To the last, Gower is learned, dignified, didactic. He would be nothing, if he were not moral. His principal merit lies in the sententious passages which are here and there interspersed, and the narratives culled with dull prolixity from legendary lore, some of which as the Trumpet of Death-deserve notice for their striking tone of reflection, and others for the charm of their details. Thus, it was a law in Hungary, that when a man was condemned to die, the sentence should be announced to him by the blast of a brazen trumpet before his house. At a magnificent court-festival, the monarch was plunged in deep melancholy, and his brother anxiously inquired the reason. No reply was made, but at break of morn the fatal trumpet sounded at the brother's gate. The doomed man came to the palace weeping and despairing. Then the king said solemnly, that if such grief were caused by the death of the body, how much profounder must be the sorrow awakened by the thought which afflicted him as he sat among his guests, the thought of that eternal death of the spirit which Heaven has ordained as the wages of sin.

The tale of Florent is in Gower's happiest manner, and reveals, in the desert of platitudes, some of the brilliancy and grace of older models. A knight riding through a narrow pass in search of adventures, is attacked, taken, and led to a castle. There, at the peril of his life, he is required to state

'What alle women most desire.'

That he may have time for reflection and consideration, he is granted a leave of absence, on condition that at the expiration of his term he shall return with his answer. He tells all what has befallen him, and asks the opinion of the wisest, but —

Such a thing they cannot find

By constellation ne kind,-'

that is, neither by the stars nor by the laws of nature. Our hero-still pondering what to say- sets out on his return. His troubled meditations are at length interrupted by the discovery of an old woman sitting under a large tree,

That for to speak of flesh and bone

So foul yet saw he never nonc.'

He fain would pass quickly on, but she calls him by name, and warns him that he is riding to his death, adding, however, that she can save him. He begs her advice, and she asks, 'What

wilt thou give me?' 'Anything you may ask.' 'I want nothing more, therefore pledge me'—

In vain he offers

band. He wisely

"That you will be my housebande."

"Nay," said Florent, "that may not be."
"Ride thenne forth thy way," quod she.'

lands, parks, houses,- she must have a hus-
concludes that it is-

'Better to take her to his wife,

Or elles for to lose his life.'

He also reflects that she probably will not live very long, and resolves to put her meanwhile

'Where that no man her shoulde know

Till she with death were overthrow.'

Having signified his assent, she tells him, that when he reaches his destination, he is to reply

That alle women lievest would
Be sovereign of mannes love;'

for as sovereign, she will have all her will, which is the beatitude of her desire. With this answer, she says he shall save himself, and he rides sadly on, for he is under oath to return for his bride. At the castle, in the presence of the summoned inmates, he names several things of his own invention, but none will do; and finally he gives the answer the old woman directed, which is declared to be the true one. Retracing his steps, a free but wretched man, he finds the old woman in the identical spot,

The loathliest wight

That ever man cast on his eye,
Her nose bas, her browes high,
Her eyen small, and depe-set,
Her chekes ben with teres wet,
And rivelin as an empty skin,
Hangende down unto her chin,
Her lippes shrunken ben for age;
There was no grace in her visage.'

[low, flat

[shrivelled [hanging

She insists, however, upon the agreement, and, sick at heart, almost preferring death,

In ragges as she was to-tore

He set her on his horse before."

riding through all the lanes and by-ways that no one may see him. At home he explains that he is obliged—

This beste wedde to his wife,

For elles he had lost his life.'

Maids of honor are sent in, who renew her attire, all except her

matted and unsightly hair, which she will not allow them to touch.

But when she was fully array'd,
And her attire was all assay'd,
Then was she fouler unto see.'

Poor Florent takes her less for better than for worse, and, the ceremony over, covers his head in grief:

His body mighte well be there;

But as of thought and of memoire
His hearte was in Purgatoire.'

She would ingratiate herself in his affections, and approaching him takes him softly by the hand. He turns suddenly and beholds a vision of sweet smiles and beautiful eyes. He would come nearer, is stopped, and told

that for to win or lose

He mote one of two thinges choose,
Wher he will have her such o' night

Or elles upon daye's light;

For he shall not have bothe two.'

[whether

At loss, conscious only of his idolatry, he at last exclaims,—

"I n'ot what answer I shall give,
But ever, while that I may live,
I will that ye be my mistress,
For I can naught myselve guess
Which is the best unto my choice.
Thus grant I you my whole voice.
Choose for us bothen, I you pray,
And, what as ever that ye say,
Right as ye wille, so will I."'

