Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets Part 8

GILES FLETCHER The Nativity Song of Sorceress seeking to tempt Christ Close of 'Christ's Victory and Triumph'

JOHN DONNE Holy Sonnets The Progress of the Soul

MICHAEL DRAYTON Description of Morning

EDWARD FAIRFAX Rinaldo at Mount Olivet

SIR HENRY WOTTON Farewell to the Vanities of the World A Meditation

RICHARD CORBET Dr Corbet's Journey into France

BEN JONSON Epitaph on the Countess of Pembroke The Picture of the Body To Penshurst To the Memory of my beloved Master, William Shakspeare, and what he hath left us On the Portrait of Shakspeare

VERE, s...o...b..R, &c

THOMAS RANDOLPH The Praise of Woman To my Picture To a Lady admiring herself in a Looking-gla.s.s

ROBERT BURTON On Melancholy

THOMAS CAREW Persuasions to Love Song To my Mistress sitting by a River's Side Song A Pastoral Dialogue Song

SIR JOHN SUCKLING Song A Ballad upon a Wedding Song

WILLIAM CARTWRIGHT Love's Darts On the Death of Sir Bevil Grenville A Valediction

WILLIAM BROWNE Song Song Power of Genius over Envy Evening From 'Britannia's Pastorals'

A Descriptive Sketch

WILLIAM ALEXANDER, EARL OF STIRLING Sonnet

WILLIAM DRUMMOND The River of Forth Feasting Sonnets Spiritual Poems

PHINEAS FLETCHER Description of Parthenia Instability of Human Greatness Happiness of the Shepherd's Life Marriage of Christ and the Church

SPECIMENS, WITH MEMOIRS, OF THE LESS-KNOWN BRITISH POETS.

JOHN GOWER

Very little is told us (as usual in the beginnings of a literature) of the life and private history of Gower, and that little is not specially authentic or clearly consistent with itself. His life consists mainly of a series of suppositions, with one or two firm facts between--like a few stepping-stones insulated in wide s.p.a.ces of water. He is said to have been born about the year 1325, and if so must have been a few years older than Chaucer; whom he, however, outlived. He was a friend as well as contemporary of that great poet, who, in the fifth book of his 'Troilus and Cresseide,' thus addresses him:--

'O moral Gower, this booke I direct, To thee and the philosophical Strood, To vouchsafe where need is to correct, Of your benignities and zeales good.'

Gower, on the other hand, in his 'Confessio Amantis,' through the mouth of Venus, speaks as follows of Chaucer:--

'And greet well Chaucer when ye meet, As my disciple and my poet; For 'in the flower of his youth, In sundry wise, as he well couth, Of ditties and of songes glad, The whiche for my sake he made, The laud fulfill'd is over all,' &c.

The place of Gower's birth has been the subject of much controversy.

Caxton a.s.serts that he was a native of Wales. Leland, Bales, Pits, Hollingshed, and Edmondson contend, on the other hand, that he belonged to the Statenham family, in Yorkshire. In proof of this, a deed is appealed to, which is preserved among the ancient records of the Marquis of Stafford. To this deed, of which the local date is Statenham, and the chronological 1346, one of the subscribing witnesses is _John Gower_ who on the back of the deed is stated, in the handwriting of at least a century later, to be '_Sr John Gower the Poet_'. Whatever may be thought of this piece of evidence, 'the proud tradition,' adds Todd, who had produced it, 'in the Marquis of Stafford's family has been, and still is, that the poet was of Statenham; and who would not consider the dignity of his genealogy augmented by enrolling among its worthies the moral Gower?'

From his will we know that he possessed the manor of Southwell, in the county of Nottingham, and that of Multon, in the county of Suffolk. He was thus a rich man, as well as probably a knight. The latter fact is inferred from the circ.u.mstance of his effigies in the church of St Mary Overies wearing a chaplet of roses, such as, says Francis Thynne, 'the knyghtes in old time used, either of gold or other embroiderye, made after the fashion of roses, one of the peculiar ornamentes of a knighte, as well as his collar of S.S.S., his guilte sword and spurres. Which chaplett or circle of roses was as well attributed to knyghtes, the lowest degree of honor, as to the higher degrees of duke, erle, &c., being knyghtes, for so I have seen John of Gaunte pictured in his chaplett of roses; and King, Edwarde the Thirde gave his chaplett to Eustace Rybamonte; only the difference was, that as they were of lower degree, so had they fewer roses placed on their chaplett or cyrcle of golde, one ornament deduced from the dukes crowne, which had the roses upon the top of the cyrcle, when the knights had them only upon the cyrcle or garlande itself.'

It has been said that Gower as well as Chaucer studied in the Temple.

This, however, Thynne doubts, on the ground that 'it is most certeyn to be gathered by cyrc.u.mstances of recordes that the lawyers were not in the Temple until towardes the latter parte of the reygne of Kinge Edwarde the Thirde, at whiche tyme Chaucer was a grave manne, holden in greate credyt and employed in emba.s.sye;' and when, of course, Gower, being his senior, must have been 'graver' still.

There is scarcely anything more to relate of the personal career of our poet. In his elder days he became attached to the House of Lancaster, under Thomas of Woodstock, as Chaucer did under John of Gaunt. It is said that the two poets, who had been warm friends, at last quarrelled, but obscurity rests on the cause, the circ.u.mstances, the duration, and the consequences of the dispute. Gower, like some far greater bards, --Milton for instance, and those whom Milton has commemorated,

'Blind Thamyris and blind Moeonides, And Tiresiaa and Phineus, prophets old,'--

was sometime ere his death deprived of his sight, as we know on his own authority. It appears from his will that he was still living in 1408, having outlived Chaucer eight years. This will is a curious doc.u.ment.

It is that of a very rich and very superst.i.tious Catholic, who leaves bequests to churches, hospitals, to priors, sub-priors, and priests, with the significant request '_ut orent pro me_'--a request which, for the sake of the poor soul of the 'moral Gower,' was we trust devoutly obeyed, although we are irresistibly reminded of the old rhyme,

'Pray for the soul of Gabriel John, Who died in the year one thousand and one; You may if you please, or let it alone, For it's all one To Gabriel John, Who died in the year one thousand and one.'

There is no mention of children in the will, and hence the a.s.sertion of Edmondson, who, in his genealogical table of the Statenham family, says that Thomas Gower, the governor of the castle of Mans in the times of the Fifth and Sixth Henrys, was the only son of the poet, and that of Glover, who, in his 'Visitation of Yorkshire,' describes Gower as married to a lady named Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Edward Sadbowrughe, Baron of the Exchequer, by whom he had five sons and three daughters, must both fall to the ground. According to the will, Gower's wife's name was Agnes, and he leaves to her 100 in legacy, besides his valuable goods and the rents accruing from his aforesaid manors of Multon, in Suffolk, and Southwell, in Nottinghamshire. His body was, according to his own direction, buried in the monastery of St Mary Overies, in Southwark, (afterwards the church of St Saviour,) where a monument, and an effigies, too, were erected, with the roses of a knight girdling the brow of one who was unquestionably a true, if not a great poet.

In Warton's 'History of English Poetry,' and in the 'Ill.u.s.trations of the Lives and Writings of Gower and Chaucer' by Mr Todd, there will be found ample and curious details about MS. poems by Gower, such as fifty sonnets in French; a 'Panegyrick on Henry IV.,' half in Latin and half in English, a short elegiac poem on the same subject, &c.; besides a large work, ent.i.tled 'Speculum Meditantis,' a poem in French of a moral cast; and 'Vox Clamantis,' consisting of seven books of Latin elegiacs, and chiefly filled with a metrical account of the insurrections of the Commons in the reign of Richard II. In the dedication of this latter work to Arundel, Archbishop of Canterbury, Gower speaks of his blindness and his age. He says, 'Hanc epistolam subscriptam corde devoto misit _senex et cecus_ Johannes Gower reverendissimo in Christo patri ac domino suo precipuo domino Thome de Arundell, Cantuar. Archiepo.' &c.

