed in the Dict. of Nat. Biogr. and elsewhere, but of the final syllables only.) In the Praise of Peace, 373, ‘I, Gower, which am al the liege man,’ an almost literal translation of the French above quoted, the accent is thrown rather on the first syllable.