However, the literary characteristic which is perhaps most remarkable in the _Confessio Amantis_ is connected rather with the form of expression than with the subject-matter. No justice is done to Gower unless it is acknowledged that the technical skill which he displays in his verse and the command which he has over the language for his own purposes is very remarkable. In the ease and naturalness of his movement within the fetters of the octosyllabic couplet he far surpasses his contemporaries, including Chaucer himself. Certain inversions of order and irregularities of construction he allows himself, and there are many stop-gaps of the conventional kind in the ordinary flow of his narrative; but in places where the matter requires it, his admirable management of the verse paragraph, the metrical smoothness of his lines, attained without unnatural accent or forced order of words, and the neatness with which he expresses exactly what he has to say within the precise limits which he lays down for himself, show a finished mastery of expression which is surprising in that age of half-developed English style, and in a man who had trained himself rather in French and Latin than in English composition. Such a sentence as the following, for example, seems to flow from him with perfect ease, there is no halting in the metre, no hesitation or inversion for the sake of the rhyme, it expresses just what it has to express, no more and no less: ’Til that the hihe king of kinges, Which seth and knoweth alle thinges, Whos yhe mai nothing asterte,-- The privetes of mannes herte Thei speke and sounen in his Ere As thogh thei lowde wyndes were,-- He tok vengance upon this pride.’ (i. 2803 ff.) Or again, as an example of a more colloquial kind, ‘And if thei techen to restreigne Mi love, it were an ydel peine To lerne a thing which mai noght be. For lich unto the greene tree, If that men toke his rote aweie, Riht so myn herte scholde deie, If that mi love be withdrawe.’ (iv. 2677 ff.) There is nothing remarkable about the sentiment or expression in these passages, but they are perfectly simple and natural, and run into rhyming verse without disturbance of sense or accent; but such technical skill as we have here is extremely rare among the writers of the time. Chaucer had wider aims, and being an artist of an altogether superior kind, he attains, when at his best, to a higher level of achievement in versification as in other things; but he is continually attempting more than he can perform, he often aims at the million and misses the unit. His command over his materials is evidently incomplete, and he has not troubled himself to acquire perfection of craftsmanship, knowing that other things are more important, ‘And that I do no diligence To shewe craft but o sentence.’