On the whole Gower must be admitted to have had considerable literary powers; and though not a man of genius, and by no means to be compared with Chaucer, yet he did good service in helping to establish the standard literary language, which at the end of the 14th century took the place of the Middle English dialects. The _Confessio amantis_ was long regarded as a classic of the language, and Gower and Chaucer were often mentioned side by side as the fathers of English poetry.
A complete edition of Gower's works in four volumes, edited by G. C. Macaulay, was published in 1899-1902, the first volume containing the French works, the second and third the English, and the fourth the Latin, with a biography. Before this the _Confessio amantis_ had been published in the following editions: Caxton (1483); Berthelette (1532 and 1554); Chalmers, _British Poets_ (1810); Reinhold Pauli (1857); H. Morley (1889, incomplete). The two series of French ballades and the _Praise of Peace_ were printed for the Roxburghe Club in 1818, and the _Vox clamantis_ and _Cronica tripartita_ were edited by H. O. Coxe for the Roxburghe Club in 1850. The _Cronica tripartita_, the _Praise of Peace_ and some of the minor Latin poems were printed in Wright's _Political Poems_ (Rolls series, 14). The _Praise of Peace_ appeared in the early folio editions of Chaucer, and has been edited also by Dr Skeat in his _Chaucerian and other Pieces_. Reference may be made to Todd's _Illustrations of the Lives and Writings of Gower and Chaucer_; the article (by Sir H. Nicolas) in the _Retrospective Review_ for 1828; _Observations on the Language of Chaucer and Gower_, by F. J. Child; H. Morley's English Writers, iv.; Ten Brink's _History of Early English Literature_, ii.; and Courthope's _History of English Poetry_, i. (G. C. M.)
GOWER, a seigniory and district in the county of Glamorgan, lying between the rivers Tawe and Loughor and between Breconshire and the sea, its length from the Breconshire border to Worm's Head being 28 m., and its breadth about 8 m. It corresponds to the ancient commote of Gower (in Welsh _Gwyr_) which in early Welsh times was grouped with two other commotes stretching westwards to the Towy and so formed part of the principality of Ystrad Tywi. Its early association with the country to the west instead of with Glamorgan is perpetuated by its continued inclusion in the diocese of St Davids, its two rural deaneries, West and East Gower, being in the archdeaconry of Carmarthen. What is meant by Gower in modern popular usage, however, is only the peninsular part or "English Gower" (that is the Welsh _Bro-wyr_, as distinct from _Gwyr_ proper), roughly corresponding to the hundred of Swansea and lying mainly to the south of a line drawn from Swansea to Loughor.