Gower [John].
- Author/Editor
- Campbell, John.
- Title
- Gower [John].
- Published
- Biographia Britannica, Or, the Lives of the Most eminent Persons Who Have flourished in Great Britain and Ireland From the earliest Ages, Down to the present Time: Collected from the best Authorities, both Printed and Manuscript, And digested in the Manner of Mr Bayle's Historical and Critical Dictionary. London: Printed for W. Innys, W. Meadows, J. Walthoe, T. Cox, A. Ward, J. and P. Knapton, T. Osborne, S. Birt, D. Browne, T. Longman and T. Shewell, H. Whitridge, R. Hett, C. Hitch, T. Astley, S. Austen, C. Davis, R. Manby and H.S. Cox, C. Bathurst, J. and R. Tonson and S. Draper, J. Robinson, J. Hinton, J. and J. Rivington, and M. Cooper, 1747-1766. 6 vols. in 7, continuously paginated. Volume 4: 2242-51.
- Review
- This biography of Gower—signed only "E," but see N.B. below—digests, substantially extends, and at times critiques or corrects information and opinions found in works by John Leland, John Bale, John Stow, John Pits, Thomas Fuller, and others, acknowledging, quoting from, and responding to them in side-bar citations, augmented by lengthy footnotes that supply social, literary, and bibliographical background and context. It is a remarkable achievement, not easily absorbed or summarized, but well worth attention as a valuable snapshot of eighteenth-century knowledge and opinions of Gower. The main entry, for example, considers the question of Gower's presumed change of allegiance from Richard to Henry, summarizing comments of some who "blame [Gower] exceedingly for his conduct in this respect," and asserting instead that it "may be, and indeed is, much more like to be the truth, that our author was ever averse to King Richard's administration, in consequence of his [Gower's] steady attachment to Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester" (2244-45). Many of Gower's shorter works—his "little discourses on religious and moral subjects," we are told—need to be "drawn out of the dust and cobwebs" and "ensured against oblivion by the press" for their historical value and their moral sentiment (2247-48). Together, the "joint endeavors" of Gower and Chaucer made it possible that "there came to be such a thing as English poetry" (2250). Individual notes offer perspectives on heraldry and Gower's putative status as a knight (Note A); extensive information about his tomb and its inscriptions, including quotations (H); and several conjectural possibilities concerning the poet's ancestry, progeny, and the implications of his Lancastrian collar "of SS" and connections with Henry IV (I). Note B describes aspects of Gower-Chaucer relations and quotes the poets' references to each other—Chaucer's reference to "moral Gower" in Troilus and Criseyde 5.1856-59 and Venus's greeting to Chaucer in CA 8.*2941-57, each with modern translation. Note D dilates further on Gower's possible opinions of Richard II and historical assessments of those opinions. Notes E and G include extensive lists of Gower's minor works, with manuscript references and commentary on Gower’s political views; E prints a full version of "In Praise of Peace" from John Urry's 1721 edition of Chaucer’s works. In note C, which pertains to Gower's major works, discussion of the Speculum Meditantis (i.e., Mirour de l'Omme) is misleading: "two copies" are "in the Bodleian Library . . . written in French, in ten books," with citation of manuscripts "NE. F.8,9" and of "Fairfax 3." I have been unable to identify the first shelfmark (although it suggests shelving by geography), and Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Fairfax 3, does not include the poem, although its colophon (f. 194r) describes the work as being in French and in ten parts, information also found in other Gowerian colophons. Note C quotes the headnote and opening line of Gower's Traité pour Essampler les Amants Marietz, erroneously, as the "title at large" of MO, conflating the two works. Continuing, note C describes Vox Clamantis as "a kind of chronicle or history of the insurrection . . . in the reign of Richard II," with references to several manuscripts in Oxford libraries, and others "more frequent in private hands." The note prints VC Book I, chapter xi, 783-830 (no source-manuscript given)—to my knowledge, the first printing of any portion of the poem. The passage is given in Latin only, we are told apologetically, because translation "would be very difficult if not impossible." Note C also quotes, with translation, the "title at large" of VC as found in Tiberius A.IV.1 of the Cotton collection ("a very correct manuscript"), then goes on to describe one of the Oxford manuscripts—All Souls MS 98, here cited as "MS. Oxon. in Coll. Omn. Animarum, 26"—as a "fairer and more beautiful manuscript," from which the epistle to Archbishop Arundel is quoted as evidence that this version is a "kind of second edition when [Gower] joined to it some other historical pieces, and being written as himself says, when he was old and blind, might very probably be one of the last things he ever penned, or rather dictated" (p. 2244). Note C continues with brief comments on the Caxton edition of the Confessio Amantis and Thomas Berthelette's editions of the poem, with no accompanying discussion of manuscripts. A side-bar reference to a "curious account" in the William Caxton entry earlier in the Biographia [see volume 2, pp. 1240-4, note O] leads us to a discussion of Caxton's title-page to CA and the CA Prologues in Caxton and in Berthelette that explores historical and textual aspects of the Prologues and dedications of these printed editions—preceded by commentary that corrects or at least addresses several emphases in earlier biographical accounts of Gower. Returning to note C of the main Gower entry, we find CA described as a "kind of poetical system of Morality, interspersed with weighty sentences, excellent maxims, and shrewd sayings; but far the greatest part [is] composed of pleasant stories happily introduced as instances or examples in support of the virtuous doctrine delivered." In support of the main-entry assertion that Gower’s works reflect deep learning and probity as “monuments of the progress of good sense thro’ former ages” (p. 2246), note F prints CA, Book VII, 3945-60 in Middle English, and translates into modern poetry the entire Tale of the Courtiers and the Fool (VII, 3945-4026), offering it as an example of Gower's sensible advice to Richard II and evidence that Gower "knew the force of example and commonly illustrated his precepts by having recourse to antient or modern history" (2248). Note K comprises quotations that illustrate Gower's early modern reception: selections from Berthelette, George Puttenham, Sir Philip Sidney, and Henry Peacham. The main entry concludes by explaining that "it was a point of duty to render so much justice to John Gower, whose memory has been too much neglected by some and too hastily injured by others . . . . And it is from a consciousness of this, that we have not spared either industry or labour, to set, as we hope we have done, this article in a proper light." N.B. In the Preface to the second volume of the second edition of the Biographia Britannica (5 vols., 1778-93), p. viii, Andrew Kippis explains that entries in the Biographia signed "E" (as is the one about Gower) were contributed by "Dr. Campbell," whom Kippis later identifies (p. 423, note B) as the author of The Political Survey of Britain (1774), i.e., Dr. John Campbell (1708-1775). Kippis also says that entries signed "G" (as is the Caxton entry mentioned above) were contributed by William Oldys. [MA]
- Date
- 1747-1766
1778-1793, 2d ed.
- Gower Subjects
- Biography of Gower
Backgrounds and General Criticism