ONE of the most remarkable pictures of ancient manners which has been transmitted to us is that in which the poet Gower describes the circumstances under which he was commanded by King Richard II. 66 To make a book after his hest." The good old rhymer,-"the moral Gower," as Chaucer calls him,-who probably resided in Southwark, where his monument may yet be seen in the church of St. Mary Overies, had taken boat; and upon the broad river he met the king in his stately barge. It was an accidental meeting, he tells us. The monarch, who had come most probably from his palace of Westminster, where even thousands ministered, it is said, to his luxurious tastes, espied the familiar face of the minstrel, and stopped him upon that great highway of London, which was an open road for the meanest as for the highest. He called him on board his own vessel, and desired him to book "some new thing." This was the origin of the 'Confessio Amantis.' But the poet shall record the story in his own simple words : "As it befel upon a tide, As thing which should then betide, B |