The personage who thus speaks is afterwards constantly desig nated Piers, or sometimes Perkin, the Ploughman, and he makes a considerable figure throughout the sixth and seventh Passus; after which we hear little more of him till we come to the sixteenth. In the eighteenth Passus "the character of Piers the Ploughman," according to Mr. Wright's view (Introduction, p. xxiv.), “is identified with that of the Saviour." Whitaker, who generally calls him "the mysterious personage," conceives (Introductory Discourse, p. xxviii.) that Piers in the latter part of the poem is intended to be the representative of the Church. Taking the church as meaning, not the clergy or the ecclesiastical system, but the body of the faithful, it would not perhaps be impossible to understand Piers as sustaining that character throughout the work.

PIERS PLOUGHMAN'S CREED.

The popularity of Langland's poem appears to have brought alliterative verse into fashion again even for poems of considerable length; several romances were written in it, such as that of William and the Werwolf, that of Alexander, that of Jerusalem, and others; and the use of it was continued throughout the greater part of the fifteenth century. But the most remarkable imitation of the Vision is the poem entitled Piers the Ploughman's Creed, which appears to have been written about the end of the fourteenth century it was first printed separately at London, in 4to. by Reynold Wolfe, in 1553; then by Rogers, along with the Vision, in 1561. In modern times it has also been printed separately, in 1814, as a companion to Whitaker's edition of the Vision; and, along with the Vision, in Mr. Wright's edition of 1842. The

1 I would not take a farthing, if you were to offer me all the wealth of St Thomas's shrine. 3 But if you wish to go well. 4 Must.

2 Less.

Creed is the composition of a follower of Wyclif, and an avowed opponent of Romanism. Here, Mr. Wright observes, "Piers Ploughman is no longer an allegorical personage: he is the simple representative of the peasant rising up to judge and act for himself -the English sans-culotte of the fourteenth century, if we may be allowed the comparison.' The satire, or invective, in this effusion (which consists only of 1697 short lines), is directed altogether against the clergy, and especially the monks or friars; and Piers or Peter is represented as a poor ploughman from whom the writer receives that instruction in Christian truth which he had sought for in vain from every order of these licensed teachers. The language is quite as antique as that of the Vision, as may appear from the following passage, in which Piers is introduced:

Is not this the same word that we have in caury maury (vid. sup. p. 255)? It would seem to be the name of a kind of cloth.

6 Knobbed shoes.

6 Toes.

7 Peeped.

"

* Neither of Mr. Wright's explanations seems quite satisfactory: "crooked shins ; ” ɔr "the shin towards the hock or ankle"?

This whit wasled in the feen'

Almost to the ancle:

Four rotheren him beforn,

That feeble were worthy;'

Men might reckon each a rib
So rentful 10 they weren.
His wife walked him with,
With a long goad,

In a cutted coat

Cutted full high,

Wrapped in a winnow 11 sheet
To wearen her fro weders,12
Barefoot on the bare ice,

That the blood followed.
And at the lond's end 18 lath 14
A little crom-bolle,15

And thereon lay a little child
Lapped in clouts,

And tweyn of twey years old "
Opon another side.

And all they songen 17 18 song,

That sorrow was to hearen;

They crieden all o cry,

A careful note.

The seely man sighed sore,

"Mr. Wright suggests fitter; which does not seem to make sense.

3 Were worn out.

6 Fen, mud.

4 Wight.
5 Dirtied himself.
7 Oxen (the Four Evangelists).

8 Become? Perhaps the true reading is forthy, that is, for that.

→ Each rib.

10 Meagre?

11 Winnowing.

12 The meaning seems to be," to protect her from the weather."

Alliterative verse, the most ancient form of our poetry, would seem to have been revived, and brought into fashion or favor again for a time, after having been long disused, by its successful employment in the Visions of Piers Ploughman, and the popularity of that work. Both Warton in his History, and Percy in an Essay published in the second volume of his Reliques, have noticed several other alliterative poems, in addition to the Creed, which, although not all strictly speaking to be regarded as imitations of Langland's performance, probably owed their existence mainly to the example he had set. In some of them the alliteration is carried much further than in the Visions, the jingle, or juggle, of like beginnings, as Milton might have called it, being introduced, not according to a rule only in certain places of the verse, but apparently to the utmost extent that the writer found possible by availing himself of all the resources of his vocabulary. Here, for instance, is the commencing stanza of a Hymn to the Virgin, given by Warton:

Hail beo yow, Marie, moodur and may,"

Mylde, and meke, and merciable; "

6

Agayn uche stryf9 studefast and stable!

10

Heil, sothfast soul in uche a say,"

Undur the son 11 is non so able.

Heil, logge 12 that ur lord in lay,

The formast that never was founden in fable! 18

Heil, trewe, trouthfull, and tretable! 14

Heil, cheef i chosen of chastite ! 15

Heil, homely, hende,16 and amyable
preye for us to thi sone so fre!

To

THIRD ENGLISH.

(MIXED OR COMPOUND ENGLISH.)

GEOFFREY CHAUCER.

THE Vision of Piers Ploughman is our earliest poetical work of any considerable extent that may still be read with pleasure; but not much of its attraction lies in its poetry. It interests us chiefly as rather a lively picture (which, however, would have been nearly as effective in prose) of much in the manners and general social condition of the time, and of the new spirit of opposition to old things which was then astir; partly, too, by the language and style, and as a monument of a peculiar species of versification. Langland, or whoever was the author, probably contributed by this great work to the advancement of his native tongue to a larger extent than he has had credit for. The grammatical forms of his English will be found to be very nearly, if not exactly, the same with those of Chaucer's; his vocabulary, if more sparingly admitting the non-Teutonic element, still does not abjure the principle of the same composite constitution; nor is his style much inferior in mere regularity and clearness. So long a work was not likely to have been undertaken except by one who felt himself to be in full possession of the language as it existed: the writer was no doubt prompted to engage in such a task in great part by his gift of ready expression; and he could not fail to gain additional fluency and skill in the course of the composition, especially with a construction of verse demanding so incessant an attention to words and syllables. The popularity of the poem, too, would diffuse and establish whatever improvements in the language it may have introduced or exemplified. In addition to the ability displayed in it, and the popular spirit of the day with which it was animated, its position in the national literature naturally and deservedly gave to the Vision of Piers Ploughman an extraordinary influence; for it has the distinction (so far as is either known or probable) of being the earliest original work, of any magnitude, in the present form of the language. Robert of Gloucester and