* * * * *

HAVILLAN.

Should we forget the learned Havillan, our Book would be thought to be imperfect, so terse and fluent was his Verse, of which we shall give you two Examples, the one out of Mr. John Speed his Description of Devonshire, speaking of the arrival of Brute.

  The God’s did guide his Sail and Course, the Winds were at command,
  And Totness was the happy shore where first he came on land.

The other out of Mr. Weever his Funeral Monuments in the Parish of St. Aldermanbury in London, speaking of Cornwal.

  There Gyants whilome dwelt, whose Clothes were skins of Beasts;
  Whose Drink was Blood; Whose Cups, to serve for use at Feasts,
  Were made of hollow Wood; Whose Beds were bushy Thorns;
  And Lodgings rocky Caves, to shelter them from Storms;
  Their Chambers craggy Rocks; their Hunting found them Meat. 
  To vanquish and to kill, to them was pleasure great. 
  Their violence was rule; with rage and fury led,
  They rusht into the fight, and fought hand over head. 
  Their Bodies were interr’d behind some bush or brake,
  To bear such monstrous Wights, the earth did grone and quake. 
  These pestred most the Western Tract; more fear made thee agast,
  O Cornwall, utmost door that art to let in Zephyrus blast.

* * * * *

JOHN GOWER.

John Gower, whom some make to be a Knight, though Stow, in his survey of London, unknighteth him, and saith he was only an Esquire; however he was born of a knightly Family, at Stitenham in the North-Riding in Bulmore-Wapentake in Yorkshire.  He was bred in London a Student of the Laws, but having a plentiful Estate, and prizing his pleasure above his profit, he quitted Pleading to follow Poetry, being the first refiner of our English Tongue, effecting much, but endeavouring more therein, as you may perceive by the difference of his Language, with that of Robert of Glocester, who lived in the time of King Richard the First, which notwithstanding was accounted very good in those days.

This our Gower was contemporary with the famous Poet Geoffry Chaucer, both excellently learned, both great friends together, and both alike endeavour’d themselves and employed their time for the benefit of their Country.  And what an account Chaucer had of this our Gower and of his Parts, that which he wrote in the end of his Work, entituled Troilus & Cressida, do sufficiently testifie, where he saith,

  O marvel, Gower, this Book I direct
  To thee, and to the Philosophical Strode. 
  To vouchsafe, there need is, to correct
  Of your benignitees and zeles good.