Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 22.djvu/307

 to select wise and honest councillors, and to avoid war, heavy taxation, and sensual indulgences. The seventh book recapitulates the poet's dissatisfaction with the existing government and with the king, and entreats his countrymen to turn from wickedness.

The poem is dedicated to Archbishop Arundel, and Gower describes himself in the dedication as ‘senex et cæcus.’ The finest manuscript of the poem is in the library of All Souls' College, Oxford, and from this manuscript the poem was printed for the first time by the Roxburghe Club, under the direction of H. O. Coxe, in 1850. Coxe collated the All Souls' MS. with another in the Cottonian Collection, Tib. A. iv., and a third among the Digby MSS. at the Bodleian Library. Attached to all three, in continuation of the poem, is Gower's ‘Chronica Tripartita,’ in three books of rhyming Latin hexameters, giving a hostile account of Richard II's conduct of affairs from the appointment of the commissioners of regency, 19 Nov. 1386, till the king's death, and the accession of Henry IV. Much eulogy is bestowed on the Swan (Thomas, duke of Gloucester), the Horse (Richard, earl of Arundel), and the Bear (Thomas, earl of Warwick). The second book describes the coup d'état of 1397, and the third book tells of Richard II's abdication. Coxe printed the ‘Chronica Tripartita’ with the ‘Vox Clamantis.’ It is also printed in Wright's ‘Political Poems,’ i. 417–54. The All Souls' MS. and the Cottonian MS. conclude with ten short pieces, chiefly in Latin, bitterly inveighing against Richard II, or in praise of Henry IV. Two only of these pieces are printed by Coxe—one (in elegiacs) beginning ‘Quicquid homo scribat finem natura ministrat’ and a commendatory ‘carmen’ by one ‘Philippus.’ Four others, including a ‘Carmen super multiplici vitiorum pestilentia unde tempore Ricardi II partes nostræ specialius inficiebantur’ (dated 1396–7), in which Lollardism is denounced, appear in Wright's ‘Political Poems,’ i. 346 et seq.

Gower's ‘Confessio Amantis,’ his only English poem, is in about 30,000 eight-syllabled rhymed lines. It is extant in two versions, mainly differing at the beginning and end. In the earlier version the poem opens with a dedication to Richard II, and Chaucer is complimented in the closing lines. In the later version Henry of Lancaster takes Richard's place, and Chaucer is not mentioned at all. In the dedication of the first version to Richard II, the poet relates that while rowing on the Thames he met the king's barge, that the king invited him to an audience and bade him write ‘some newe thing,’ a direction of which the ‘Confessio’ was the result. The hopefulness with which Gower refers to Richard in these lines has suggested that they must have been composed before 1386, when Richard's worthless character had become generally known, and Professor Hales has pointed out some apparent allusions in them to events happening between 1381 and 1383 (Athenæum, 24 Dec. 1881). In the revised version, from which Gower omits all mention of Richard II, he says that he wrote the poem ‘the yere sixtenthe of Kyng Richard’ (i.e. 1393), and dedicates it to ‘min owne lorde, which of Lancastre is Henry named.’ Thus the date of the earlier version may be conjecturally placed in 1383, that of the second in 1393.

The poem consists of a prologue and eight books. The prologue deals largely with the degradation of the clergy and of the people, which Gower reminds his readers it is in their own power to check. He concludes with a moralised interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar's dream, which had already found a place at the close of the ‘Vox Clamantis.’ In book i. Gower represents a lover as appealing to Cupid and Venus to cure him of his sickness. Venus sends a confessor, Genius, to shrive him. The confessor arrives, and the dialogue between him and the lover occupies the rest of the poem. The confessor first asks the lover how he has used his five senses, and, in a number of stories chiefly derived from classical authors, warns him of the vices which the senses are prone to encourage. In the later books the confessor describes in turn the seven deadly sins, pride, envy, anger, sloth, avarice, gluttony, and lust, with their different ministers, and illustrates their ravages by a series of stories loosely strung together after the manner of Boccaccio's ‘Decameron.’ The last and eighth book concludes with the confessor's absolution of the lover. There are occasional digressions, as in the account of the rise of the mechanical arts in book iv., or of the religions of the ancient world in book v. In book vii. the general plan is interrupted by a summary of philosophical knowledge—of ‘theorique,’ ‘rhetorique,’ and ‘poetique’—derived from the popular ‘Secretum Secretorum’ falsely attributed to Aristotle, and assumed to embody the instruction given by Aristotle to Alexander. Gower adds to this interpolation many stories illustrating the duties of kingship, with unfriendly allusions (in the later version) to Richard II.

Gower contrives to tell in all 112 different stories, and shows himself acquainted with much classical and mediæval literature. The sources of nearly all his stories have been