The twelve-line stanza employed by Gower is one which was in pretty common use among French writers of the ‘moral’ class. It is that in which the celebrated _Vers de la Mort_ were composed by Hélinand de Froidmont in the twelfth century, a poem from which our author quotes. Possibly it was the use of it by this writer that brought it into vogue, for his poem had a great popularity, striking as it did a note which was thoroughly congenial to the spirit of the age[I]. In any case we find the stanza used also by the ‘Reclus de Moiliens,’ by Rutebeuf in several pieces, e. g. _La Complainte de Constantinoble_ and _Les Ordres de Paris_, and often by other poets of the moral school. Especially it seems to have been affected in those ‘Congiés’ in which poets took leave of the world and of their friends, as the _Congiés Adan d’Arras_ (Barb. et Méon, _Fabl._ i. 106), the _Congié Jehan Bodel_ (i. 135), &c. As to the structure of the stanza, at least in the hands of our author, there is not much to be said. The pauses in sense very generally follow the rhyme divisions of the stanza, which has a natural tendency to fall into two equal parts, and the last three lines, or in some cases the last two, frequently contain a moral tag or a summing up of the general drift of the stanza. The verse is strictly syllabic. We have nothing here of that accent-metre which the later Anglo-Norman writers sometimes adopted after English models, constructing their octosyllable in two halves with a distinct break between them, each half-verse having two accents but an uncertain number of syllables. This appears to have been the idea of the metre in the mind of such writers as Fantosme and William of Waddington. Here however all is as regular in that respect as can be desired. Indeed the fact that in all these thousands of lines there are not more than about a score which even suggest the idea of metrical incorrectness, after due allowance for the admitted licences of which we have taken note, is a striking testimony not only of the accuracy in this respect of the author, but also to the correctness of the copy which we possess of his work. The following are the lines in question: 276. ‘De sa part grantement s’esjoït.’ 397. ‘Ly deable grantement s’esjoït’ 2742. ‘Prestre, Clerc, Reclus, Hermite,’ 2955. ‘Soy mesmes car delivrer’ 3116. ‘Q’avoit leur predicacioun oïe,’ 3160. ‘Si l’une est male, l’autre est perverse,’ 4745. ‘Molt plussoudeinent le blesce’ 4832. ‘Ainz est pour soy delivrer,’ 6733. ‘Dame Covoitise en sa meson’ (And similarly 13514 and 16579) 9617. ‘Mais oultre trestous autrez estatz’ 9786. ‘Me mettroit celle alme en gage,’ 10623. ‘L’un ad franchise, l’autre ad servage,’ 10628. ‘L’un ad mesure, l’autre ad oultrage,’ 13503. ‘Dieus la terre en fin donna,’ 14568. ‘Et l’autre contemplacioun enseine.’ 19108. ‘D’avoltire et fornicacioun’ 24625. ‘Doun, priere, amour, doubtance,’