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against his will, begged Mercy of Jesus. Presently there came Mercy as a mild maiden walking from the west, and looking hell-ward. Forth from the east, came softly walking, clean and comely, one who seemed to be her sister, and her name was Truth. They spoke of what they saw and what should follow, and Truth doubted the high promises of Mercy, that by this death Death should be destroyed. Then out of the north came to them Righteousness (Justice), and Peace out of the south. Righteousness paid reverence to Peace, who said she was come forth to welcome the redeemed. They shall sing, she said—

"And I shall dance thereto; do also thou, sister, For Jesus jousted well; joy beginneth to dawn."" So Mercy and Truth and Peace and Righteousness spoke of Salvation.

Then is set forth in lively narrative the Descent into Hell. A spirit bade unbar the gates.

"A voice loud in that light to Lucifer said,

'Princes of this palace, prest undo the gates,

For here cometh with coroune the King of all Glory!'"

Then Satan bade the fiends bar out the coming light and hold the gate, but, owning presently that they had not power against Christ, he would appeal, he said, to his justice. Here also Christ crucified prevailed. Satan was bound; the angels sang in Heaven, and Peace piped a poet's note that when the dark cloud disappears, much brighter for that is the sunshine; so when the Hatreds are gone, brighter for that is the Love.

"After sharpest showers,' quoth Peace, 'most sheen is the

sun;

Is no weather warmer than after watery clouds
Neither love liever, ne liever friendés

Than after war and wrack, when Love and Peace ben masters.'"

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Then Truth and Peace embraced; Righteousness and Peace kissed each other; Truth trumpeted and sang, "We praise Thee, O God!" and then Love sang in a loud note, Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity." Till the day dawned these damsels danced. Then men rang to the Resurrection, and the Dreamer awoke, and called to Kit his wife and Calot his daughter, "Arise, and go reverence God's Resurrection, and creep on knees to the cross."

Here the eighth dream ends, and the rest of the poem is said to be Vision of Dobest. The awakened Dreamer went to mass and sacrament, and, sleeping in the midst of the mass, he dreamt again

"That Piers the Plowman was painted all bloody, And came in with a cross before the common people, And right like in all limbs to Our Lord Jesu;

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His colours and his coat-armour, and he that cometh so bloody

It is Christ with his cross, conqueror of Christine.'"

Then Conscience tells the Dreamer of Our Lord as Jesus and as Christ. In his youth he was Dowel. When he was older, and gave eyes to the blind and food to the hungry, he got a greater name, and was Dobet. When he had died for man, and said to doubting Thomas, "Blessed are they that see not as thou hast seen, and yet believe," and gave Piers power and might to show mercy to all manner of men, and power to absolve the penitent who seek to pay that which they owe, and power to bind and to unbind; then he became Dobest, and ascended into heaven, whence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead. Then, says the poet, methought the Holy Spirit descended in likeness of lightning upon Piers and his fellows, and made them to know all kinds of languages. I wondered, and asked Conscience what that was, and feared the fire with which the Holy Spirit overspread them all. Quoth Conscience, then, and kneeled, "This is Christ's messenger, and cometh from the great God; Grace is his name. Welcome him, and worship him with Veni, Creator Spiritus." And I sang then that song, and so did many hundreds, and cried with Conscience, "Help us, God of grace."

Then began Grace to go with Piers Plowman, and counselled him and Conscience to summon the Commons, to take weapons for the battle against Antichrist. Antichrist and his kind were coming to grieve the world; false prophets and flatterers would have the ears of King and Earl; Pride would be Pope, with Covetise and Unkindness for his cardinals.

"Therefore," said Grace, "ere I go I will give you treasure, and weapons for the conflict."

Here follows an enumeration of the gifts of the Spirit, followed by the Holy Spirit's counsel to all to be loyal, and each one craft to love others without boast, or debate, or envy. All crafts are given to men variously by the Grace of God. Let men not blame one another, but love as brethren, and crown Conscience for their king. Piers Plowman is appointed steward of God's Grace, and registrar to receive Redde-quod-debes (pay that which is due), the duty done by each. Piers also was appointed to be God's Plowman on earth, to till Truth with a team of four great oxen named Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John the most gentle of all, the prize neat of Piers' Plough, passing all other. Also four stots-Austin, Ambrose, Gregory, and Jerome to draw the harrow over all those oxen ploughed. Also Temperance, Fortitude, and Justice. "Against thy four seeds, the four Cardinal Virtues-Prudence, grains begin to grow," said Grace, "prepare thee "Give me a house, Piers, for garnering thy corn." timber for it," said Piers, “ ere ye go hence." And Grace gave him the cross with the crown of thorns, and Mercy was the name of the mortar made with the blood shed for man.

Then Grace laid a good foundation, and Piers built a house, and called that house Unity, in English Holy-Church. Then he devised a cart, called Christendom, to carry home the sheaves, and

put two horses to it-Contrition and Confessionand made Priesthood work with him in tilling Truth.

But Pride espied Piers at the plough, and gathered a great host for assault upon his ground, and sent forth his serjeants-of-arms and his spy Spill-love on Speak-evil-behind, who came to Conscience and all Christians, preparing for the destruction of all Piers's work, and for bringing men out of the house Unity. Pride and Lust then came in arms to waste the world. Conscience counselled all Christians to take refuge in the house Unity, Holy-Church, and defend it, seeking Grace for helper. Kindwit (natural sense) joined Conscience in urging upon Christian men to dig a great moat about Unity, that might be a strength to defend Holy-Church. Then most repented of their sins. The cleanness of the people, and clean-living of clerks, made Unity, Holy-Church, to stand in holiness. Conscience called all Christians to eat together, for help of their health as partakers of the Lord's Supper, once a month, or as often as those needed who had paid to Piers Plowman Redde-quoddebes.1

"How?" quoth all the Commons; "counsellest thou us to give to every one his due ere we go to housel ?"

"That," said Conscience, "is my counsel."

"Yea, bah!" quoth a brewer; "I will not be ruled. It is my business to sell dregs and draff, and draw at one hole thick and thin ale, and not to hack after holiness. Hold thy tongue, Conscience."

Conscience warned him that he could not be saved unless he lived as the spirit of justice taught.

"Then," said a Vicar, "many men are lost. I never heard talk in the church of cardinal virtues, or knew a man who cared a cock's feather for Conscience. The only Cardinals I know are those sent by the Pope, and it costs us much, when they come, to pay for their furs and their commons, and to feed their palfreys and the thieves that follow them. Therefore," said this Vicar, "I would that no Cardinals came among the common people, but that they stayed at Avignon among the Jews, or at Rome, if they pleased, to take care of the relics; and that thou, Conscience, wert in the King's Court, never to come thence; and that Grace, of whom thou criest aloud so much, were the guide of all clergy; and that Piers, with his new plough and his old, were Emperor of all the World; that all men were Christian!"

A Lord said, as to Redde-quod-debes, that he held it right and reason to take of his reeve whatever his auditor or steward and the writing of his clerks made to be his. With a spirit of Understanding they make out the rent-roll, and with a spirit of Fortitude they gather it in, will-he, nill-he. A King said that as he was head of the law, crowned to rule Commons and defend the Church, law would that if he wanted anything, he should take it wherever it could most readily be had. "Whatever I take, I take by the spirit of Justice, for I judge you all; so I may be houseled."

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"Yes," said Conscience, “on condition that thou learn to rule thy realm right well in reason and in truth, and that thou have thine asking as the law asks. All things are thine to defend, but not to seize."

Here the Vicar, who was far from home, departed, and the ninth dream ended.

Then William went by the way heavy of cheer, not knowing where to eat, and he met Need, who rebuked him for not excusing himself as the King and others had done. He might have pleaded that as to food, water, and clothing, a man who has them not cannot be forbidden to take them without reference to Conscience or the Cardinal Virtues, if only he obey the Spirit of Temperance, which is a virtue greater than Justice or Fortitude, or even Prudence, for Prudence may fail in many points. God himself taking the shape of man, was so needy that he said, "The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man hath not where to lay his head."2 Be not ashamed of poverty. And then Will slept again, and there came to him the tenth and last of the dreams that form the Vision of Piers Plowman.

