have seen, it states that the poem was undertaken and made 'for kynge Richardes sake,' and prays 'that his corone longe stonde.' But in several MSS. all this is, not very skilfully, omitted or changed. In these the poem is dedicated to 'Henry of Lancaster,' and is said to have been composed in the sixteenth year of King Richard, i.e. in 1393. Henry, afterwards Henry IV, could not have been called Henry of Lancaster till after his father's death in February 1399. Soon after that date Richard I went over to Ireland; his unpopularity in England was great; the plot for supplanting him by Henry was set on foot, and with every month that passed the movement grew in strength. It was probably in the course of the summer of 1399 that Gower, perceiving how things were going, transformed his prologue so as to make it acceptable to the pretender whose success he anticipated. In the copies with the altered prologue he also omitted the lines of eulogy on Chaucer at the end, which the poem had originally contained. What could have prompted the omission but a feeling of estrangement? And for this estrangement the severity of the language just quoted from Chaucer supplies a probable motive. The last considerable work of our author was the Cronica Tripartita, a Latin poem in three books, giving a regular history of political incidents in England from 1387 to 1399. As might be expected, the writer bears hardly throughout the poem on the unfortunate Richard. He seems to know nothing of the common story as to the manner of his death. The deposed king died, he says, in prison, from grief, and because he refused to take food. Of Gower's shorter French poems, his Cinkante Balades, which exist in MS. in the library of the Duke of Sutherland, Warton has printed four. They are in stanzas of seven and eight lines, with refrains, and are written not without elegance; the opening of one of them is here printed. T. ARNOLD. OPENING OF THE THIRTIETH OF GOWER'S Si com la nief1, quant le fort vent tempeste, Ma dame, ensi2 mon coer3 manit en tempeste, La nief qe votre bouche soufflera, OPENING OF THE ORIGINAL PROLOGUE TO THE 'CONFESSIO AMANTIS,' Of hem, that writen us to-fore, In oure Englisshe, I thenkë make So ferforth I me recommaunde To him, which all me may commaunde, I thenke, and have it understonde, As thing, which shulde tho betide, To feigne and blame that I write. $ praying. 2 cause of censura ALEXANDER AND THE ROBBER. [Confessio Amantis, lib. iii.] Of him, whom all this erthe dradde, Was brought, and ther upon this thinge And he his dede had nought excused, I have an herte liche unto thine, For if thy power were mine, And am, as who saith, at mischefe, But thy richesse and my poverte They be nought taken evenliche, This day, to-morwe he may be pover, The king his hardy contenaunce He hath him terme of life witholde, THE STORY OF CONSTANCE [Confessio Amantis, lib. ii.] But what the highë God woll spare This worthy maiden, which was there, The dissh forth with the cuppe and all 5 She sigh hem die on every side, No wonder though she wepte and cride, ' poised, weighed. 2 retained for his life-time. that he might be bound to him the more. 3 and in order 'horped' in the Harleian saw. |