This is the point-the surrender of his will to hers. This is 'What alle women most desire'-to be sovereign of man's love -in short to have their own way. Foretaste of Paradise for the happy groom, whose cup is now filled to overflowing:

"My lord," she saide, "grand-merci
For of this word that ye now sayn
That ye have made me sovereign,
My destiny is overpassed:
That n'er hereafter shall be lass'd
My beauty, which that I now have,
Till I betake unto my grave.
Both night and day as I am now,
I shall always be such to you.
Thus, I am yours for evermo."

[many thanks

[lessened

As an artist, partly the reformer and partly the story-teller, Gower bridges the space between Langland and Chaucer. His English, too, in vocabulary and structure is later than the first

and earlier than the second. His metre is the octosyllabic, of four iambics. His rhythm is more smooth than melodious. He is touched only by French influence. There are extant about fifty French amatory sonnets composed by him in imitation of Provençal models. On the whole, like the dozen of translators who copy, compile, abridge, he constructs an encyclopædia, a textbook, in rhymed memoranda; but if excellence be comparative and all criticism relative to the age, we may hail this grave father of our poesy, whose verses, if destitute of creative touches, are stamped with the force of ethical reasoning. Amid triflers, he is earnest, with a deep-rooted idea that the minstrel should be a preacher. In his political admonitions, in his satire on the relaxed morals of the Pulpit, the Bench, the Bar, the Throne, and the Court, he sounds the deep tones of the patriot. He says:

'I do not affect to touch the stars, or write the wonders of the poles; but rather, with the common human voice that is lamenting in this land, I write the ills I see. In the voice of my crying there will be nothing doubtful, for every man's knowledge will be its best interpreter.'

Again:

'Give me that there shall be less vice, and more virtue for my speaking.'

In

Only one of his three great works has been opened to the world, but the marble perpetuates what the press does not. the Southwark Church of St. Saviour, his image lies extended on the tomb, with folded hands, in damask habit flowing to his feet; his head supported by three sculptured volumes' and decked with a garland of roses, while three visionary virgins, Charity, Mercy, and Pity, solicit the prayer of the passer-by for the soul of the dreamless sleeper.

The fashions of man have their date and their termination. The fourteenth century is memorable as the era in which the romance-poetry of France, displaced in form, declines in substance. Even comedy cannot thrive on trifles. The literature that has not truth or seriousness must die. Life does not move through a perpetual May-day, nor is it invigorated in gorgeous idleness. Nourished on this poetry, another taste is springing up, which is to seek its subjects, not in France, but in the chaster Roman and Grecian lore. A new spirit pierces through,— no longer the childish imitation of chivalrous life, but the crav

1 Speculum Meditantis (Mirror of One Meditating), in French: Vox Clamantis (Voice of One Crying), in Latin; Confessio Amantis, in English;- equally graced with Latin titles, though in three languages.

ing for deep truths. English poetry, as distinguished on the one hand from the pedantry and barrenness of the romancers, and on the other from the impulsive cries of Beowulf, begins with Chaucer, the first skilled and conscious workman; who, ceasing to repeat, observes; whose characters, no longer a phantom procession, are living and distinct persons,- individualized and typical; and who, seeking material in the common forest of the middle ages, replants it in his own soil, to send out new shoots and enduring bloom.

Prose. Our early literature, as formerly observed, is almost exclusively one of poetry. Records, chronicles, books of instruction, of science, there are; but of prose, as the embodiment of high art, there is absolutely none. As we have cathedrals while the builders live in hovels, so, under the impulse of the imaginative sentiment, we have poetry before we have prose, which passes into pure literature only when the views of men have settled down to sober truth, and art is so diffused as to give grace and expression to things familiar and homely.

Divines and philosophers, mathematicians and scientists, write in Latin. The prose works in English have an archaic and moral rather than an artistic interest. Mandeville and Wycliffethe one in his travels, the other in his translations of the Bibleare, in the mixed vernacular, the first reapers on the margin of the great future of English prose.

History. In this mixed state of glory clouded with barbarism, there is, there can be, no annalist deserving the name of historian. The chroniclers have the usual aptitude for credence, unastonished at astonishing events, credulous and happy by constitution and contagion. They begin, as usual, ab initio, with the Conquest, and reach home, across chasms supplied by an ever-ready fancy. The narrative grows like a rolling snowball, gathering whatever lies in its path, fact or legend, appropriate or inappropriate. The readers or hearers are as well prepared to believe as the writers are prompt to collate. A hundred years hence the first peer' of the realm will be proud of deriving his pedigree from a fabulous knight in a romantic genealogy.

Of plumed knights and penitential saints, of warring kings

1 Duke of Buckingham.