GOWER.

In the church of St. Saviour in Southwark may be viewed an ancient

monument with its sculptured and Gothic canopy; pictured on its side the

three visionary virgins, Charity, Mercy, and Pity, solicit the prayer of

the passenger for the soul of the suppliant whose image lies extended on

the tomb, with folded hands, and in his damask habit flowing to his

feet. His head reposes on three mighty tomes, and is decked with a

garland, either of roses which proclaim his knighthood, or the wreath of

literature which would more justly distinguish the wearer,--JOHN GOWER,

the poet.

In the life of this poet, almost the only certain incident seems to be

his sepulchral monument: and even this it had been necessary to repair

after the malignity of the Iconoclasts; and of the three sculptured

volumes which support the poet's head, a single one only has been opened

by the world, for the tomb has perpetuated what the press has not.

The three tomes on the tomb of Gower represent his three great works;

but what is remarkable, and shows the unsettled state of our literature,

each of these great works is written in a different language, though

equally graced with Latin titles. The first, in French, is the "Speculum

Meditantis;" the moral reflections relieved by historical examples. The

second, in Latin verse, is "Vox Clamantis;" this "Voice" comes not from

the desert, for it is that of the clamours of the people; a satire on

all ranks, and an exhortation to the youthful monarch to check his own

self-indulgence; it includes a chronicle of the insurrection of the

populace, or "the clowns," as they were called in Richard the Second's

reign. The vernacular style, rather than Latin verse, would have more

aptly celebrated the feats of Wat Tyler, or Bet and Sim, Gibbe and Hyke,

Hudde and Judde, Jack and Tib. The reporter had no doubt been present at

the active scene. The swarm rush on to the call of one another, in

hexameters and pentameters. The singularity of the subject, which gives

no bad picture of the hurry of a disorderly mob, and the felicity of an

old translation, induce me to preserve a partial extract from the

manuscript. Our own age has witnessed similar scenes.

Watte vocat, cui Thome venit, neque Symme retardat,

Betteque, Gibbe simul Hyke venire jubent.

Colle furit, quem Gibbe juvat nocumenta parantes,

Cum quibus ad dampnum Wille coire vovet.

Grigge rapit, dam Dawe strepit, comes est quibus Hobbe,

Lorkin et in medio non minor esse putat.

Hudde ferit, quos Judde terit, dum Tebbe juvatur,

Jacke domos que viros vellit, et ense necat.

Tom comes, thereat, when called by Wat, and Simon as forward we find;

Bet calls as quick to Gibb, and to Hyck that neither would tarry

behinde.

Gibbe, a good whelp of that litter, doth help mad Coll more mischief

to do,

And Will he doth vow, the time is come now, he'll join with their

company too.

Davie complains whiles Grigg gets the gains, and Hobb with them doth

partake;

Lorkin aloud, in the midst of the crowd, conceiveth as deep is his

stake.

Hudde doth spoil, whom Judde doth foile, and Tebbe lends his helping

hand,

But Jack, the mad-patch, men and horses doth snatch, and kills all at

his command.

The third and greater work, and the only printed one of Gower, is the

"Confessio Amantis," an English poem of about thirty thousand lines; a

singular miscellany of allegory, of morality, and of tales. It is

studded with sententious maxims and proverbs, and richly diversified

with narrations, pleasant and tragic; but the affectation of learning,

for learning in its crude state always obtrudes itself, even in works of

recreation, has compressed the Aristotelian philosophy, to edify and

surprise the readers of the poet's fairy or romantic tales. Robert de

Brunne, to illustrate monachal morals, interspersed domestic stories;

and amidst the prevalent penury of imagination, that rhyming monk

affords the most ancient specimens of English tales in verse: and as

Gower's single printed work is of the same species of composition, a

system of ethics illustrated by tales, it has been thought that the

monk who rhymed in 1300 was the true predecessor of the poet who

flourished at the close of that century, however Gower may have purified

the "rime doggrel," and elevated the puerile tale. The straw-roof must

be raised before the cupola. Genius in its genealogy must not blush at

its remote ancestor; the noblest knight may often go back to the mill or

the forge. If this rude moralising rhymer really be the poetical father

of Gower, then is this antiquated monk the inventor of that narrative

poetry which Chaucer, Spenser, Dryden, and even some of our

contemporaries, have so delightfully diversified. But story-telling has

been of all periods.

There is a portion in this volume which concerns the personal history of

the poet.

This work was composed at the suggestion of Richard the Second himself,

who among other luxuries loved Froissart's romance and Chaucer's rhymes,

and was even willing to be taught the grave lessons which he could not

practise. As Gower one day was rowed in his boat on the Thames, he met

his "liege lord" in the royal barge, who commanded the poet to enter,

and, in a long unrestrained conversation, desired him "to book some new

thing in the way he was used." Probably the youthful monarch alluded to

the "Vox Clamantis," in which the poet had exhorted his "liege lord" to

exercise every kingly virtue, and had without reserve touched on too

many imperfections of a court-life. It was to be "a book," added the

young monarch, "in which he himself might often look." The poet aspired

to fix the honour which he had received, and resolved, in his own words,

To write in such a manner-wise,

Which may be wisdom to the wise,

And play to them that list to play.

In a word, we have here the great Horatian precept by the intuition of

our earliest poet.

The political admonitions, and the keen satire on the youthful

favourites of the youthful monarch of a luxurious court, and the relaxed

morals of the higher ranks, the clergy, and the judges, were all offered

with more than the freedom of a poet--they sound the deep tones of the

patriot. The sage had solemnly contemplated on the discontents and

clamours of the people, and presciently observed the rising of that

state-tempest, which in an instant dethroned this magnificent and

thoughtless prince.

In the course of the reign of Richard the Second it appears that several

alterations were made in the poem. The dedicatory preface was

suppressed. Berthelet, the ancient printer of the "Confessio Amantis,"

discovered that "the prologue" had disappeared, though the same number

of lines were substituted, "cleane contrary both in sentence and in

meaning." Gower has therefore incurred the reproach of a disloyal

desertion of his hapless master to court a successful usurper. One

critic tells that "he was given to change with the turns of state."

Bishop Nicholson, with dull levity, has a fling at all poets, for he

censures Gower for "making too free with his prince--a liberty, it

seems, allowed to men of his profession;" while Thomas Hearne, the blind

bigot of passive obedience, in editing a monkish life of Richard the

Second, would have all Gower condemned to oblivion, because "he had

treated the monarch's memory ill, and spoke with equal freedom of the

clergy." This vacillating conduct of "the moral Gower," however, need

not leave any stain on his memory. We see he had never at any time

adulated the youthful monarch; however his tales may have charmed the

royal ear, the verse often left behind a wholesome bitterness. Gower had

praised Henry of Lancaster at a period when he could not have

contemplated the change of dynasty; and when it happened, the poet was

of an age far too advanced either to partake of the hopes or the fears

that wait on a new reign.

But this tale of Gower's free and honest satire on courts and courtiers

is not yet concluded. The sphere of a poet's influence is far wider than

that of his own age; and however we may now deem of this grave and

ancient poet, he still found understanding admirers so late as in the

reign of Charles the First. In the curious "Conference" which took place

when Charles the First visited the Marquess of Worcester, at Ragland

Castle, with his court, there is the following anecdote respecting the

poet Gower.

The marquess was a shrewd though whimsical man, and a favourite of the

king for his frankness and his love of the arts. His lordship

entertained the royal guest with extraordinary magnificence. Among his

rare curiosities was a sumptuous copy of Gower's volume.

Charles the First usually visited the marquess after dinner. Once he

found his lordship with the book of John Gower lying open, which the

king said he had never before seen. "Oh!" exclaimed the marquess; "it is

a book of books! and if your majesty had been well versed in it, it

would have made you a king of kings." "Why so, my lord?" "Why, here is

set down how Aristotle brought up and instructed Alexander the Great in

all the rudiments and principles belonging to a prince." And under the

persons of Aristotle and Alexander, the marquess read the king such a

lesson that all the standers-by were amazed at his boldness.

The king asked whether he had his lesson by heart, or spake out of the

book? "Sir, if you would read my heart, it may be that you might find it

there; or if your majesty pleased to get it by heart, I will lend you my

book." The king accepted the offer.

Some of the new-made lords fretted and bit their thumbs at certain

passages in the marquess's discourse; and some protested that no man was

so much for the absolute power of a king as Aristotle. The marquess told

the king that he would indeed show him one remarkable passage to that

purpose; and turning to the place, read--

A king can kill, a king can save;

A king can make a lord a knave;

And of a knave, a lord also.

On this several new-made lords slank out of the room, which the king

observing, told the marquess, "My lord, at this rate you will drive away

all my nobility."

This amusing anecdote is an evidence that this ethical poet, after two

centuries and a half, was not forgotten; his spirit was still vital, his

volume still lay open on the library table; it afforded a pungent lesson

to the courtiers of Charles the First as it had to those of Richard the

Second.

GOWER was learned, didactic, and dignified. The manuscripts of his works

are usually noble and sumptuous copies; more elegantly written and more

richly illuminated than the works of other poets. His commonplaces and

his legendary lore seem to have awed the simplicity of the readers of

two centuries, whose taste did not yet feel that failure of the poet who

narrated a fable from Ovid with the dull prolixity of a matter-of-fact

chronicler. His fictions are rarely imaginative; yet critics, far abler

judges of his relative merits than ourselves, since they lived within

the sphere of his influence, hailed this grave father of our poesy.

Leland, the royal antiquary of Henry the Eighth, expressed his ideas

with great elegance and sensibility, when he said of Gower that "his

diligent culture of our poesy had extirpated the ordinary herbs; and

that the soft violet and the purple narcissus were now growing, where

erst was nothing seen but the thistle and the thorn." There are indeed

some graceful flowers in his desert. But all criticism is usually

relative to the age, and excellence is always comparative. GOWER stamped

with the force of ethical reasoning his smooth rhymes; and this was a

near approach to poetry itself. If in the mind of CHAUCER we are more

sensible of the impulses of genius--those creative and fugitive

touches--his diction is more mixed and unsettled than the tranquil

elegance of GOWER, who has often many pointed sentences and a surprising

neatness of phrase. A modern reader, I think, would find the style of

Gower more easily intelligible than the higher efforts of the more

inventive poet.