John, one of the most ancient of the English poets, was contemporary with Chaucer, the father of English poetry, and his intimate friend. Of what family, or in what part of the kingdom, he was born, is uncertain. He studied the law, and was some time a member of the society of Lincoln's Inn, where his acquaintance with Chaucer commenced. Some have asserted that he was chief justice of the common pleas; but this is by no means certain. In the first year of Henry IV. he became blind; a misfortune which he laments in one of his Latin poems. He died about the year 1400, and was buried in St Mary Overy, which church he had rebuilt chiefly at his own expense. His tomb, which was magnificently and curiously ornamented, still remains, but it has been repaired in later times. From the collar round the neck of his effigy on the tomb, it is conjectured that he had been knighted. As to his character as a man, it is impossible, at this distance of time, to state any thing with certainty. With regard to his poetical talents, he was admired at the time when he wrote, though a modern reader may find it difficult to discover much harmony or genius in any of his compositions. He wrote, 1. Speculum Meditantis, un Traité selon les auteurs, pour ensampler les Amants mariez au fins qils la foy de leur seints espoussailles, pourront per finz loyauté guarder, et al honore de Dieu saltevent tener, in ten books; 2. Vox Clamantis, in Latin verse, a chronicle of the insurrection of the commons in the reign of Richard II., in ten books; 3. Confessio Amantis, printed at Westminster by Caxton in 1493, also London, 1532, 1534, a sort of poetical system of morality, interspersed with a variety of moral tales; and, 4. De Rege Henrico IV., printed in Chaucer's works. There are likewise several historical tracts, in manuscript, written by Gower, which are to be found in different libraries, besides short poems printed in Chaucer's works. At a very early period Gower had become obsolete. Skelton, in the Boke of Philip Sparrow, says, "Gower's Englishe is old;" and, about the beginning of the sixteenth century, his language was out of use. A second edition of the Confessio Amantis was printed by Barthelet in 1532, a third in 1544, a fourth in 1554, and, at the distance of two centuries and a half, a fifth was published in a modern edition of the English poets. Gower was esteemed a man of great learning, and he appears to have lived and died in affluence.