Text.—It remains to speak of the text of this edition and of the manuscript on which it depends.
In the year 1895, while engaged in searching libraries for MSS. of the Confessio Amantis, I observed to Mr. Jenkinson, Librarian of the Cambridge University Library, that if the lost French work of Gower should ever be discovered, it would in all probability be found to have the title Speculum Hominis, and not that of Speculum Meditantis, under which it was ordinarily referred to. He at once called my attention to the MS. with the title Mirour de l’omme, which he had lately bought and presented to the University Library. On examining this I was able to identify it beyond all doubt with the missing book.
It may be thus described:
Camb. Univ. Library, MS. Additional 3035, bought at the Hailstone sale, May 1891, and presented to the Library by the Librarian.
Written on parchment, size of leaves about 12” x 7¾”, in eights with catchwords; writing of the latter half of the 14th century, in double column of forty-eight lines to the column; initial letter of each stanza coloured blue or red, and larger illuminated letters at the beginning of the chief divisions, combined with some ornamentation on the left side of the column, and in one case, f. 58 vo, also at the top of the page. One leaf is pasted down to the binding at the beginning and contains the title and table of contents. After this four leaves have been cut out, containing the beginning of the poem, and seven more in other parts of the book. There are also some leaves lost at the end. The first leaf after those which have been cut out at the beginning has the signature a iiii. The leaves (including those cut out) have now been numbered 1, 1*, 2, 3, 4, &c., up to 162; we have therefore a first sheet, of which half is pasted down (f. 1) and the other half cut away (f. 1*), and then twenty quires of eight leaves with the first leaf of the twenty-first quire, the leaves lost being those numbered 1*, 2, 3, 4, 36, 106, 108, 109, 120, 123, 124, as well as those after 162.
The present binding is of the last century and doubtless later than 1745, for some accounts of work done by ‘Richard Eldridge’ and other memoranda, written in the margins in an illiterate hand, have the dates 1740 and 1745 and have been partly cut away by the binder. The book was formerly in the library of Edward Hailstone, Esq., whose name and arms are displayed upon a leather label outside the binding, but it seems that no record exists as to the place from which he obtained it. From the writing in the margin of several pages it would seem that about the year 1745 it was lying neglected in some farm-house. We have, for example, this memorandum (partly cut away) in the margin of one of the leaves: ‘Margat ... leved at James ... in the year of our Lord 1745 and was the dayre maid that year ... and her swithart name was Joshep Cockhad Joshep Cockhad carpenter.’ On the same page occurs the word ‘glosterr,’ which may partly serve to indicate the locality.
The manuscript is written in one hand throughout, with the exception of the Table of Contents, and the writing is clear, with but few contractions. In a few cases, as in ll. 4109, 4116, 28941 f., corrections have been made over erasure. The correctness of the text which the MS. presents is shown by the very small number of cases in which either metre or sense suggests emendation. Apart from the division of words, only about thirty corrections have been made in the present edition throughout the whole poem of nearly thirty thousand lines, and most of these are very trifling. I have little doubt that this copy was written under the direction of the author.
As regards the manner in which the text of the MS. has been reproduced in this edition, I have followed on the whole the system used in the publications of the ‘Société des Anciens Textes Français.’ Thus u and v, i and j, have been dealt with in accordance with modern practice, whereas in the MS. (as usual in French and English books of the time) v is regularly written as the initial letter of a word for either u or v, and u in other positions (except sometimes in the case of compounds like avient, avoegler, envers, envie, &c.), while, as regards i and j, we have for initials either i or I (J), and in other positions i. Thus the MS. has vn, auoir, while the text gives for the reader’s convenience un, avoir; the MS. has ie or Ie, iour or Iour, while the text gives je, jour. Again, where an elision is expressed, the MS. of course combines the two elements into one word, giving lamour, quil, qestoit, while the text separates them by the apostrophe, l’amour, qu’il, q’estoit. Some other separations have also been made. Thus the MS. often, but by no means always, combines plus with the adjective or adverb to which it belongs: plusbass, plusauant; and often also the word en is combined with a succeeding verb, as enmangeast, enserroit: in these instances the separation is made in the text, but the MS. reading is recorded. In other cases, as with the combinations sique, sicomme, nounpas, envoie, &c., the usage of the MS. has been followed, though it is not quite uniform.
The final -é (-és) and -ée (-ées) of nouns and participles have been marked with the accent for the reader’s convenience, but in all other cases accents are dispensed with. They are not therefore used in the terminations -ez, -eez, even when standing for -és, -ées, as in festoiez, neez, nor in asses, sachies, &c., standing for assez, sachiez (except l. 28712), nor is the grave accent placed upon the open e of apres, jammes, &c. Occasionally the diaeresis is used to separate vowels; and the cedilla is inserted, as in modern French, to indicate the soft sound of c where this seems certain, but there are some possibly doubtful cases, as sufficance, naiscance, in which it is not written.
With regard to the use of capital letters, some attempt has been made to qualify the inconsistency of the MS. In general it may be said that where capitals are introduced, it has been chiefly in order to indicate more clearly the cases where qualities or things are personified. It has not been thought necessary to indicate particularly all these variations.