and unqualified. The Author and his Times. [Pg lxii] [Pg lxiii] Of all the various ranks of society which he reviews, that of which he seems to speak with most respect is the estate of Merchants. He takes pains to point out both here and in the Vox Clamantis the utility of their occupation and the justice of their claim to reasonably large profits on successful ventures in consideration of the risks which they run (25177 ff.). He makes a special apology to the honest members of the class for exposing the abuses to which the occupation is liable, pleading that to blame the bad is in effect to praise the good (25213 ff., 25975 ff.), and he is more careful here than elsewhere to point out the fact that honest members of the class exist. These indications seem to suggest that it was as a merchant that Gower made the money which he spent in buying his land; and this inference is supported by the manner in which he speaks of ‘our City,’ and by the fact that it is with members of the merchant class that he seems to be most in personal communication. He has evidently discussed with merchants the comparative value of worldly and spiritual possessions, and he reports the saying of one of them, to the effect that he was a fool who did not make money if he might, for no one knew the truth about the world to come (25915 ff.). He feels strongly against a certain bad citizen who aims at giving privileges in trade to outsiders (26380 ff.), and the jealousy of the Lombards which he expresses (25429 ff.) has every appearance of being a prejudice connected with rivalry in commerce. ‘I see Lombards come,’ he says, ‘in poor attire as servants, and before a year has passed they have gained so much by deceit and conspiracy that they dress more nobly than the burgesses of our City; and if they need influence or friendship, they gain it by fraud and subtlety, so that their interests are promoted and ours are damaged at their will and pleasure.’ If we are to go further and ask in what branch of trade our author exercised himself, it is probable that we may see reason to set him down as a dealer in wool, so enthusiastic is he about wool as the first of all commodities, and so much has he to say about the abuses of the staple (25360 ff.). No[Pg lxiv] doubt the business of exporting wool would be combined with that of importing foreign manufactured goods of some kind. It is known from other sources that Gower was a man who gradually acquired considerable property in land, and the references in the Mirour to the dearness of labour and the
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