He saw Antichrist, in the form of man, spoiling the crop of Truth, and causing Guile and Falsehood to spring and spread in its place in each country that he entered. Friars followed that fiend, for he gave them copes. Whole convents, except only the fools more ready to die than live while loyalty was so rebuked, came out to welcome him, and rang bells in his honour. A false fiend Antichrist ruled over all, and cursed all mild and holy men, and kings who comforted them. So many gathered about Antichrist's banner, and Pride was its bearer.

Conscience counselled men to fortify themselves in Unity, Holy-Church, and call Kind (nature) to their help for love of Piers the Plowman. Then Kind cam out of the planets, and sent forth his forayers; fever and fluxes, coughs and cramps and frenzies, and fou ills. Death came, with his banner borne before hin by Old Age, who claimed that office as his righ There was wild battle. Death dashed into dus kings and knights, kaisers and popes, learned an unlearned.

Conscience besought Kind then to stay his wrat and see whether the people would amend and tu from Pride. But when the punishment was staye then Fortune flattered those who were alive, a promised them long life; and the sins warred st against Conscience and his company. Simony f lowed Avarice, and they pressed on the Pope, a made prelates who held with Antichrist to SH their pockets. Avarice came into the King's cour as a bold baron, and struck Conscience in the co before them all, compelled Good Faith to fly, h Falseness there, and boldly bare down with man bright noble much of the wit and wisdom of W minster Hall. He jogged to a justice, and jous in his ear, and overtilted all his truth; hied ther the Arches, and turned Civil Law to Simony.

"Alas!" said Conscience, "I would that Cover so keen in battle, were a Christian!"

2 Matthew viii. 20.

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Then Life laughed loudly, and held Holiness a jest, and Loyalty a churl, and Liar a free man, Conscience a folly. Life took for his mate Fortune, who said, "Health and I and Highness of Heart shall save thee from all dread of Eld and Death." Life and Fortune became parents of Sloth, who soon came of age, and mated with Despair. Sloth used his sling against Conscience, who called Eld (old age) to battle, and Eld fought with Life, who fled to Physic for protection. Life thought leechcraft able to stay the course of Eld. Eld struck a physician in a furred hood, so that he fell into a palsy, and was dead in three days.

"Now I see," said Life, "that Physic cannot help me to stay the course of Eld;" so he took heart and rode to Revel, a rich place and a merry. Eld hastened after him, the Dreamer says, and on his way passed over my head so closely that he left it bald before and bare upon the crown.

"Sir illtaught Eld," I cried, "since when was there a highway over men's heads? Hadst thou been civil, thou wouldst have asked leave."

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Yea, dear dolt," he said, and so hit me under the ear, that I am hard of hearing. He buffeted me about the mouth, and beat out my grinders, and gyved me with gout so that I may not go at large. Then Death drew near me, and I quaked for fear, and cried to Kind, "Awreak me, if your will be, for I would be hence."

Kind counselled him to go into Unity, hold himself there till Kind summoned him, and see that he had learnt some craft ere he went thence.

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Then

four Virtues. Conscience called Shrift, a good leech, who used the sharp salve of penance and duty. Many asked for a surgeon who would handle them more softly, and give milder plasters. one who loved ease, and lay groaning in fear that he should be killed by fasting on a Friday, told of a friar named Flatterer, who was both surgeon and physician. Quoth Contrition to Conscience, Bring him to Unity, for here are many men hurt through hypocrisy." "We have no need," quoth Conscience; "I know no better leech than parson or parish priest, save Piers the Plowman, that hath power over all." Nevertheless, Conscience did not prevent them from calling on that friar Flatterer. Peace questioned him at the gate, and denied him. entrance, but Fair-Speech pleaded for him, and the gates were opened. "Here," quoth Conscience, "is my cousin Contrition wounded. The plasters and powders of the parson are too sore, and he lets them lie too long, and is loth to change them. From Lent to Lent he lets his plasters bite."

"That is overlong," saith this limitour; "I think I shall amend it." He gave him a plaster of Privypayment-and-I-shall-pray-for-you. Contrition quickly ceased to weep for his wicked works. When Sloth and Pride saw that, they came with a keen will to the attack on Conscience. Conscience again cried, Clergy, come help me!" and bade Contrition help to keep the gate. "He lies drowned," said Peace. "This friar with his physic hath enchanted folk and drenches men with error till they fear no sin."

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Then Conscience vowed that he would become a

“Counsel me, Kind," quoth I; "what craft is best pilgrim over the wide world to seek Piers the Plowto learn?"

"Learn to love," quoth Kind, "and leave all other things. If thou love loyally, thou shalt lack nothing while life lasteth."

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The Dreamer, therefore, went through Contrition and Confession, till he found his way to Unity, where Conscience was constable, to save Christians besieged by seven great giants, who held with Antichrist. Sloth and Avarice led the attack. the Mary," said a priest from the Irish border, I catch silver, I mind Conscience no more than the drinking of a draught of ale." And so said sixty of that country, and shot against him many a sheaf of oaths and broad-hooked arrows, God's Heart, and His nails, and almost had Holy-Church down, when Conscience cried, "Help, Clergy, or I fall." Friars came to the cry; but as they did not understand their work, Conscience forsook them, but offered to be their helper if they learnt to love. Armies under their officers, monks' in their houses, have their numbers known; only the friars, like the hosts of hell, are numberless. Envy bade Friars learn logic, and prove the falsehood that all things under heaven ought to be in common. But God made a law that Moses taught, "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's goods."

Envy, Covetise, Unkindness assailed Conscience, who held him within Unity, Holy-Church, and bade Peace, his porter, bar the gate. Hypocrisy with all the tale-tellers and idle titterers made sharp assault upon the gate, and wounded many a wise teacher who held by Conscience and the

man. "Now Kind, avenge me, and send me hap and hele till I have Piers Plowman!" And after that he cried aloud upon Grace till, says the poet, I awoke.

So ends the Vision, with no victory attained, a world at war, and a renewed cry for the grace of God, a new yearning to find Christ, and bring with him the day when wrongs and hatreds are no more. Though in its latest form somewhat encumbered by reiteration of truths deeply felt, the fourteenth century yielded no more fervent expression of the purest Christian labour to bring men to God. And while the poet dwells on love as the fulfilment of the lawa loyal not a lawless love-he is throughout uncompromising in requirement of a life spent in fit labour, a life of Duty. The sin that he makes Pride's companion in leading the assault on Conscience is Sloth. Every man has his work to do, that should be fruit of love to God and to his neighbour. For omitted duties or committed wrongs there is in Langland's system no valid repentance that does not make a man do all he can to repair the omission, right the wrong. Langland lays fast hold of all the words of Christ, and reads them into a Divine Law of Love and Duty. He is a Church Reformer in the truest sense, seeking to strengthen the hands of the clergy by amendment of the lives and characters of those who are untrue to their holy calling. The ideal of a Christian Life shines through his poem, while it paints with homely force the evils against which it is directed. On points of theology he never dis

putes; but an ill life for him is an ill life, whether in | Library set apart for larger works that do not fall Pope or peasant.

If John Gower's "Speculum Meditantis," (the Mirror of one Meditating), which he wrote in French, were not a lost work, we should have had from Gower also a book exclusively religious. His Latin and his English poem, "Vox Clamantis" and "Confessio Amantis," deal one with the ills of English life in Richard II.'s reign, the other with the Seven Sins, in stories illustrating them, and again also with the ills of England and the duties of a king. The Latin poem "Vox Clamantis" (the Voice of one Crying) was suggested to him by the tumults of the Wat Tyler and Jack Straw Rebellion, in the year 1381. He said there was no blind Fortune who ruled events, no misery without a cause; the ills suffered by man were caused by man. Whence then the misery of England? He went in his poem through all orders of society, and found each failing in duty. Like Langland, he called upon men to live true lives, and he prayed in his poem that his verse might not be turgid, that there might be in it no word of untruth; that each word might answer to the thing it spoke of pleasantly and fitly; that he might flatter in it no

RICHARD THE SECOND.

