He was consequently a few years older than Chaucer, whom he survived eight years. Gower was a member of a knightly family, an esquire of Kent, and possessed of estates in several counties. In 1368 the daughter and co-heiress of Sir Robert Gower of Multon, in Suffolk, conveyed to the poet the manor of Kentwell. In 1399 Gower had, as he himself states, become old and blind. He made his will in August 1408, and must have died shortly afterwards, as his widow administered to his effects in October of that year. From his will it appears that the poet possessed the manors of Southwell in Nottinghamshire, and Multon in Suffolk. He also left his widow a sum of £100, and made various bequests to churches and hospitals. He was interred in the church of St. Mary Overiesnow St. Saviour's-in Southwark, where he had founded a chantry. His monument, containing a full-length figure of the poet, is still preserved, and was repaired in 1832 by the Duke of Sutherland, head of the ancient family of Gower, settled in Yorkshire so early as the twelfth century.* The principal works of Gower were the 'Speculum Meditantis,' the 'Vox Clamantis,' and the Confessio Amantis,' 1393. The first of these was in French, but is now lost; the second is in Latin, and the third in English. This English poem was printed by Caxton in 1483, and was again printed in 1532 and 1554. It was chiefly taken from a metrical version in the 'Fantheon,' or 'Universal Chronicle of Godfrey of Viterbo,' as admitted by Gower. In this work is the story of Appolinus, the Prince of Tyre, from which Shakspeare took part of the story of his ' Pericles,' if we assume that Shakspeare was the original or sole author of that drama. The 'Confessio Amantis' is a dialogue between a lover and his confessor -a grave discussion of the morals and metaphysics of love. Dr. Pauli, the able editor of the poem (1857), describes it as 'a mixture of classical notions, principally borrowed from Ovid, and of the purely medieval idea, that, as a good Catholic, the unfortunate lover must state his distress to a father confessor.' In the poem Venus is enjoined to 'greet well' Chaucer, ་ As my disciple and my poete; and the greater poet inscribed his 'Troilus and Cressida' to his friend as 'moral Gower,' a designation which has ever since been applied to him. The general style of the 'Confessio Amantis' is grave and sententious, and its enormous length (above thirty thousand lines) renders it tedious; but it is occasionally relieved by stories and episodes drawn from medieval history and romance, and from the col lection of novels known as the 'Gesta Romanorum.' He says: *It was supposed that there was some relationship between the poet and this noble family, and stress was laid upon the possession of a MS, of the Confessio Amautis,' which was believed to have been presented to an ancestor of the Yorkshire Gowers by the poet. The genealogists, however, find no branch to which this alleged alliance can be traced, and the MS. turns out to be the very copy of the work which the author presented to Henry IV. while Duke of Lancaster a rare and precious volume. Full oft time it falleth so That whilom were in my case; Story of the Caskets.-From Of hem (2) that pleignen in the cas, Of one semblance, and of one make, That other cofre of straw and mull (6) So that erliche (8) upon a day To stoppé with your evil word, They knelen all, and with one vois And gon aside, and hem avise, A kuyght shall spcké for hem alle: Tho (16) toke this knyght a yerd (17) on honde, And goth there as the cofres stonde, 5 Jewels, or precious stones. 4 Saw. 10 Those. 14 Their. 18 Every one. He leith his yerde upon one, This king than, in the same stedé, Lo! seith the king, now may ye se SCOTTISH POETS. The language of the Lowland districts of Scotland was based, like that of England, on the Teutonic, and it had, like the contemporary English, a Norman admixture. The names of places, however, and the permanent features of the country-the mountains, lakes, and rivers are mostly Celtic. Some were modified; Strathclyde became Clydesdale, and Strathnith and Strathannan became Nithsdale and Annandale. In some instances, the Celtic kil, a cell or chapel, was supplanted by the Saxon kirk, as Kirkpatrick for Kilpatrick; but kil is still the most common prefix-as Kilmarnock, signifying the chapel of Marnoch, a famous Scottish saint. The oldest Scotch writing extant is a charter by Duncan II. in 1095. A few years before this, a new era began with Malcom Canmore. What is called the ScotoSaxon period of Scottish history commences. New races appear; Northumbrian nobles and their vassals, Norman knights and Flemish artisans, enter Scotland; not rapidly at first, but by a continued steady migration. The Saxon policy of Malcolm Canmore was carried out by his sons; and after half a century or more of continued colonisation, we find the Norman nobles-the Bruces, Baliols, tewarts, Cummings, Douglases, Murrays, and Dunbars--seated in Scotland, and the Saxon language, laws, and ecclesiastical government naturalised, as it were, in the North. As the English or Teutonic portion of the language did not fall out of court favour in Scotland as in England, it long continued in the north with little change. The oldest fragment of Scottish poetry has been preserved by Wyntoun, and is of a plaintive cast: Quhen Alysander oure kyng was dede Oure golde wes changyd into lede After the battle of Bannockburn (June 24, 1314), the Scots, 'inflamed with pride and derision of the English,' as Fabian the chronicier states, made this rhyme, which was after many days sung in the dances and carols of the maidens and minstrels of Scotland:' Maydens of Englande, sore may ye morne What, weneth the kynge of Englande With rumbylow! JOHN BARBOUR. Contemporary with Chaucer and Gower was the northern minstrel, JOHN BARBOUR. The date of his birth is unknown, but he is found exercising the duties of archdeacon of Aberdeen in 1357. That he was a man of talent and learning may be assumed from his having been chosen by the bishop of Aberdeen to act as his commissioner at Edinburgh when the ransom of David II. was debated; and also from the circumstance that he twice visited England with scholars, for the purpose of studying at Oxford (1357 and 1364); that in 1365 he obtained a passport to travel through England with six companions on horseback towards St. Denis and other sacred places;' and that in 1368 he again received permission to travel through England with two servants. At home, Barbour enjoyed royal favour. In 1373, he was clerk of audit of the household of King Robert II, and one of the auditors of exchequer. In 1375, his epic poem, The Bruce,' was in progress. In 1377, a sum of ten pounds was paid to Barbour by the king's command, as the first reward, it would seem, for the composition of the poem. This gift was followed, at the interval of a few months, by a grant to Barbour from the king of a perpetual annuity of twenty shillings. Barbour wrote another poem, now lost, called The Brut,' relating the descent and history of the Stuarts from the fabulous King Brut, or Brutus. His reward for this second work seems to have been a pension for life of ten pounds a year The pension was payable in two moieties-one at Whitsunday, the other at Martinmas. The last payment which Barbour received was at Martinmas 1394--so that he must have died between that date and Whitsunday 1395. The precise day of his death was probably the 13th of March, on which day Barbour's anniversary continued to be celebrated in the cathedral church of St. Machar, at Aberdeen, until the Reformation-the expenses of the service being defrayed from the perpetual annuity granted to the father of Scottish poetry by the first of the Stuart kings, in 1378, 'pro compilacione Libri de Gestis illustrissimi principis quondam Domini Regis Roberti de Brus.' Barbour's poem of The Bruce' is valuable as a monument of our early language, and as a storehouse of historical incidents. But th ugh he set himself to write a 'soothfast story,' the poet begins by departing widely from history. He confounds Bruce the grandfather with Bruce the grandson, and makes him reject the crown said to have been offered to him by Edward I.! Of course, he also conceals the fact, that the grandson had sworn fealty to Edward, and done homage to Baliol. He desired to present in Bruce · a true hero and patriot trampling down oppression and vindicating the sacred rights of his country, and all that could militate against this design was excluded. Almost all the personal traits and adventures of Bruce-whatever gives individuality, life, and color to his history-will be found in the pages of Barbour. The old poet's narrative of the wanderings, trials, sufferings, and fortitude of the monarch; the homely touches of tenderness and domestic feeling interspersed, as well as the knightly courtesy and royal intrepid bearing, which he paints in lively colors, have tended greatly to endear and perpetuate the name of the Scottish sovereign. The characters and exploits of Bruce's brave associates, Randolph and Douglas, are also finely drawn; and the poem contains many vividly descriptive passages, and abounds in dignified and pathetic sentiment. Humour it has none. The language is fully as intelligible as that of Chaucer. It does not appear that the Scottish poet had seen the works of his southern contemporary. One would have wished that the bards had met, each the representative of his country's literature, and each enjoying the favour and bounty of his sovereign. Barbour's poem, we may add, is in the octo-syllabic verse, and consists of about 14,000 lines. It has been well edited by Dr. Jamieson (1820) and by Professor Cosmo Innes (1856). Apostrophe to Freedom. A fredome is a nobill thing! Na he, thut ay hase levyt fre, Than all perquer (3) he suld it wyt; Barbour makes no mention of Wallace. So ardent a worshipper of freedom might have been expected to strike a note in honour of one who sacrificed life itself in pure devotion to that cause. But to recall Wallace would have jarred with his unqualified eulogy of Bruce, and was not necessary towards the unity of his design. His poem begins with the story of the Bruce, and ends with the burial of his heart at Melrose. In the subsequent extracts from Barbour and Wyntoun, the cumbrous spelling is reduced, without interference with the rhythm or obsolete words. Bruce's Address to his Army at Bannockburn. On Sunday then, in the morning, 1 Quality or nature. 3 Exactly (Fr. par cœur, by heart,) Or then to make their country free! 2 Thraldom, |