Warton describes the MS. as 'a thin oblong MS. on vellum, containing some of Gower's poems in Latin, French, and English. By an entry in the first leaf, in the handwriting and under the signature of Thomas lord Fairfax, Cromwell's general, an antiquarian, and a lover and collector of curious manuscripts, it appears that this book was presented by the poet Gower, about 1400[[16]], to Henry IV; and that it was given by lord Fairfax to his friend and kinsman Sir Thomas Gower, knight and baronet, in the year 1656.' He goes on to say that Fairfax had it from Charles Gedde, Esq., of St. Andrews; and that it was at one time in the possession of King Henry VII, while earl of Richmond, who wrote in it his own name in the form 'Rychemond.'
The MS. contains (1) The Praise of Peace, preceded by the seven Latin lines (386-392), which I have relegated to the end of the poem, as in Thynne. The title is given in the colophon (p. 216); after which follow the twelve Latin lines (393-404), printed on the same page. (2) Some complimentary verses in Latin, also addressed to Henry IV, printed in Wright's Political Poems, ii. 1-3. (3) Fifty Balades in French, which have been printed by Stengel (Warton prints four of them), with the colophon—'Expliciunt carmina Johīs Gower que Gallice composita Balades dicuntur.' (4) Two short Latin poems in elegiacs; see Warton. (5) A French poem on the Dignity or Excellence of Marriage. (6) Seventeen Latin hexameters. (7) Gower's Latin verses on his blindness, beginning—
'Henrici quarti primus regni fuit annus,
Quo michi defecit visus ad acta mea,' &c.
See Todd and Warton for more minute particulars.
[§ 29]. The poem itself may safely be dated in the end of 1399, for reasons given in the note to l. 393. It is of some interest, as being Gower's last poem in English, and the spirit of it is excellent, though it contains no very striking lines. We have not much of Gower's work in the form of seven-line stanzas. The Confessio Amantis contains only twelve such stanzas; iii. 349-352. I draw attention to the earliest known reference (l. 295) to the game of 'tenetz'; the enumeration of the nine worthies (ll. 281-3);
and the reference to a story about Constantine which, in the Confessio Amantis, is related at considerable length (l. 339).
We may compare with this poem the stanzas in praise of peace in Hoccleve's De Regimine Principum, quoted in Morley's English Writers (1890), vol. vi. pp. 131-2.
[§ 30. V. Thomas Hoccleve: The Letter of Cupid.]
This poem needs little discussion. It is known to be Hoccleve's; see Dr. Furnivall's edition of Hoccleve's Minor Poems, E. E. T. S., 1892, p. 72. As explained in the notes, it is rather closely imitated from the French poem entitled L'Epistre au Dieu d'Amours, written by Christine de Pisan. At the end of her poem, Christine gives the date of its composition, viz. 1399; and Hoccleve, in like manner, gives the date of his poem as 1402. The poem consists of sixty-eight stanzas, of which not more than eighteen are wholly independent of the original. The chief original passages are ll. 176-189, 316-329, and 374-434.