[Foot-note: 69 world] lif _MS._] [Foot-note: 98 on] & _MS._] [Foot-note: 100 for (1st)] fro _MS._] [Foot-note: 105 of (1st)] & _MS._] [Foot-note: 108 plesynge] preisynge _MS. altered later_.] [Foot-note: 126 as (2nd)] and _MS._] [Foot-note: 128 oure] oþer _MS._] [Foot-note: 154 bataile] baitale _MS._] [Foot-note: 198 chargid] chargen _MS._] [Foot-note: 202 not so] _repeated MS._] [Foot-note: 228 of] & _MS._] [Foot-note: 275 þan] of _MS._] XII JOHN GOWER D. 1408. John Gower, a Londoner himself, came of a good Kentish family. Chaucer must have known him well, for he chose him as his attorney when leaving for the Continent in 1378, and, with the dedication of _Troilus and Criseyde_, labelled him for ever as 'moral Gower'. Gower's marriage with Agnes Groundolf, probably a second marriage, is recorded in 1398. Blindness came on him a few years later. His will, dated August 15, 1408, was proved on October 24, 1408, so that his death must fall between those two points. By his own wish he was buried in St. Saviour's, Southwark, the church of the canons of St. Mary Overy, to whom he was a liberal benefactor. On his tomb in St. Saviour's Church, Gower is shown with his head resting on three great volumes, representing his principal works—the _Speculum Meditantis_, the _Vox Clamantis_, and the _Confessio Amantis_. The _Speculum Meditantis_, or _Mirour de l'Omme_, is a handbook of sins and sinners, written in French. The _Vox Clamantis_, written in Latin, covers similar ground. Opening with a vision of the Peasants' Revolt of 1381, the poet passes in review the faults of the different grades of society—clergy, nobles, labourers, traders, lawyers—and ends with an admonition to the young King Richard II. In his English work, the _Confessio Amantis_, he expressly abandons the task of setting the world to rights, and promises to change his style henceforth. Now he will sing of Love. The machinery of the poem is suggested by the great source of mediaeval conventions, the _Roman de la Rose_. On a May morning the poet, a victim of love, wanders afield and meets the Queen of Love (cp. the beginning of Chaucer's _Legend of Good Women_). She bids him confess to her priest Genius. Genius hears the confession, sustaining with some incongruity the triple rôle of high priest of Love, Christian moralist, and entertainer—for it is he who tells the stories which, woven about the frame work of the Seven Deadly Sins, make the real matter of the poem. The first form of the _Confessio_ was completed in 1390. It contains a Prologue in which the suggestion for the poem is ascribed to Richard II, and an Epilogue in his praise. In this version the Queen of Love at parting gives Gower a message for Chaucer: