_b_ 266. _wisere þan._ After these words the Corpus MS. (p. 170, col. i, l. 34 mid.), without any warning, goes on to the closing passage of an entirely unrelated 'Petition to the King and Parliament'. By way of compensation, the end of our sermon appears at the close of the Petition. Clearly the scribe (or some one of his predecessors) copied without any regard for the sense from a MS. of which the leaves had become disarranged. _b_ 285. Cp. Acts iii. 6. XII #Dialect#: London (SE. Midland) with Kentish features. #Inflexions#: VERB: pres. ind. 3 sg. _loveth_ _a_ 5; contracted _stant_ _a_ 74. 3 pl. _schewen_ _a_ 136, _halsen_ _a_ 148, _be_ (in rime) _a_ 92. pres. p. _growende_ _a_ 80. strong pp. _schape_ (in rime) _a_ 130, beside _schapen_ _a_ 169. PRONOUN 3 PERS.: sg. fem. nom. _sche_ _a_ 32; pl. _thei_ _a_ 148; _here_ _a_ 144; _hem_ _a_ 112. Unaccented final _-e_ is treated as in Chaucer, having its full value in the verse when it represents an inflexion or final vowel in Old English or Old French, e.g. _And for he scholdė slepė softė_ _a_ 93 _An apė, which at thilkė throwė_ _b_ 5 #Sounds#: _e_ appears as in Kentish for OE. _y_: _hell_ 'hill' _a_ 65, 79, 86; _keste_ 'kissed' _a_ 178; note the rimes _unschette_: _lette_ _a_ 71-2; _pet_ 'pit': _let_ _b_ 9-10; and less decisive _pet_: _knet_ (OE. _knyttan_) _b_ 29-30, 53-4; _dreie_: _beie_ _b_ 23-4. #Spelling#: _ie_ represents close _ẹ̄_: _flietende_ _a_ 157, _hier_ _b_ 34; _diemed_ _b_ 216. #Syntax#: The elaborate machinery of sentence connexion deserves special attention; and many turns of phrase are explained by Gower's fluency in French. * * * * * _a_ 1. Gower follows Ovid, _Metamorphoses_, Bk. xi. Chaucer tells the story of Ceix and Alcyone in his _Death of Blanche the Duchess_, ll. 62 ff. This is presumably the early work to which the Man of Law refers: _I kan right now no thrifty tale seyn But Chaucer, thogh he kan but lewedly On metres and on rymyng craftily, Hath seyd hem, in swich Englissh as he kan, Of olde tyme, as knoweth many a man; And if he have noght seyd hem, leve brother, In o book, he hath seyd hem in another; For he hath toold of loveris up and doun Mo than Ovide made of mencioun In his ~Epistelles~, that been ful olde. What sholde I tellen hem, syn they ben tolde? In youthe he made of Ceys and Alcione_, &c. (Link to _Man of Law's Tale_, ll. 46 ff.) Gower's rendering is the more poetical. _a_ 2. _Trocinie._ Ovid's _Trachinia tellus_, so called from the city of Trachis, north-west of Thermopylae.