subdivisions of the work. After Genius has fully explained the evil affection, passion, or vice under consideration, the lover confesses on that particular point; and frequently urges his boundless love for an unknown beauty, who treats him cruelly, in a tone of affectation which would appear highly ridiculous in a man of more than sixty years of age, were it not a common characteristic of the poetry of the period. After this profession the confessor opposes him, and exemplifies the fatal effects of each passion by a variety of opposite stories, gathered from many sources, examples being then, as now, a favourite mode of inculcating instruction and reformation. At length, after a frequent and tedious recurrence of the same process, the confession is terminated by some final injunctions of the priestthe lover's petition in a strophic poem addressed to Venus-the bitter judgment of the goddess, that he should remember his old age and leave off such fooleries . . . . his cure from the wound caused by the dart of love, and his absolution, received as if by a pious Roman Catholic." *

Such a scheme as this, pursued through more than thirty thousand verses, promises perhaps more edification than entertainment; but the amount of either that is to be got out of the Confessio Amantis is not considerable. Ellis, after charitably declaring that so long as Moral Gower keeps to his morality he is "wise, impressive, and sometimes almost sublime," is compelled to add, "But his narrative is often quite petrifying; and, when we read in his work the tales with which we had been familiarized in the poems of Ovid, we feel a mixture of surprise and despair at the perverse industry employed in removing every detail on which the imagination had been accustomed to fasten. The author of the Metamorphoses was a poet, and at least sufficiently fond of ornament; Gower considers him as a mere annalist; scrupulously preserves his facts; relates them with great perspicuity; and is fully satisfied when he has extracted from them as much morality as they can be reasonably expected to furnish."† In many cases this must be little enough.

We shall confine our specimens of Gower's poetry to two short passages from the Confessio Amantis. The first is the tale of the coffers or caskets, in the Fifth Book, which has been given by Todd after a collation of the printed editious with the best * Introductory Essay, p. xxxiv.

† Specimens of the Early English Poets, i. 179.

manuscripts: this is the story, whether found by him in Gower or elsewhere, from which Shakspeare is supposed to have taken the hint of the incident of the caskets in his Merchant of Venice :

1 Against.

In a cronique thus I read :

About a kinge, as must need,
There was of knightes and segniers
Great rout and eke of officers:

Some of long time him hadden served,
And thoughten that they have deserved
Avancement, and gone without;

And some also been of the rout
That comen but a while agon,
And they avanced were anon.

There olde men upon this thing,
So as they durst, again1 the king
Among themself complainen oft:
But there is nothing said so soft
That it ne cometh out at last:
The king it wist, and als3 so fast
As he which was of high prudence:
He shope therefore an evidence
Of them that plainen in the cas,5
To know in whose default it was;
And all within his own intent,
That none may wiste what it meant.
Anon he let two coffers make

6

4

Of one semblance, and of one make,
So lich, that no life thilke throw7
That one may fro that other know:
They were into his chamber brought,
But no man wot why they be wrought;
And natheless the king hath bede"
That they be set in privy stede,10

As he that was of wisdom sly;

2 Gower, like Chaucer and Langland, writes hem for what we now call them; but we have taken the liberty throughout of discarding that peculiarity.

11 Gower, also, like the other writers of his time, has whan and than, where

we now say when and then.

12 Saw. The old spelling is slih and sih.

1 Hands.

* Mingled.

All privily, that none it wist,
His owne hondes that one chest
Of fine gold, and of fine perie,2
The which out of his treasury
Was take, anon he filled full;

That other coffer of straw and mull,3
With stones meynd, he filld also:
Thus be they full both two.

So that erlich 5 upon a day
He had within, where he lay,
There should be to form his bed
A board upset and faire spread :
And then he let the coffers fet
Upon the board, and did them set.
He knew the names well of tho
The which again him grutched so,7
Both of his chamber and of his hall;
Anon and sente for them all,

And saide to them in this wise:

7 Those who against him grudged (or grumbled) so.

3 Rubbish.

6 Fetch.

11 Know, understand ye. nearly with the effect of made. 14 The one.

Now goth together of one assent,
And taketh your avisement;
For, but I you this day avance,
It stant upon your owne chance,
All only in default of grace;
So shall be showed in this place
Upon you alle well afin2

That no defaulte shall be min.

They kneelen all, and with one voice
The king they thonken of this choice;
And after that they up arise,
And gon aside and them avise;
And at laste they accord
(Whereof their tale to record
To what issue they be fall)

A knight shall speake for them all.
He kneeleth down unto the king,
And saith that they upon this thing,
Or for to win, or for to lese,3

Bean all avised for to chese.

They chese in reguerdon by name,

And prayeth him that they might it have.
The king, which wold his honour save,
When he had heard the common voice,
Hath granted them their owne choice,

And took them thereupon the key,

And, for he wold it were see9

What good they have as they suppose,

He bade anon the coffer unclose

Which was fulfilled with straw and stones!
Thus be they served all at ones.10

The king then, in the same stede,11
Anon that other coffer undede, 12
Whereas they sighen 13 great richess,
Well more than they couthen guess.

Lo! saith the king, now may ye see
That there is no default in me;
Forthy myself I wol acquite,
And beareth ye your owne wite 2
Of that fortune hath you refused.

Thus was this wise king excused:
And they left off their evil speech,
And mercy of their king beseech.

Our other extract we give in the old spelling, as it was contributed to the Pictorial History of England by Sir Henry Ellis from a very early MS. of the poem in the Harleian Collection, No. 3490:

In a Croniq I fynde thus,

How that Caius Fabricius

Wich whilome was consul of Rome,
By whome the lawes yede and come,3
Whan the Sampnitees to him brouht
A somme of golde, and hym by souht
To done hem fauoure in the lawe,
Towarde the golde he gan hym drawe:
Whereof, in alle mennes loke,
A parte in to his honde he tooke,
Wich to his mouthe in alle haste
He put hit for to smelle and taste,
And to his ihe and to his ere,
Bot he ne fonde no comfort there:
And thanne he be gan it to despise,
And tolde vnto hem in this wise:

I not what is with golde to thryve,
Whan none of alle my wittes fyve
Fynt savour ne delite ther inne;
So is it bot a nyce sinne

Of golde so ben to coveitous.
Bot he is riche an glorious
Wich hath in his subieccion

The men wich in possession

Ben riche of gold, and by this skille,1

For he may alday whan he wille,
Or be him leef or be him loth,

Justice don vppon hem bothe."

Lo thus he seide, and with that worde
He threwe to fore hem on the borde

1 Therefore.

3 Went and came.

2 Blame.

4 For this reason.