O marvel, _Gower_, this Book I direct To thee, and to the Philosophical _Strode_. To vouchsafe, there need is, to correct Of your benignitees and zeles good. _Bale_ makes him _Equitem Auratum & Poetam Laureatum_, proving both from his Ornaments on his Monumental Statue in St. _Mary Overies Southwark_. Yet he appeareth there neither _laureated_ nor _hederated_ Poet, (except the leaves of the Bays and Ivy be wither'd to nothing, since the erection of the Tomb) but only _rosated_, having a Chaplet of four Roses about his Head, yet was he in great respect both with King _Henry_ the Fourth, and King _Richard_ the Second, at whose request he wrote his Book called _Confessio Amantis_, as he relateth in his Prologue to the same Book, in these words, As it befell upon a tide, As thing, which should tho betide, Under the town of New Troie, Which toke of Brute his first ioye, In Themese, when it was flowende, As I by Bote came rowende; So as fortune hir tyme sette, My leige Lord perchance I mette, And so befelle as I cam nigh, Out of my Bote, when he me sigh, He bad me come into his Barge, And when I was with him at large, Amonges other things seyde, He hath this charge upon me leyde, And bad me doe my businesse, That to his high worthinesse, Some newe thynge I should boke, That he hymselfe it might loke, After the forme of my writynge, And this upon his commandynge Myne herte is well the more glad To write so as he me bad. And eke my fear is well the lasse, That none enuie shall compasse, Without a reasonable wite To seige and blame that I write, A gentill hert his tongue stilleth, That it malice none distilleth, But preiseth that is to be preised, But he that hath his word unpeised, And handleth with ronge any thynge, I praie unto the heuen kynge, Froe such tonges he me shilde, And nethelesse this worlde is wilde, Of such ianglinge and what befall, My kinges heste shall not faile, That I in hope to deserue His thonke, ne shall his will observe, And els were I nought excused.