ycliffism. This is no doubt the poem which obtained for Gower the
epithet "moral" (i.e. sententious) applied to him by Chaucer, and
afterwards by Dunbar, Hawes, and Shakspere. Gower's "Vox Clamantis" and
other Latin poems (including one "against the astuteness of the Evil
One in the matter of Lollardry") are forgotten; but his English
"Confessio Amantis" has retained its right to a place of honour in the
history of our literature. The most interesting part of this poem, its
"Prologue," has already been cited as of value for our knowledge of the
political and social condition of its times. It gives expression to a
conservative tone and temper of mind; and like many conservative minds,
Gower's had adopted, or affected to adopt, the conviction that the
world was coming to an end. The cause of the anticipated catastrophe
he found in the division, or absence of concord and love, manifest in
the condition of things around. The intensity of strife visible among
the conflicting elements of which the world, like the individual human
being, is composed, too clearly announced the imminent end of all
things. Would that a new Arion might arise to make peace where now is
hate; but, alas! the prevailing confusion is such that God alone may
set it right. But the poem which follows cannot be said to sustain the
interest excited by this introduction. Its machinery was obviously
suggested by that of the "Roman de la Rose," though, as Warton has
happily phrased it, Gower, after a fashion of his own, blends Ovid's
"Art of Love" with the Breviary. The poet, wandering about in a
forest, while suffering under the smart of Cupid's dart, meets Venus,
the Goddess of Love, who urges him, as one upon the point of death, to
make his full confession to her clerk or priest, the holy father
Genius. This confession hereupon takes place by means of question and
answer; both penitent and confessor entering at great length into an
examination of the various sins and weaknesses of human nature, and of
their remedies, and illustrating their observations by narratives,
brief or elaborate, from Holy Writ, sacred legend, ancient history, and
romantic story. Thus Gower's book, as he says at its close, stands
"between earnest and game," and might be fairly described as a "Romaunt
of the Rose," without either the descriptive grace of Guillaume de
Lorris, or the wicked wit of Jean de Meung, but full of learning and
matter, and written by an author certainl