Merchants in these days talk of thousands, where their fathers talked of scores or hundreds; but their fathers lived honestly and paid their debts, while these defraud all who have dealings with them. When you enter their houses, you see tapestried rooms and curtained chambers, and they have fine plate upon the tables, as if they were dukes; but when they die, they are found to have spent all their substance, and their debts are left unpaid (25813 ff.). [Pg lxvii] In the country the labourers are discontented and disagreeable. They do less work and demand more pay than those of former times. In old days the labourer never tasted wheaten bread and rarely had milk or cheese. Things went better in those days. Now their condition is a constant danger to society, and one to which the upper classes seem strangely indifferent (26425 ff.). Curious accounts are given of the customs of the legal profession, and when our author comes to deal with the jury-panel,[Pg lxviii] he tells us of a regularly established class of men whose occupation it is to arrange for the due packing and bribing of juries. He asserts that of the corrupt jurors there are certain captains, who are called ‘tracers’ (traiciers), because they draw (treront) the others to their will. If they say that white is black, the others will say ‘quite so,’ and swear it too, for as the tracer will have it, so it shall be. Those persons who at assizes desire to have corrupt jurymen to try their case must speak with these ‘tracers,’ for all who are willing to sell themselves in this manner are hand and glove with them, and so the matter is arranged (25033 ff.). The existence of a definite name for this class of undertakers seems to indicate that it was really an established institution. [Pg lxviii] These are a few of the points which may interest the reader in the reflection of the manners of society given by our author’s ‘mirror.’ The whole presents a picture which, though no doubt somewhat overcharged with gloom, is true nevertheless in its outlines. Text.—It remains to speak of the text of this edition and of the manuscript on which it depends. Text. In the year 1895, while engaged in searching libraries for MSS. of the Confessio Amantis, I observed to Mr. Jenkinson, Librarian of the Cambridge University Library, that if the lost French work of Gower should ever be discovered, it would in all probability be found to have the
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