The River of Forth Feasting
Sonnets
Spiritual Poems

PHINEAS FLETCHER
Description of Parthenia
Instability of Human Greatness
Happiness of the Shepherd's Life
Marriage of Christ and the Church


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SPECIMENS, WITH MEMOIRS, OF THE LESS-KNOWN BRITISH POETS.




JOHN GOWER


Very little is told us (as usual in the beginnings of a literature) of
the life and private history of Gower, and that little is not specially
authentic or clearly consistent with itself. His life consists mainly of
a series of suppositions, with one or two firm facts between--like a few
stepping-stones insulated in wide spaces of water. He is said to have
been born about the year 1325, and if so must have been a few years
older than Chaucer; whom he, however, outlived. He was a friend as well
as contemporary of that great poet, who, in the fifth book of his