As regards the invention of his allegory he seems to be to some extent original. There is nothing, so far as I know, to which we can point as its source, and such as it is, he is apparently entitled to the credit of having conceived it. The materials, no doubt, were ready to his hand. Allegory was entirely in the taste of the fourteenth century, dominated as it was by the influence of the _Roman de la Rose_, from which several of Gower’s personifications are taken. The _Mariage des Sept Arts_ was a work of this period, and the marriage of the Deadly Sins was not by any means a new idea. For example in MS. Fairfax 24 (Bodleian Libr.) there is a part of a French poem ‘de Maritagio nouem filiarum diaboli,’ which begins, ‘Li deable se vout marier, Mauveisté prist a sa moiller: . . . . . . . De ceste ix filles engendra Et diversement les marya,’ &c. And no doubt other pieces of a similar kind exist. The same is true as regards the other parts of the book, as has been already pointed out; the combination alone is original. The style is uniformly respectable, but as a rule very monotonous. Occasionally the tedium is relieved by a story, but it is not generally told in much detail, and for the most part the reader has to toil through the desert with little assistance. It must not be supposed, however, that the work is quite without poetical merit. Every now and then by some touch of description the author betrays himself as the graceful poet of the _Balades_, his better part being crushed under mountains of morality and piles of deadly learning, but surviving nevertheless. For example, the priest who neglects his early morning service is reminded of the example of the lark, who rising very early mounts circling upward and pours forth a service of praise to God from her little throat: ‘Car que l’en doit sanz nul destour Loenge rendre au creatour Essample avons de l’alouette, Que bien matin de tour en tour Monte, et de dieu volant entour Les laudes chante en sa gorgette.’ (5635 ff.) Again, Praise is like the bee which flies over the meadows in the sunshine, gathering that which is sweet and fragrant, but avoiding all evil odours (12853 ff.). The robe of Conscience is like a cloud with ever-changing hues (10114 ff.). Devotion is like the sea-shell which opens to the dew of heaven and thus conceives the fair white pearl; not an original idea, but gracefully expressed: ‘Si en resçoit le douls rosé, Que chiet du ciel tout en celée, Dont puis deinz soi ad engendré La margarite blanche et fine; Ensi Devocioun en dée Conceipt, s’elle est continué, La Contemplacioun divine.’ (10818 ff.) The lines in which our author describes the life of the beggar show that, though he disapproves, he has a real understanding of the delights of vagabondage, with its enjoyment of the open-air life, the sunshine, the woods, and the laziness: