And eke the gode may happen to offende:
Remember eke that what man doth amiss,[22]
Thou hast or art or may be suche as he is.[23]
This is full of lines that Gower would not have written, with superfluous syllables in the metre, as ll. 1, 5, 10, 17, 29, 33, 35 (omitting those that might pass with amended spelling), accent on weak syllables, as ll. 20, 25, 26, 31, defective rhyme, as ‘besyde’: ‘bewryde’ (participle), and ‘feere’ (companion): ‘bere,’ or suppression of syllable at the beginning, as in l. 12. The form ‘mayst’ (maist) for ‘miht’ is not found in any respectable Gower MS. Moreover the style is not that of Gower, but evidently imitated from Chaucer’s poem ‘Fle from the pres.’
LINENOTES:
[1] 1 forþe wele
[2] 2 ageine
[3] 4 weele stondeþe
[4] 7 shapeþe (efft] her R)
[5] 9 gladde (glad R) amysse