ENEIDOS BUCOLIS Etc. (p. [361])
These lines, which Gower says were kindly sent to him by ‘a certain philosopher’ (not ‘quidam Philippus,’ as printed by the Roxburghe editor) on the completion of his three books, are found also at the end of the Fairfax MS. The author is probably the same as that of the four lines ‘Quam cinxere freta,’ &c., appended to the Confessio Amantis, which are called ‘Epistola super huius opusculi sui complementum Iohanni Gower a quodam philosopho transmissa.’ I have ventured on the conjecture that this philosopher was in fact Ralph Strode, whom Chaucer couples with Gower in the last stanza of Troilus with the epithet ‘philosophical,’ and of whom we know by tradition that he wrote elegiac verse.
O DEUS IMMENSE Etc. (p. [362])
There is no reason why the heading should not be from the hand of the author, though added of course somewhat later than the date of composition. The phrase ‘adhuc viuens’ or ‘dum vixit’ does not seem to be any objection to this. It is used with a view to future generations, and occurs also in the author’s account of his books (p. 360, l. 4).
2. morosi: opposed here to ‘viciosi’; cp. l. 57 and Epistola (p. 1), l. 33.
7. foret, ‘ought to be.’
19. Isaiah xxxiii. 1.
49. Cp. Traitié, xv. 7, &c.
62. habet speciale, ‘keeps as a secret.’
74. recoletur: apparently meant for subjunctive.