He tells us that he is a man of simple tastes (26293 ff.), and we know from the whole tone of his writings that he is a just and upright man, who believes in the subordination of the various members of society to one another, and who will not allow himself to be ruled in his own household either by his wife or his servants. But, though a thorough believer in the principle of gradation in human society, he constantly emphasizes the equality of all men before God, and refuses absolutely to admit the accident of birth as constituting any claim to ‘gentilesce.’ The common descent of all from Adam is as conclusive on this point for him as it was for John Ball. Considering that his views on society are essentially the same as those of Wycliff, and considering also his strong opinions about the corruption of the Church and the misdeeds of the friars, it is curious to find how strongly he denounces the Lollards in his later writings.

He has a just abhorrence of war, and draws a very clear distinction between the debased chivalry of his own day and the true ideal of knighthood. Above all he has a deep sense of religion, and is very familiar with the Bible. He strongly believes in the moral government of the world by Providence, and he feels sure, as others of his age did also, that the final stage of corruption has almost come. Whatever others may do, he at least intends to repent of his sins and prepare himself to render a good account of his stewardship. In both his French and his Latin work he shows himself a fearless rebuker of evil, even in the highest places. The charge of time-serving timidity has been sufficiently dealt with in the Introduction to the English Works.

From the Vox Clamantis it is evident that the rising of the Peasants produced a very powerful, indeed almost an overwhelming, impression upon his mind. He describes the terror inspired by it among those of his social standing in the most impressive manner. The progress of his political development during the reign of Richard II is clearly seen in his Latin works, with their successive revisions. He began, it is evident, with full hope and confidence that the youthful king would be a worthy representative of his father the Black Prince, both in war and in peace. As time goes on, and the boy develops into an ill-regulated young man, under evil influences of various kinds, the poet begins to have doubts, and these gradually increase until they amount to certainty, and rebuke and denunciation take the place of the former favourable anticipations. In the latest version of the Confessio Amantis, which is, no doubt, contemporary with some of these changes in the text of the Vox Clamantis, we see the author’s confidence transferred from the king to his cousin, not as yet regarded as a successor to the throne, but thought of as representing a fair ideal of chivalry and honesty. Finally, in the Cronica Tripertita, he accepts the fall of Richard as the fatal consequence of a course of evil government and treachery, and rejoices in the prospect of a new order of things under his predestined hero.

We see here the picture of one who is not devoted to a particular party, but looks to what he conceives as the common good, deeply impressed with the sense that things are out of joint, and hoping against hope that a saviour of society may arise, either in the person of the young king, or of his vigorous and chivalrous cousin. There is no sign of any liking for John of Gaunt or of any attachment to the Lancastrian party generally; but he is stirred to very genuine indignation at the unfair treatment of men whom he regards as honest patriots, such as Gloucester, the Arundels, and Cobham. He himself was evidently a most patriotic Englishman, loving his country and proud of its former greatness. For this we may refer especially to Vox Clamantis, vii. 1289 ff., but the same feeling is visible also in many other passages. He is a citizen of the world no doubt, but an Englishman first, and he cares intensely for the prosperity of his native land. Even when he writes in French it is for England’s sake,

‘O gentile Engleterre, a toi j’escrits.’

When he decides that the Confessio Amantis could no longer go forth with Richard as its patron, it is to England that he dedicates his poem, and for his country that he offers up the prayers which he can no longer utter with sincerity on behalf of the worthless king (Conf. Am. Prol. 24 and viii. 2987).

From the Confessio Amantis we learn the circumstances under which that work was undertaken, owing in part at least to a suggestion from the king himself, who, meeting Gower upon the river, made him come into his own barge and conversed with him familiarly on his literary projects, urging him apparently to the composition of a poem in English, and perhaps suggesting Love as the subject. We gather also that in the year 1390 the author considered himself already an old man, and that he had then suffered for some time from ill-health (Prol. 79*, viii. 3042*), and from the Epistle to Archbishop Arundel prefixed later to the Vox Clamantis, as well as from the Latin lines beginning ‘Henrici Regis’ (or ‘Henrici quarti’) we learn that he was blind during the last years of his life, probably from the year 1400. We may reasonably suppose that he was born about the year 1330, or possibly somewhat later. From the Latin statement about his books we learn, what is tolerably obvious from their tenour, that his chief aim in writing was edification, while at the same time we gather from the opening of the first book of the Confessio Amantis that he then despaired of effecting anything by direct admonition, and preferred finally to mingle amusement with instruction. The Latin lines at the end of this volume, beginning ‘Dicunt scripture,’ express a principle which he seems to have followed himself, namely that a man should give away money for good purposes during his own life, rather than leave such business to be attended to by his executors.

The literary side of his activity is sufficiently dealt with in the introductions to his several works, and there also it is noted what were the books with which he was acquainted. It is enough to say here that he was a man of fairly wide general reading, and thoroughly familiar with certain particular books, especially the Bible, all the works of Ovid, and the Aurora of Peter de Riga.

THE LATIN WORKS.

Of the works which are included in the present volume the Vox Clamantis is the most important. It is written in elegiac verse, more or less after the model of Ovid, and consists of 10,265 lines, arranged in seven books, of which the first, second and third have separate prologues, and each is divided into a series of chapters with prose headings. As to the date of composition, all that we can say is that the work in its present form is later than the Peasants’ rising in the summer of 1381, and yet it was evidently composed while the memory of that event was fresh, and also before the young king had grown beyond boyhood. The advice to the king with regard to fidelity in marriage need not be taken to have special reference to the king’s actual marriage at the end of the year 1382, but perhaps it is more natural to suppose that it was written after that event than before.