edition of the Vox Clamantis, which with the other Latin Works will form the fourth volume of this edition, the most important new contribution, besides the account of the various manuscripts, is perhaps the view presented of the author’s political development, as shown in the successive variations of the text. The historical references generally, both in this work and in the Cronica Tripertita, have been compared with the accounts given of the same events by other contemporary writers. This volume will also contain a statement of such facts as it is possible to gather with regard to the life of the author. To a great extent this edition breaks fresh ground, and there are unfortunately but few direct obligations to be acknowledged to former workers in precisely the same field. At the same time the very greatest help is afforded to the editor of Gower by the work that has been done upon Chaucer and other fourteenth-century writers both by societies and individuals, work for which in this country Dr. Furnivall and Professor Skeat, and on the Continent Professor ten Brink, are perhaps most largely responsible. Much of my work has been done in the Bodleian Library and with Bodleian manuscripts, and I should like to acknowledge the courtesy which I have always received there from the Librarian. My thanks are also due to the Librarians of those Colleges, both at Oxford and Cambridge, which possess Gower manuscripts, and to Dr. Young of the Hunterian Museum, Glasgow, for the trouble which[Pg viii] they have taken in giving me facilities for the use of their books, and especially to the Cambridge University Librarian, Mr. Jenkinson, for assistance of various kinds in connexion with the manuscript of the Mirour de l’Omme. I am obliged to the Provost and Fellows of Trinity College, Dublin, for the loan of their manuscript of the Vox Clamantis, and to several private owners, the Duke of Sutherland, the Marquess of Salisbury, the Marquess of Bute, the Earl of Ellesmere, Lord Middleton, and J. H. Gurney, Esq., for having allowed me to make use of their manuscripts. [Pg viii] Finally, my thanks are due to the Delegates of the Oxford University Press for having undertaken the publication of a book which can hardly be very profitable, and for the consideration which they have shown for me in the course of my work. Oxford, 1899. Oxford, 1899.