where a splendid monument was raised over his remains. The principal composition of Gower consists of three parts. The first and second, entitled respectively "Speculum Meditantis" and "Vox Clamantis," have never been printed: it is even doubtful that a copy of the former exists. The third part, the "Confessio Amantis," was first printed in 1483, and upon it the fame of Gower as a poet is based. It is written in English; the others being composed, the one in French the other in Latin, and was undertaken at the desire of Richard II. The poem is a dialogue between a lover and his confessor, a priest of Venus, in which, as Wharton remarks, "the ritual of religion is applied to the tender passion, and Ovid's Art of Love is blended with the breviary;" and it is happily characterized by Mr. Gilfillan as being "crammed with all varieties of learning, and a perverse but infinite ingenuity is shown in the arrangement of its heterogeneous materials. In one book the whole mysteries of the hermetic philosophy are expounded, and the wonders of alchemy dazzle us in every page. In another, the poet scales the heights and sounds the depths of Aristotelianism." Whatever the reputation of the author might have been in his own day, and however great his merit as one of the first to aid in extricating the English tongue from the trammels of French and Latin, and to give it a distinctive form and character, it would be but affectation to say that, as a whole, his compositions could be popular or almost palatable to moderns. Unlike his pupil Chaucer, whose poetry will be ever fresh-growing upon the heart and ear of the reader the more he is studied, Gower is frigid, affected, learned, all intellect, little imagination, and though here and there a passage glitters, as mica shines out from the cold hard granite, still, as a whole, it is a heavy task to work through the poem. There is much truth in Mr. Gilfillan's terse estimate of him—"He is more remarkable for extent than for depth, for solidity than for splendour, for fuel than for fire, for learning than for genius." Still let us remember the state of literature in England when he wrote, and try him by a true standard. Unlike romancists and troubadours, his compositions are always moral, and he used his power to promote virtue.—J. F. W.
GOWRIE, the title of the noble and powerful Scottish family of Ruthven, which occupies a prominent place in the history of the country. Their progenitor was a Dane of the name of Thor, who settled in Scotland during the reign of David I., and obtained a grant of lands in Perthshire. Walter, the third in descent from Thor, assumed the name of De Ruthven, from one of the manors which he inherited from his ancestor. Sir William, the eleventh possessor of the family estates, was created Lord Ruthven in 1487. His eldest son fell at the battle of Flodden, 9th September, 1513, in the lifetime of his father. Partly by royal grants, partly by marriages, the Ruthvens were now in possession of vast estates in the counties of Perth, Angus, Mid-Lothian, East-Lothian, and Berwick; were closely allied with the great houses of Buchan, Douglas, Lindsay, Campbell, Drummond, and Gray, and had become one of the most powerful families in the kingdom; but their ambition and turbulence speedily brought about their total ruin.—Patrick, third Lord Ruthven, has obtained an unenviable notoriety by the prominent part which he took in the murder of David Riccio, 9th March, 1566. After George Douglas, an illegitimate son of the earl of Angus, he was the first person to whom the plot was communicated by Darnley. Though he had for some months been confined to bed by an incurable disease, and was at this time, as he himself states, "scarcely able to walk twice the length of his chamber," he cordially entered into the wicked project. It was he who first followed Darnley into the queen's closet and informed her of their intention to have out "the villain Davie." He was the first who attempted to lay hands on the secretary, and it was he who, when the foul murder was accomplished, returned to the closet and loaded with abuse the hapless queen, whom terror and fatigue had rendered almost incapable of utterance. When Mary succeeded in escaping from Holyrood, Ruthven, along with some others of the assassins, fled to Newcastle, where he soon after died, 13th June, 1566. He left a narrative of the murder of Riccio, in which there is not an expression of regret, or symptom of compunction, for that barbarous and dishonourable crime.