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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 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:

Then turned I me forth,

And talked to myself

Of the falsehede of this folk,

How faithless they weren
And as I went by the way
Weeping for sorrow,

I see a seely1 man me by
Opon the plough hongen.2
His coat was of a clout3

That cary' was y-called;
His hood was full of holes,
And his hair out;

2 Hung, bent, over.

3 Cloth.

1 Simple.

This is probably the same word that we have elsewhere in caury maury. It would seem to be the name of a kind of cloth.

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1 Knobbed shoes.

With his knopped shoon1

Clouted full thick,

His ton2 toteden3 out

As he the lond treaded:

His hosen overhongen his hoc-shynes

On everich a side,

All beslomered5 in fen

As he the plough followed.

Twey' mittens as meters

Made all of clouts,

The fingers weren for-weard'
And full of fen honged.

This whit10 wasled" in the feen12
Almost to the ancle:

Four rotheren13 him beforn,

.14

That feeble were worthy
Men might reckon each a rib1s
So rentful they weren.
His wife walked him with,
With a long goad,

In a cutted coat

Cutted full high,

Wrapped in a winnow sheet

To wearen her fro weders,18
Barefoot on the bare ice,

That the blood followed.
And at the lond's end1 lath20
A little crom-bolle,21

And thereon lay a little child
Lapped in clouts,

And tweyn of twey years old22
Opon another side.

And all they songen23 044 song,
That sorrow was to hearen;
They crieden all o cry,

A careful note.

Toes.

3 Peeped.

4 Neither of Mr. Wright's explanations seems quite satisfactory: “crooked shins:" or "the shin towards the hock or ankle?"

5 Bedaubed.

6 Mud.

7 Two.

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

9 Were worn out.

12 Fen, inud.

10 Wight. 11 Dirtied himself. 13 Oxen (the Four Evangelists). reading is forthy, that is, for that. 16 Meagre? 17 Winnowing.

14 Become? Perhaps the true

15 Each rib.

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

19 The end of the field.

20 Lieth?

23 Sang.

21 Mr. Wright explains by "crum-bowl."

Two of two years old.

21 One.

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1 Be.

The seely man sighed sore,

And said, "Children, beth' still."
This man looked opon me,

And leet the plough stonden.;2

And said, "Seely man,

Why sighest thou so hard?
Gif thee lack lifelode,

Lene thee ich will

Swich good as God hath sent:
Go we, leve brother."

2 Let the plough stand.

3 If livelihood lack, or be wanting to, thee.

4 Give or lend thee I will.

6 Let us go, dear brother.

5 Such.

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 Robert de Brunne, Langland's predecessors, were both, it may be remembered, only translators or paraphrasts.

If Langland, however, is our earliest original writer, Chaucer is still our first great poet, and the true father of our literature, properly so called. Compared with his productions, all that precedes is barbarism. But what is much more remarkable is, that very little of what has followed in the space of nearly five centuries that has elapsed since he lived and wrote is worthy of being compared with what he has left us. He is in our English poetry almost what Homer is in that of Greece, and Dante in that of Italy-at least in his own sphere still the greatest light.

Although, therefore, according to the scheme of the history of the language which has been propounded, the third form of it, or that which still subsists, may be regarded as having taken its commencement perhaps a full century before the date at which we are now arrived, and so as taking in the works, not only of Langland, but of his predecessors from Robert of Gloucester inclusive, our living English Literature may be most fitly held to begin with the poetry of Chaucer. It will thus count an existence already of above five centuries. Chaucer is supposed to have been born about the beginning of the reign of Edward III.-in the year 1328, if we may trust what is said to have been the ancient inscription on his tombstone; so that he had no doubt begun to write, and was probably well known as a poet, at least as early as Langland. They may indeed have been contemporaries in the strictest sense of the word, for anything that is ascertained. If Langland wrote the Creed of Piers Ploughman, as well as the Vision, which (although it has not, we believe, been suggested) is neither impossible nor very unlikely, he must have lived to as late, or very nearly as late, a date as Chaucer, who is held to have died in 1400. At the same time, as Langland's greatest, if not only, work appears to have been produced not long after the middle of the reign of Edward III., and the composition of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales not to have been begun till about the middle of that of Richard II., the probability certainly is, regard being had to the species and character of these poems, each seemingly impressed with a long experience of life, that Langland, if not the earlier writer, was the elder man.

The writings of Chaucer are very voluminous; comprising, in so far as they have come down to us, in verse, The Canterbury Tales; the Romaunt of the Rose, in 7701 lines, a translation from the French Roman de la Rose of Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun; Troilus and Creseide, in Five Books, on the same subject as the Filostrato of Boccaccio; The House of Fame, in Three Books; Chaucer's Dream, in 2235 lines; the Book of

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