World's Best Literature,'
by William H. Carpenter

JOHN GOWER

(1325?-1408)

[Illustration: JOHN GOWER]

Since Caxton, the first printer of 'Confessio Amantis' (The Confession
of a Lover), described Gower as a "squyer borne in Walys in the tyme of
Kyng Richard the second," there has been a diversity of opinion about
his birthplace, and he has been classed variously with prosperous Gowers
until of late, when the county assigned to him is Kent. His birth-year
is placed approximately at 1325. We know nothing of his early life and
education. It has been guessed that he went to Oxford, and afterwards
traveled in the troubled kingdom of France. Such a course might have
been followed by a man of his estate. He had means, for English property
records (in this instance the rolls of Chancery, the parchment
foundation of English society) still preserve deeds of his holdings in
Kent and Essex and elsewhere.

His life lay along with that of Chaucer's, in the time when Edward III.
and his son the Black Prince were carrying war into France, and the
English Parliament were taking pay in plain speaking for what they
granted in supplies, and wresting at the same time promises of reform
from the royal hand. But Gower and Chaucer were not only contemporaries:
they were of like pursuit, tastes, and residence; they were friends; and
when Chaucer under Richard II., the grandson and successor of Edward,
went to France upon the mission of which Froissart speaks, he named John
Gower as one of his two attorneys while he should be away. Notice of
Gower's marriage to Agnes Groundolf late in life--in 1397--is still
preserved. Three years after this he became blind,--it was the year
1400, in which Chaucer died,--and in 1408 he died.

"The infirm poet," says Morley, "spent the evening of his
life at St. Mary Overies [St. Mary-over-the-River], in
retirement from all worldly affairs except pious and liberal
support of the advancing building works in the priory, and in
the church now known as St. Saviour's [Southwark], to which
he bequeathed his body. His will, made not long before death,
bequeathed his soul to God, his body to be buried in St.
Mary Overies. The poet bequeathed also 13_s._ 4_d._ to each
of the four parish churches of Southwark for ornaments and
lights, besides 6_s._ 8_d._ for prayers to each of their
curates. It is not less characteristic that he left also