From the Picture in Westminster Abbey.

one, and seek in it no praise above the praise of God. "Give me," he said, "that there shall be less vice and more virtue for my speaking." But while the same true voice was rising from both Langland and Gower, Gower's two poems are of a kind that may be left for description in the volume of this

necessarily into the present section. The king himself was answerable for many of the miseries of Engd'état land in Richard II.'s reign; and after the coup of 1397, and the murder of his uncle Gloucester, both Langland and Gower turned their backs on him. John Gower wrote a Latin metrical "Tripartite Chronicle," in which he treated as human work the endeavour to keep Richard within bounds of law, and abate courtly corruption; as hellish work his violent breaking of bounds in 1397, after his marriage with an eight-year-old French princess had given him, as he believed, support of the King of France against his people; as heavenly work his deposition. William Langland wrote also in 1399 a poem on the deposition of Richard II., which Mr. Skeat has edited under the well-chosen title of "Richard the Redeless."

Without taking part as a writer in the political questions of his time, but with a faith in God and a goodwill to man that kept him cheerful in days of adversity, Geoffrey Chaucer painted life in his "Canterbury Tales" with a spirit of religion that usually animated pictures of human conduct in which the skill of the artist caused his teaching to be felt rather than seen. He also contrasted the spirit of the poor priest true to his calling with the self-seeking that corrupted many orders of the Church. Although no combatant with bitterness, but calm in the strength of goodwill towards man and faith in God's rule of the world, Chaucer shows always the sympathy of a high poet's nature with the purest aspirations of his time. In his own genial way he joins issue with the corruptions of the Church in pictures of the lordly Monk who loved no text that said hunters were not holy men, and the jingling of whose bridle might be heard in a whistling wind as clear and loud as the chapel bell; of the Friar who knew all the innkeepers and tapsters better than the lepers and beggars, who were no acquaintances for such a worthy man as he; of the summoner who went shares in plunder with the devil, and himself became the devil's share; and he not only paints with a tender enthusiasm, in the poor Town Parson, a minister of religion such as men like Wiclif and Langland were conceiving him, but he makes him also brother to the Ploughman who loved God with all his heart and his neighbour as himself. At the close of the "Canterbury Tales," as they come down to us with their plan unfinished, is the "Parson's Tale." This is in prose, and is simply a sermon, apt to the theme of s Canterbury Pilgrimage, upon the pilgrimage of life. Its text is from the sixth chapter of Jeremiah, "Stand ye in the old ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls." It dwells, as the Vision of Piers Plowman dwells, on true repentance and the battle with the seven deadly sins. In the course of the treatise, each of the seven sins is described, and the description of each is followed by its Remedy. Thus, for example, the religious mind of Chaucer makes his Parson tell of Anger.

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After envy will I declare of the sin of Ire: for soothly who so hath envy upon his neighbour, anon commonly will find him matter of wrath in word or in deed against him to whom he hath envy. And as well cometh Ire of pride as of envy, for soothly he that is proud or envious is lightly wroth.

The sin of Ire, after the describing of Saint Augustine, is wicked will to be avenged by word or by deed. Ire, after the philosopher, is the fervent blood of man yquicked in his heart, through which he would harm to him that he hateth: for certes the heart of man enchafing and moving of his blood waxeth so troubled, that it is out of all manner judgment of reason.

