3. ‘tibi’ belongs to the next line, ‘siue satirus Poeta’ being taken together.
Quia vnusquisque, &c. The form here given is found in no manuscript of the Confessio Amantis except F and H₂ (copied from F), though some other third recension copies, as W and K, may probably have contained it. We have it, however, also in two manuscripts of the Vox Clamantis, the All Souls copy and that in the Hunterian Library at Glasgow.
It should be noted that whereas the first recension manuscripts regularly contain the Latin account of the author’s three books in immediate connexion with the Confessio Amantis, in the second recension it is made to follow the Traitié, and SΔ, which do not contain the Traitié, omit this also, while in F it comes later still, following the Latin Carmen de multiplici viciorum pestilencia. Thus the form which we have in F must be regarded as later than the accompanying text of the Confessio Amantis, from which it is separated in the MS. both by position and handwriting, and the words ‘ab alto corruens in foueam quam fecit finaliter proiectus est’ seem to indicate that it was written after the deposition of Richard II.
11 f. ‘Speculum hominis’ in all copies of the first recension. ‘Speculum meditantis’ over an erasure in the Glasgow MS. of the Vox Clamantis.
25 ff. Note the omission here (of nine words which are necessary to the sense) in every first recension copy except J. Similarly below all except J have ‘finem’ for ‘sentencie,’ obviously from a mistaken reading of a contraction (‘ſiē’). These must be original errors, only removed by later revision, the first no doubt due to dropping a line.
IN PRAISE OF PEACE.
The text of this poem is taken from the manuscript at Trentham Hall belonging to the Duke of Sutherland, which contains also the Cinkante Balades. Of this book a full description has been given in the Introduction to Gower’s French Works, pp. lxxix ff. The present poem is the first piece in the book (ff. 5-10 vo), and is written in the same hand as the Balades and Traitié, a hand which resembles that which appears in ff. 184, 185 of the Fairfax MS., though I should hesitate to say positively that it is the same. Evidently, however, the manuscript is contemporary with the author, and it gives us an excellent text of the poem. The date of its composition is doubtless the first year of king Henry IV, for the manuscript which contains it ends with some Latin lines (added in a different hand), in which the author speaks of himself as having become blind in the first year of king Henry IV and having entirely ceased to write in consequence of this.
As a composition it is not without some merit. The style is dignified, and the author handles his verse in a craftsmanlike manner, combining a straightforward simplicity of language with a smooth flow of metre and a well-balanced stanza, the verse being preserved from monotony by variety of pause and caesura. Some stanzas are really impressive, as those which begin with ll. 99, 127, 148. The divisions of the poem, indicated in the MS. by larger coloured initials, have hitherto escaped the notice of editors.
The poem was printed first in the collected edition of Chaucer’s Works, 1532, commonly called Thynne’s edition (ff. 375 vo-378), and reprinted from this in the succeeding folio editions of Chaucer (e. g. 1561, f. 330 vo, 1598, f. 330 vo, 1602, f. 314). There was no attempt made in any of these to ascribe its authorship to Chaucer, Gower’s name being always given as the author. It has been published also by J. Wright in his Political Poems and Songs (Rolls’ Series), the text being taken from the Trentham MS., and it has been included by Prof. Skeat in his interesting collection of poems which have been printed with Chaucer’s works (Chaucerian and other Pieces, pp. 205-216).
Thynne followed a manuscript which gave a fair text, but one much inferior to that of the Trentham copy, both in material correctness and in spelling, e. g.