Having shewn that, instead of 20 marks, near 30 pounds a year would be requisite to defray their charges, the commentator tells us that the men of honour and worship, who sent their children to the Inns of Court, added *to their convenient chamber decent furniture, rich apparel, different masters for every science, a full purse for every pastime, and a well apparated servant to attend them, [which] enhaunsed the expence of their stay there; which they very willingly allowed to train their sons up to generous purposes of recreation and profession; since as they were the best of the nation that so placed them, so they, having sufficient estates to defray the charge of their conspicuity, expended it on them in their persons and equipage. For, as then, none but men of estate entred themselves at the Inns of Court, so, being there entred, none almost lived but with a servant to attend him when an under-bar student; which was very comely and useful, if the servant were well chosen and proved well."

From this picture of education in the timeof Gower and Chaucer, I pass to the consideration of Gower's Will. The date shews

* Commentary upon Fortescue, p. 528.

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us that he was living in the early part of 1408. The probate of administration was signed on the 24th of October in that year. His bequests to the Prior, the Sub-prior, Canons, and Servants, of St. Mary Overies; to the four parochial Churches and their Incumbents in Southwark; and to several Hospitals; bespeak his charity and piety, if not his wealth. But the legacy to his wife of one hundred pounds, of all his valuable goods, and of the rents arising from his Manors of Southwell in the county of Nottingham, and of Multon in the county of Suffolk; these, I think, undeniably prove that he was rich. From the appendage to the probate of administration, dated the 7th of Nov. 1408, it appears also that he possessed bona notabilia in several dioceses. In a word, from this document we learn new facts in the history of the poet, illustrating also, in some degree, the manners of the time, as well as his rank in society.

The second article, in this division of the Illustrations, is the copy of a Deed preserved among the ancient records of the Marquis of Stafford. To this Deed, of which the local date is Stitenham, and the chronological 1346, one of the subscribing witnesses is b

John Gower; who, on the back of the Deed, is represented, in the hand-writing of at least a century later, to be "Sr. John Gower the Poet." I offer this Deed as presumptive evidence that Gower, the Poet, was indeed the person, whose attestation is recorded in it; and also that he was of the House of Stitenham. At the date of this Deed in 1346, Gower was upward of twenty years of age. This circumstance therefore cannot but countenance such appropriation of testimony. Leland, Bale, Pits, and Holinshed, pronounce the Poet a Gower of Stitenham; though Francis Thynne *questions their assertions, and Caxton says that he was a native of Wales. Later writers consider his extraction as involved in much obscurity. Yet Edmondson, in his genealogical table of the Stitenham family, places him in the fourth descent of this illustrious House; though indeed he mis-states the year in which he died, and cannot be justified, I think, in saying that Thomas Gower, his

* Animadversions, in this volume, p. 23.

+ In the title of his edition of Gower's Confessio Amantis, 1483.

Baronagium Genealogicum, vol. iii. tab. 254.

See before, p. xii.

only son, was governour of the castle of Mans in the times of the fifth and sixth Henries. Gower died in Henry the fourth's reign. But no mention is made, in his Will, of any child. Yet Gower, as represented to us in that document, was of too pious and considerate a temper to omit the notice of offspring, if, at the time when he bequeathed his considerable property, the endearing name of father belonged to him. Edmondson does not mention either name of the lady, to whom Gower was married; the Christian name of whom, the Will, how ever, records. Yet Glover in his Visitation of Yorkshire, preserved among the Manuscripts in the * College of Heralds, † describes this Sir John Gower (whom Edmondson calls the Poet) as married to a lady, named not Agnes as in the Will, (who, however, might be his second wife,) but Eliza beth, daughter of Sir Edward Sadbowrughe, baron of the Exchequer; by whom his issue

*The College of Heralds contains no other materials of importance in respect to the history of Gower. It possesses, however, an imperfect copy of the Confessio Amantis, in manuscript; the gift of Henry, duke of Norfolk, in King Charles the second's time.

+ Glover's MSS. Yorkshire, 2. D. 5. fol. 134. b.

enumerated are five sons, the second of whom
is named John, and three daughters. I find
no such person as Edw. Sadbowrughe among
the barons of the Exchequer. The *mis-
taken appellation of knightly rank, by which
Gower is distinguished; and the confusion
respecting his marriage and issue; ren-
der therefore the derivation of his extrac-
tion, as given by Glover and Edmondson,
somewhat questionable. But the date of the
Deed, which we have been considering; the
age of Gower at the time; and the place, at
which the Deed is signed, and to which it
refers; all seem to justify the opinion that
Gower was of the Stitenham family in York-
shire. I should not omit to observe that the
pretended place of Gower's nativity, Wales,
which +Caxton had asserted, was not thought
worthy of admission by Berthelet in his sub-
sequent editions of the Confessio Amantis,
printed in 1532 and 1554. This implies

*See Thynne's Animadversions in this volume, p. 24.
† See before, p. xviii.

Herbert implies, that Berthelet had admitted Caxton's assertion in his edition of 1532, and expunged it in that of 1554. Typogr. Antiq. vol. i. p. 45. The Biographia Briannica (Art. GOWER,) pretends also that Berthelet's first edition contained the assertion. But these are mistakes. In neither of Berthelet's editions will it be found.