—His son, William, fourth Lord Ruthven, was also engaged with his father in the conspiracy against Riccio, and fled with him into England. He obtained the queen's pardon, however, through the intercession of Morton; but soon after his return to Scotland he joined the confederacy of the nobles against Mary and Bothwell, and was commissioned, along with Lord Lindsay (both "men of peculiarly savage manners even for that age"), to conduct the queen to Lochleven; and, according to Knox, he was also associated with Lindsay in extorting from that unhappy princess the surrender of her crown. Ruthven was appointed treasurer of Scotland for life in 1571, and one of the extraordinary lords of session in 1578. He was created Earl of Gowrie in 1581, probably as a reward for the part he took in the downfall of the Regent Morton, and received a grant of the lands and barony of that name which had belonged to the monastery of Scone. The earl, who was possessed of great ambition and energy, was the leader of the plot for the overthrow of the royal favourites, Lennox and Arran, and the seizure of the king's person at Ruthven castle—hence called "the Raid of Ruthven." After a captivity of ten months, James made his escape, but he formally pardoned Gowrie for his share in the treasonable enterprise, on his expressing penitence for his offence, and even appointed him a member of his council. But, unable to brook the insolence of Arran, the earl quitted the court, and obtained permission from the king to retire to France. While waiting at Dundee for an opportunity to embark, he learned that Angus, Mar, and other nobles, had conceived a plan for the forcible removal of Arran from the king's council, and was easily persuaded to engage in the plot. The secret was betrayed to the favourite, who immediately caused Gowrie to be arrested. The evidence against him, however, was defective, but the earl was induced to make a confession of his guilt by a solemn promise of Arran that his life should be spared. In flagrant violation of this assurance, Gowrie was brought to trial at Stirling, condemned on his own confession, and executed on the same day, 28th May, 1554. Though turbulent, intriguing, and revengeful, Gowrie was a person of cultivated mind, a proficient in music, and a liberal patron of the fine arts.—His eldest son, James, second earl of Gowrie, died in 1588, in his fourteenth year, and was succeeded in the title and estates by his brother John, third and last earl, the contriver of that mysterious plot called the Gowrie conspiracy. Along with his brother Alexander he studied for five years with great distinction at the university of Padua, and, like his father and grandfather, seems to have dabbled in the study of magic, as well as of chemistry and astrology. On the return of the young earl to Scotland in 1600, when he had reached his twenty-second year, he was enthusiastically welcomed by the people, and was even cordially received by the king, who was pleased with his learning, as well as with his handsome countenance and graceful manners, and often conversed with him on strange and abstruse subjects. Gowrie, however, soon made it evident that he had no intention of becoming a courtier; and little more than a month after his return—to James's great displeasure—he headed the opposition of the Estates to a demand on the part of the king for the grant of a large sum of money; and there is every reason to believe, that from an early age the earl had cherished feelings of revenge against all who had been concerned in his father's death, the king himself included. The actual rise of the conspiracy was not later than the month of July, 1600. Its object is still partially enveloped in obscurity. But certain letters which passed between Gowrie and Logan of Restalrig, and another accomplice whose name is unknown, but who was probably Stewart, earl of Bothwell, seem to indicate that the intention of the conspirators was to obtain possession of the king's person, to convey him to Logan's inaccessible fortalice of Fastcastle in Berwickshire, and to administer the government in the royal name. With this view James, who was at this time residing at the palace of Falkland for the purpose of hunting, was on the 5th of August enticed to Gowrie house at Perth, by Alexander, Master of Ruthven, Cowrie's brother, who pretended that he had on the preceding evening seized a man in disguise carrying under his cloak a large pot full of gold pieces, and entreated the king to ride with him to Perth, for the purpose of examining the man and taking possession of the money. James ultimately consented to young Ruthven's request, and after the close of the hunt set out for Perth followed by a slender retinue. On reaching that city, the king was met by the earl and a large body of retainers, and conducted to Gowrie house. After dinner, the king and the Master of Ruthven left the dining-room unobserved, and went up stairs for the pretended purpose of examining the treasure. On reaching a small closet, in which stood a man in armour, who proved to be the
