and enjoined him "to booke
some new thing." This, therefore, was not the first of his poetical
productions, though it is universally admitted to have been his chief,
and that on which his principal reputation depends; and into which "it
seems to have been his ambition to crowd all his erudition." It is,
however, the last of the volumes, the titles which are painted on his
monument in this church, and is supposed to be the last he ever wrote, at
least of any important extent.

The poetical histories of Gower and Chaucer are intimately connected; yet
there is a remarkable difference of opinion and pursuit in their
respective writings. It must be confessed that to Chaucer, and not to
Gower, should be applied the flattering appellation of "the father of our
poetry;" though, as Johnson says, he was the first of our authors who can
be said to have written English. To Chaucer, however, are we indebted for
the first effort to emancipate the British muse from the ridiculous
trammels of French diction, with which, till his time, it had been the
fashion to interlard and obscure the English language. Gower, on the
contrary, from a close intimacy with the French and Latin poets, found it
easier to follow the beaten track. His first work was, therefore, written
in French measure, and is entitled "Speculum Meditantis." There are two
copies of this book now in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. It contains
ten books, and consists of a collection of precepts and examples,
compiled from various authors, recommending the chastity of the marriage
bed.

Gower's next work was a Latin production, entitled, "Vox Clamantis," of
which there are many copies still extant. The unfortunate reign of the
poet's royal patron, and the rebellion of Wat Tyler, furnished Gower with
ample materials for this publication.--The "Confessio Amantis" was first
printed in the year 1403, by Caxton.

There is a MS. in Trinity College, Cambridge, consisting of several small
poems by Gower; but they are nearly destitute of merit. The French
sonnets, however, of which there is a volume in the Marquess of
Stafford's library, are spoken of by Mr. Warton, who has given a long
account of them, with specimens, as possessing more merit.

The "Boke of Philip Sparrow," by the witty, but obscene Skelton, who
wrote towards the close of the fifteenth century, says that "Gower's
Englishe is old;" but the learned Dean Collet, in the early part of the
succeeding century, studied no