[611] Henry, then earl of Derby, had given him a collar in 1393; the swan was the emblem of Thomas, duke of Gloucester, Henry's uncle, assassinated in 1397; Henry adopted it from that date. A view of Gower's tomb is in my "Piers Plowman," 1894, p. 46.
[612] "Primus liber, gallico sermone editus in decem dividitur partes et tractans de viciis et virtutibus necnon de variis hujus seculi gradibus viam, qua peccator transgressus, ad sui Creatoris agnicionem redire debet, recto tramite docere conatur. Titulusque libelli istius Speculum Meditantis nuncupatus est." This analysis is to be found in several MSS.; also in the edition of the "Confessio," printed by Caxton; Pauli gives it too: "Confessio," i. p. xxiii. The "Speculum Meditantis" was sure to resemble much those works of moralisation (hence Chaucer's "moral Gower"), numerous in French mediæval literature, which were called "bibles." See for example "La Bible Guiot de Provins":
Dou siècle puant et orrible
M'estuet commencier une bible.
"On this stinking and horrid world, I want to begin a bible;" and Guiot reviews all classes of society, all trades and professions, and blames everything and everybody; Gower did the same; everything for them is "puant." Rome is not spared: "Rome nos suce et nos englot," says Guiot. See text of Guiot's "Bible" in Barbazan and Méon, "Fabliaux," 1808, vol. ii. p. 307.
[613] "Balades and other Poems," Roxburghe Club, 1818, 4to.
Jeo ris en plour et en santé languis,
Ars en gelée et en chalour frémis.
Ballad ix. No passage in Petrarch has been oftener imitated. Villon wrote:
Je meurs de soif auprès de la fontaine ...
Je ris en pleurs et attens sans espoir, &c.
[615] "Les balades d'amour jesqes enci sont fait especialement pour ceaux q'attendont lours amours par droite mariage. Les balades d'ici jesqes au fin du livere sont universeles à tout le monde selonc les propertés et les condicions des amants qui sont diversement travailez en la fortune d'amour."