Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 22.djvu/309

 succeeded by ‘Cinkante Balades,’ the most interesting section of the manuscript. They deal with love in all its phases, and are the most poetical of all Gower's productions. They are believed to be Gower's earliest work. The volume concludes with a long French poem on the dignity of marriage, illustrated with stories after the fashion of the ‘Confessio.’ This was the poem which Warton mistook for the lost ‘Speculum Meditantis.’ Finally Gower, in an address ‘al universite de tout le monde,’ apologises as an Englishman for his French. The whole of this volume, from which extracts had been printed by Todd and Warton, was first printed, while it belonged to the Marquis of Stafford (excluding the opening poem), for the Roxburghe Club in 1818. A few of the pieces, notably the long poem on marriage, appear at the close of a few manuscripts of the ‘Confessio’ (cf. Bodl. MS. Fairfax, iii.; Harl. MS. 3869; MS. Trin. Coll. R. 3, 2). Herr Stengel reprinted (after collating various manuscripts) ‘John Gowers Minnesang und Ehezuchtbüchlein LXXII Anglo-Normannische Balladen,’ Marburg, 1886.

Chaucer first gave Gower the appropriate epithet of ‘moral.’ The two poets were personal friends. On 21 May 1378, when Chaucer went abroad on diplomatic service, he nominated John Gower and Richard Forrester his attorneys in his absence. At the end of his ‘Troylus and Cryseyde’ (written between 1372 and 1386) Chaucer writes:  O moral Gower, this boke I directe To the, and to the philosophical Strode, To vouchensauf ther nede is to correcte, Of youre benignites and zeles goode. In book ii. of the ‘Confessio’ Gower seems to borrow from the same poem of Chaucer his story of Diomede's supplanting Troilus with Cressida. In very few other instances do the poets cover the same ground. The story of Constance—Chaucer's ‘Man of Lawes Tale’—is also told by Gower in his ‘Confessio’ (bk. ii.); but the story appeared previously in Vincent de Beauvais' ‘Speculum,’ Trivet's ‘Annales,’ and elsewhere, and both poets probably obtained it independently from Trivet (cf., ‘Life of Constance,’ ed. Brock, in Originals and Analogues, Chaucer Soc., parts i. and iii.) Tyrwhitt's and Warton's theory that Chaucer borrowed this story of Constance from Gower is disproved by later Chaucerian criticism, which assigns the ‘Man of Lawes Tale’ to a date anterior to the ‘Confessio.’ Similarly Chaucer's ‘Manciple's Tale’ of the tell-tale bird is told in the ‘Confessio,’ bk. iii., but both poets undoubtedly derived that story from Ovid's ‘Metamorphoses,’ bk. ii. Gower's ‘Tale of Florent’ in ‘Confessio,’ bk. i., is identical at most points with Chaucer's ‘Wife of Bath's Tale.’ The story is a common one in all European languages, and was probably derived from a French romance independently accessible to either writer (cf. Originals and Analogues, Chaucer Soc., v. 437–525). Furthermore the tale of Phyllis and Demophon, which appears in the ‘Confessio’ as well as in Chaucer's ‘Legend of Good Women,’ was probably derived by both writers from Ovid's ‘Heroides,’ ep. ii. In a literary sense, the two poets were under little, if any, obligations to each other. In the earlier version of the ‘Confessio’ (dedicated to Richard II) Gower, at the close of his poem, makes Venus address Chaucer in highly complimentary verse. Venus calls Chaucer her disciple and poet, who filled the land in his youth with ditties and glad songs, and bids him in his old age write a ‘Testament of Love.’ The omission of these lines in the later or Lancastrian version of the ‘Confessio’ has been ascribed to Gower's implied suggestion that Chaucer was too old to write of love—a criticism which the subsequent publication (about 1390) of the ‘Canterbury Tales’ deprived of point. There is, however, good reason for supposing that Chaucer and Gower quarrelled late in life, and that the suppression of the panegyric was due to a personal disagreement. In the prologue to the ‘Man of Lawes Tale’ Chaucer compliments himself on forbearing to write Of thilke wicke ensample of Canace That loued hir owne brother synfully (Of all suche curséd stories I say fy), Or elles of Tyro Apolloneus. The stories of Canace and Apollonius—‘unkinde abhominations’ Chaucer calls them in a later line—both figure in Gower's ‘Confessio’ (bk. ii. and bk. viii.), and it is reasonable to infer that Chaucer's censure was aimed at Gower. It is unsatisfactory to assume with Professor Skeat that Chaucer's attack is directed against Ovid (, Prioresses Tale, &c., ed. Skeat, p. 137). Ovid certainly told the story of Canace in his ‘Metamorphoses,’ but had, of course, no hand in the tale of Apollonius. In the dedication of the second version of his ‘Confessio’ Gower writes that his wits are too small ‘To tellen every man his tale,’ which has been interpreted as a reference to the ‘Canterbury Tales,’ and to be the first reference extant. But the words are too colourless to admit of any inference as to the relations between the poets when they were written.

Gower's profound inferiority to Chaucer