We may readily understand that, if Chaucer observed this use of his work, it could not have given him much pleasure; and perhaps we may here see some reason for the seemingly undue asperity with which, in his revised edition, he refers to Gower's performance; see B 77-89, and the notes. On the other side Gower, who in his first edition, just near the end, had introduced a complimentary allusion to Chaucer, may well have thought fit to suppress that passage in his revised copy, from which it is certainly absent. This seems to me to be the simplest solution of the facts as they stand.
I here take occasion to give my proposed explanation of Gower's reference to Chaucer in his first edition, where he puts into the mouth of the goddess Venus the following words (ed. Pauli, iii. 374):—
'And grete wel Chaucer, whan ye mete,
As my disciple and my poete.
For, in the floures of his youthe,
In sondry wyse, as he wel couthe,
Of ditees and of songes glade,
The which he for my sake made,
The lond fulfild is overal;
Wherof to him in special