In Warton's 'History of English Poetry,' and in the 'Illustrations of the Lives and Writings of Gower and Chaucer' by Mr Todd, there will be found ample and curious details about MS. poems by Gower, such as fifty sonnets in French; a 'Panegyrick on Henry IV.,' half in Latin and half in English, a short elegiac poem on the same subject, &c.; besides a large work, entitled 'Speculum Meditantis,' a poem in French of a moral cast; and 'Vox Clamantis,' consisting of seven books of Latin elegiacs, and chiefly filled with a metrical account of the insurrections of the Commons in the reign of Richard II. In the dedication of this latter work to Arundel, Archbishop of Canterbury, Gower speaks of his blindness and his age. He says, 'Hanc epistolam subscriptam corde devoto misit _senex et cecus_ Johannes Gower reverendissimo in Christo patri ac domino suo precipuo domino Thome de Arundell, Cantuar. Archiepoe.' &c. Warton proves that the 'Vox Clamantis' was written in the year 1397, by a line in the Bodleian manuscript of the poem, 'Hos ego _bis deno_ Ricardo regis in anno.' Richard II. began, it is well known, to reign in the year 1377, when ten years of age, and, of course, the year 1397 was the twentieth of his reign. It follows from this, that for eleven years at least before his death Gower had been _senex et cecus_, helpless through old age and blindness. The 'Confessio Amantis' is the only work of Gower's which is printed and in English. The rest are still slumbering in MS.; and even although the 'Vox Clamantis' should put in a sleepy plea for the resurrection of print, on the whole we are disposed to say, better for all parties that it and the rest should slumber on. But the 'Confessio Amantis' is altogether a remarkable production. It is said to have been written at the command of Richard II., who, meeting our poet rowing on the Thames, near London, took him on board the royal barge, and requested him to _book some new thing_. It is an English poem, in eight books, and was first printed by Caxton in the year 1483. The 'Speculum Meditantis,' 'Vox Clamantis,' and 'Confessio Amantis,' are, properly speaking, parts of one great work, and are represented by three volumes upon Gower's curious tomb in the old conventual church of St Mary Overies already alluded to--a church, by the way, which the poet himself assisted in rebuilding in the elegant shape which it retains to this day.