Royal MS 18 C XXII

CONFESSIO AMANTIS, by John Gower. The copy has (a) the prologue in which the author calls the poem 'A book for Kyng Richardis sake' (l. 24) and where the date '1390' (f. 3, col. I ) is mentioned in red;-(b) the explicit of six lines containing (ll. 5, 6) the reference to [Henry,] Earl of Derby;-and (c) the 'Epistola super huius operis vel opusculi sui complementum Iohanni Gower a quodam philosopho transmissa', beg. (after the four hexameter lines 'Quam cinxere', &c.) 'Quia unusquisque', which gives the account of Gower's three works, viz. the 'Speculum hominis' in French, the 'Vox clamantis' in Latin elegiacs, and the present poem 'Confessio Amantis' in English, composed, as he there repeats (f. 106, col. 2), for Richard II. The MS. is therefore an example of the first of the three recensions into which G. C. Macaulay (Oxford ed. of Gower's Works, the Engl. volumes also issued by the E. E. Text Soc., 1900) divides the MSS., and he places it in the unrevised group of that recension, calling it 'R' in his collations (i, p. cxlviii). Lines 2889-2916 of bk. vii (example of Cambyses) are omitted, and a few of the Latin summaries. The words 'pope', 'papal', and 'papacy' have been generally erased (ff. 5 b, 39, 47, 47 b, 48), but occasionally left (f. 3, col. 2, 11. 20, 27).

Vellum; ff. 206. 141/2 in. x 93/4 in. First quarter of XV cent. Written In double columns of 44 lines. Gatherings of 8 leaves, with catchwords. Sec. fol. 'Stonde in'. The Latin verses and summaries are in red. Floriated border on f. 1, with miniature of the Confession in initial O, and a miniature, the Image of Nebuchadnezzar's dream, on f. 4 b. Initials of paragraphs in gold and colours, others in red and blue; larger initials with half-borders at the beginning of each book except the first, which runs on straight from the prologue. Two leaves cut away from the end of the last quire, from one of which is set off 'This boke appertayneth vnto the Right Honorable the Ladie Margaret Strange' [the binding has 'Lady Mary Straunge']. One of the Cambridge Univ. MSS. of Gower (Mm. 2. 21) also bears the name 'Margareta Straunge' (Macaulay's ed., I, p. cxl). She was perhaps Margaret, dau. of Henry [Clifford], 2nd Earl of Cumberland, who had 'a good library' (see Dict. Nat Biogr., s.n. Clifford), and wife in 1555 of Henry Stanley [Lord Strange in 1559 and Earl of Derby 1574]. Cat. of 1666, f. 12; not in CMA.