Warton proves that the 'Vox Clamantis' was written in the year 1397, by a line in the Bodleian ma.n.u.script of the poem, 'Hos ego _bis deno_ Ricardo regis in anno.' Richard II. began, it is well known, to reign in the year 1377, when ten years of age, and, of course, the year 1397 was the twentieth of his reign. It follows from this, that for eleven years at least before his death Gower had been _senex et cecus_, helpless through old age and blindness.

The 'Confessio Amantis' is the only work of Gower's which is printed and in English. The rest are still slumbering in MS.; and even although the 'Vox Clamantis' should put in a sleepy plea for the resurrection of print, on the whole we are disposed to say, better for all parties that it and the rest should slumber on. But the 'Confessio Amantis' is altogether a remarkable production. It is said to have been written at the command of Richard II., who, meeting our poet rowing on the Thames, near London, took him on board the royal barge, and requested him to _book some new thing_. It is an English poem, in eight books, and was first printed by Caxton in the year 1483. The 'Speculum Meditantis,'

'Vox Clamantis,' and 'Confessio Amantis,' are, properly speaking, parts of one great work, and are represented by three volumes upon Gower's curious tomb in the old conventual church of St Mary Overies already alluded to--a church, by the way, which the poet himself a.s.sisted in rebuilding in the elegant shape which it retains to this day.

The 'Confessio' is a large unwieldy collection of poetry and prose, superst.i.tion and science, love and religion, allegory and historical facts. It is crammed with all varieties of learning, and a perverse but infinite ingenuity is shewn in the arrangement of its heterogeneous materials. In one book the whole mysteries of the Hermetic philosophy are expounded, and the wonders of alchymy dazzle us in every page.

In another, the poet scales the heights and sounds the depths of Aristotelianism. From this we have extracted in the 'Specimens' a glowing account of 'The Chariot of the Sun.' Throughout the work, tales and stories of every description and degree of merit are interspersed.

These are princ.i.p.ally derived from an old book called 'Pantheon; or, Memoriae Seculorum,'--a kind of universal history, more studious of effect than accuracy, in which the author ranges over the whole history of the world, from the creation down to the year 1186. This was a specimen of a kind of writing in which the Middle Ages abounded--namely, chronicles, which gradually superseded the monkish legends, and for a time eclipsed the cla.s.sics themselves; a kind of writing hovering between history and fiction, embracing the widest sweep, written in a barbarous style, and swarming with falsehoods; but exciting, interesting, and often instructive, and tending to kindle curiosity, and create in the minds of their readers a love for literature.

Besides chronicles, Gower had read many romances, and alludes to them in various parts of his works. His 'Confessio Amantis' was apparently written after Chaucer's 'Troilus and Cresseide,' and after 'The Flower and the Leaf,' inasmuch as he speaks of the one and imitates the other in that poem. That Chaucer had not, however, yet composed his 'Testament of Love,' appears from the epilogue to the 'Confessio,' where Gower is ordered by Venus, who expresses admiration of Chaucer for the early devotion of his muse to her service, to say to him at the close--

'Forthy, now in his daies old, Thou shalt him tell this message, That he upon his later age To set an end of all his work, As he which is mine owen clerk, Do make his Testament of Love, As thou hast done thy shrift above, So that my court it may record'--

the 'shrift' being of course the 'Confessio Amantis.' In 'The Canterbury Tales' there are several indications that Chaucer was indebted to Gower --'The Man of Law's Tale' being borrowed from Gower's 'Constantia,' and 'The Wife of Bath's Tale' being founded on Gower's 'Florent.'

After all, Gower cannot be cla.s.sed with the greater bards. He sparkles brightly chiefly from the depth of the darkness through which he shines.

He is more remarkable for extent than for depth, for solidity than for splendour, for fuel than for fire, for learning than for genius.

THE CHARIOT OF THE SUN.

Of golde glist'ring spoke and wheel The Sun his cart hath fair and wele, In which he sitteth, and is croned[1]

With bright stones environed: Of which if that I speake shall, There be before in special Set in the front of his corone Three stones, whiche no person Hath upon earth; and the first is By name cleped Leucachatis.

That other two cleped thus Astroites and Ceraunus; In his corone, and also behind, By olde bookes as I find, There be of worthy stones three, Set each of them in his degree.