LIFE OF GOWER. JOHN GOWER was the intimate friend of Chaucer, and is supposed to have been born before him. The antiquaries have not been able to ascertain the place of his birth, or the character of his ancestors. Leland, who was commissioned by Henry VIII. to make researches into the English libraries, has traced his origin to an ancient family in Yorkshire; but Weaver makes him a Kentish man; and Caston says, he was a native of Wales. He was a fellow-student at law with Chaucer; and, though Thyrwhitt has laboured to prove a quarrel between them, there does not appear to have been any serious rupture; and it is certain that Gower lived to bestow many lines of praise upon his deceased cotemporary. His first work was the Speculum Amentis, written in ten books; which is nothing more than a compilation, in French, of all the precepts and examples, which are designed to inculcate chastity in the marriage state. The next, entitled Vox Clamentis, is in Latin; and pretends to give a poetical account of a popular insurrection in the reign of Richard II. There are no less than seven books concerning this and 'talia enormia.' But it is the Confessio Amantis, written in his native tongue, which entitles Gower to a place among the English poets. It is supposed to have been finished in 1393; and is said to have been undertaken at the instance of Richard II.; who, we are told, happening to meet him on the Thames, invited him into his own barge, and enjoined him to booke some new thing."* It was not among the best deeds of king Richard. The Confessio Amantis would occupy about three of our volumes; and, though occasionally relieved by a few happy lines, it is, as a poem, one of the most fatiguing medlies of verse, that we were ever doomed to peruse. The general subject is love; but the author has contrived to write about every thing else. Quidquid agunt homines, votum, timor, ira, voluptas, Nearly all the ancient literature and mythology are interwoven with what is called the confession of a lover; and it would, at first sight, appear really astonishing, that, at a time, when books could only be multiplied by transcription, an author should think of drawing out such an endless string of verse upon so trite a series of subjects. But what is now common-place was then new. All the earlier English poets only trod in the steps of foreigners; and, along with the other parts of their literature, they imported the continental mania for classic lore. The rage first began in Petrarch and Boccacio; and, * This is, indeed, the author's own account: I thinke I haue it vnderstonde As it befell vpon a tide, As thynge, whiche shoulde the betide, Whiche toke of Brute his firste joye, + Juvenal's book was really small; but Gower was modest to excess, in applying the same diminutive to his own gross volume. "Intendet et auctor ad presens suum libellum,' &c. B. I. during the latter part of the fourteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth century, Italy, in particular, was little more than a busy laboratory of ancient literature. Her princes made it their glory to encourage letters. They became themselves the writers of elegant Greek and Latin verse. The discovery of a classic manuscript was an occasion of joy to them and their subjects; and they interested themselves in all the philological disputes of the learned men, with whom they took care to be surrounded. Even the popes could no longer resist the current; and, from the most determined enemies to all learning, they became the zealous protectors and the magnificent rewarders of literary merit. It was the erudition of Æneas Sylvius, that raised him to the chair of St. Peter; and, so universally was eminence in letters considered as a title to promotion, that the best schoolmasters were commonly the most successful candidates. Among the leaders in this glorious emulation, was Casmo de Medicis, a Florentine merchant; whose zeal in the cause was only equalled by his ability to promote it. Master of all the monetary credit of Europe, and the equal of the kings, with whom he treated, he made his house the asylum of letters, and converted his gardens into academies of philosophy. His clerks collected manuscripts at the same time that they sold merchandize. His agents, dispersed over Europe and the Mahomedan states, were equally devoted to commerce and to literature; and his ships from Constantinople, Alexandria, and Symrna, were freighted with ancient manuscripts as well as mercantile wares. He opened, at the same time, one library at Venice, and another at Florence; and his example was followed by all the rich men and princes of his country. Schools were opened in all parts of Italy; and public lectures were at once the path to distinction, and a source of wealth. The passion for obtaining books and founding libraries, together with the prodigious value attached to a beautiful copy of a manuscript, awakened the spirit of invention to multiply their numbers;-and the art of printing, says M. de Sismondi, originated at the moment when it was necessary, and for no other reason than because it was necessary.* This exclusive devotion to ancient literature braght all native genius into discredit. Imitation too the place of originality; and, so extravagant was the admiration in which the learned languages were held, that nothing could be thought excellent which was not in Greek or Latin. Petrarch supposed, that his title to celebrity depended upon his Latin epic of Africa, written in imitation of Virgil; and, after Gower had composed the Vox Clamantis, he thought his poetical immortality achieved; nor was it until he received the order of his sovereign,* that, in the blindness and decrepitude of age, he condescended to write a poem in English. The language, indeed, was English; but the subjects and the thoughts were still Greek or Latin. In form, the work is a Roman Catholic confession. The confessor is a priest of Venus. Every sort of topic is introduced; and the Heathen mythology, the Christian religion, personifications of the vices and virtues, Ovid's art of love, Aristotle's philosophy, ethics, and alchemy, are all jumbled into the same anomalous farrago. A great part of these things were then new and interesting; but repetition has destroyed their charms; and a modern reader turns over the leaf, when he encounters such lines as, O thou Cupid, O thou Venus, O Venus Queen of Love's cure, &c. Gower sometimes displays considerable skill in turning his abstract discussions to the account of * De La Lit. de Mid. D'Eur. t. ii. pp. 24. 28. his main subject; and, as an example of his best manner, we subjoin what he says of that kind of avarice, which he personifies as usury: Upon the benche sittende on high Ful clothed of his owne sute, Whiche after golde maketh chase and sute With his brocours, that renne aboute Liche vnto ratches in a route Suche lucre is none aboue grounde, Vsure with the riche dwelleth, He recheth nought be so he wyn, That he maie wynne suche thre It requires an ear somewhat practised in old English to feel the beauties of such poetry; and, after all, perhaps this specimen is little calculated to recommend an author's productions. Gower's God of Love is blind; but it is a blind horse, instead of a blind boy |