But ye shall understand that Ire is in two manners, that one of them is good, and that other is wicked. The good ire is by jealousy of goodness, through the which man is wroth with wickedness, and against wickedness. And therefore saith the wise man, that ire is better than play. This Ire is with debonairtee, and it is wroth without bitterness: not wroth against the man, but wroth with the misdeed of the man: as saith the Prophet David; Irascimini, and nolite peccare.1 Now understand that wicked Ire is in two manners, that is to say, sudden ire or hasty ire without avisement and consenting of reason; the meaning and the sense of this is, that the reason of a man ne consenteth not to that sudden ire, and that it is venial. Another Ire is that is full wicked, that cometh of felony of heart, avised and cast before, with wicked will to do vengeance, and thereto his reason consenteth and soothly this is deadly sin. This Ire is so displeasant to God, that it troubleth His house, and chaseth the Holy Ghost out of man's soul, and wasteth and destroyeth that likeness of God, that is to say, the virtue that is in man's soul and putteth in him the likeness of the devil, and benimeth the man from God, that is his rightful Lord. This Ire is a full great pleasance to the devil, for it is the devil's furnace that he enchafeth with the fire of hell. For certes right so as fire is more mighty to destroy earthly things than any other element, right so Ire is mighty to destroy all spiritual things. Look how that fire of small gledes,3 that ben almost dead under ashen, will quicken again when they ben touched with brimstone, right so ire will evermore quicken again when it is touched with pride that is covered in man's heart. For certes fire ne may not come out of no thing, but if it were first in the same thing naturally; as fire is drawn out

1 "Be ye angry and sin not" (Ephesians iv. 26). "Cease from anger and forsake wrath; fret not thyself in any wise to do evil" (Psalm xxxvii. 8).

2 Benimeth, taketh away. First-English "beniman." 3 Gledes, red-hot embers. First-English "gléd."

Monastery Gate, Norwich.

of flint with steel. And right so as pride is many times matter of Ire, right so is rancour nourice and keeper of ire. There is a manner tree saith Saint Isidore, that when men make a fire of the said tree, and cover the coals of it with ashen, soothly the fire thereof will last all a year or more: and right so fareth it of rancour when it is once conceived in the heart of some men, certes it will lasten peraventure from one Easter day until another Easter day, or more. But certes the same man is full far from the mercy of God all this while.

In this foresaid devil's furnace there forgen three shrews:1 Pride, that aye bloweth and encreaseth the fire by chiding and wicked words: then standeth Envy, and holdeth the hot iron upon the heart of man, with a pair of long tongs of long rancour and then standeth the sin of Contumely or Strife and Chest, and battereth and forgeth by villainous reprovings. Certes this cursed sin annoyeth both to man himself, and eke his neighbour. For soothly almost all the harm or damage that any man doth to his neighbour cometh of wrath: for certes, outrageous wrath doth all that ever the foul fiend willeth or commandeth him; for he ne spareth neither for our Lord Jesu Christ, ne his sweet mother; and in his outrageous anger and ire, alas! alas! full many one at that time, feeleth in his heart full wickedly, both of Christ, and also of all his halwes. Is this not a cursed vice? Yes certes. Alas! it benimeth from man his wit and his reason, and all his debonaire life spiritual that should keep his soul. Certes it benimeth also God's due lordship (and that is man's soul) and the love of his neighbours: it striveth also all day against truth; it reaveth him the quiet of his heart, and subverteth his soul.

Of Ire comen these stinking engendrures: first, Hate, that is old wrath; Discord, through which a man forsaketh his old friend that he hath loved full long; and then cometh war and every manner of wrong that a man doth to his neighbour in body or in catel.

Of this cursed sin of Ire cometh eke manslaughter. And understand well that homicide (that is, manslaughter) is in divers wise. Some manner of homicide is spiritual, and some is bodily.

Spiritual manslaughter is in six things. First, by Hate, as saith St. John: He that hateth his brother is an homicide. Homicide is also by Backbiting; of which back biters saith Solomon, that they have two swords, with which they slay their neighbours: for soothly as wicked it is to benime of

Shrews, evil betrayers.

5 Chest, contention, battle, enmity. First-English "ceast." Halwes, saints. First-English "hálga," a holy one, a saint; "hálig," holy."

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