of subordinate importance. Alliteration, which we find here combined with rhyme, was in an earlier stage of our poetry employed, more systematically, as the substitute for that decoration-the recurrence, at certain regular intervals, of like beginnings, serving the same purpose which is now accomplished by what Milton has contemptuously called "the jingling sound of like endings." To the Anglo-Saxons rhyme was unknown, and their verse appears to have been constructed wholly upon the principle of alliteration. Hence, naturally, even after we had borrowed the practice of rhyme from the French or Romance writers, our early English poetry retained something of its original habit; and, as in Minot, we have rhyme and a liberal use of alliteration subsisting together. At this date, in fact, the difficulty probably would have been to avoid alliteration in writing verse; all the old customary phrascologies of poetry had been constructed upon that principle; and indeed alliterative expression has in every age, and in many other languages as well as our own, had a charm for the popular ear, so that it has always largely prevailed in proverbs and other such traditional forms of words, nor is it yet altogether discarded as an occasional embellishment of composition, whether in verse or in prose. But there is one poetical work of the fourteenth century, of considerable extent, and in some respects of remarkable merit, in which the verse is without rhyme, and is constructed upon a system of alliteration as constantly observed as in the AngloSaxon poetry. This is the famous Vision of Piers Ploughman,' or, as the subject is expressed at full length in the Latin title, Visio Willielmi de Petro Plouhman,' that is, 'The Vision of William concerning Piers or Peter

Ploughman.' The manuscripts of this poem, which long continued to enjoy a high popularity, are very numerous, and it has also been repeatedly printed: first in 1550, at London, by Robert Crowley, "dwellyng in Elye rentes in Holburne," who appears to have produced three successive impressions of it in the same year; next in 1561, by Owen Rogers, "dwellyng neare unto great Saint Bartelmewes gate, at the sygne of the Spred Egle ;” then in 1813, under the superintendence of the late Thomas Dunham Whitaker, LL.D.; lastly, in 1842, under the care of Thomas Wright, Esq., M.A., F.R.S., &c. The early editions, and also Dr. Whitaker's, are in quarto and in black letter. Mr. Wright's is in the common type, and in the much more commodious form of two volumes duodecimo; and, furnished as it is with an introduction, notes, and a glossary, all very carefully and learnedly compiled, is as superior in all other respects as it is in cheapness and convenience for perusal to Dr. Whitaker's costly and cumbrous publication. Whitaker, moreover, whose acquirements in this department of study were very slender, has selected a text widely differing from the common one, and which has evidently no claim to the preference with which he has honoured it; that given by Mr. Wright (who has added in the notes the most important of the variations exhibited by Dr. Whitaker's edition) differs very little, except in greater accuCrowley, while it is

racy, from that first printed by derived from what appears to be "the best and oldest manuscript now in existence." Dr. Whitaker's notes and glossary are contemptible; and his running paraphrase, which accompanies the text, will be found much more frequently to slur over, when it does not mistake,

the obscure passages of the original, than to explain, or attempt to explain, them.

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Of the author of 'Piers Ploughman' scarcely anything is known. He has commonly been called Robert Langland; but there are grounds for believing that his Christian name was William, and it is probable that it is himself of whom he speaks under that name throughout his work. He is supposed to have been a monk, and he seems to have resided in the West of England, near the Malvern Hills, where he introduces himself at the commencement of his poem as falling asleep on a May morwenynge," and entering upon his dreams or visions. The date may be pretty nearly fixed. In one place is an allusion to the treaty of Bretigny made with France in 1360, and to the military disasters of the previous year which led to it; in another passage mention is made of a remarkable tempest which occurred on the 15th of January, 1362, as of a recent event. "It is probable," to quote Mr. Wright, "that the poem of Piers Ploughman was composed in the latter part of this year, when the effects of the great wind were fresh in people's memory, and when the treaty of Bretigny had become a subject of popular discontent." We may assume, at least, that it was in hand at this time.

We cannot attempt an analysis of the work. It consists, in Mr. Wright's edition, where the long line of the other editions is divided into two, of 14,696 verses, distributed into twenty sections, or Passus, as they are called. Each passus forms, or professes to form, a separate vision; and so inartificial or confused is the connexion of the

* Introduction, p. xii.

several parts of the composition (notwithstanding Dr. Whitaker's notion that it had in his edition "for the first time been shown that it was written after a regular and consistent plan "), that it may be regarded as being in reality not so much one poem as a succession of poems. The general subject may be said to be the same with that of Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, the exposition of the impediments and temptations which beset the crusade of this our mortal life; and the method, too, like Bunyan's, is the allegorical; but the spirit of the poetry is not so much picturesque, or even descriptive, as satirical. Vices and abuses of all sorts come in for their share of the exposure and invective; but the main attack throughout is directed against the corruptions of the church, and the hypocrisy and worldliness, the ignorance, indolence, and sensuality, of the ecclesiastical order. To this favourite theme the author constantly returns with new affection and sharper zest from any less high matter which he may occasionally take up. Hence it has been commonly assumed that he must have himself belonged to the ecclesiastical profession, that he was probably a priest or monk. And his Vision has been regarded not only as mainly a religious poem, but as almost a puritanical and Protestant work, although produced nearly two centuries before either Protestantism or Puritanism was ever heard of. In this notion, as we have seen, it was brought into such repute at the time of the Reformation that three editions of it were printed in one year. There is nothing, however, of anti-Romanism, properly so called, in Langland, either doctrinal or constitutional; and even the anti-clerical spirit of his poetry is not more decided than what is found in the writings of Chaucer, and the other popular litera

ture of the time. In all ages, indeed, it is the tendency of popular literature to erect itself into a power adverse to that of the priesthood, as has been evinced more especially by the poetical literature of modern Europe from the days of the Provençal troubadours. In the Canterbury Tales, however, and in most other works where this spirit appears, the puritanism (if so it is to be called) is merely one of the forms of the poetry; in Piers Ploughman the poetry is principally a form or expression of the puritanism.

The rhythm or measure of the verse in this poem must be considered as accentual rather than syllabical-that is to say, it depends rather upon the number of the accents than of the syllables. This is, perhaps, the original principle of all verse; and it still remains the leading principle in various kinds of verse, both in our own and in other languages. At first, probably, only the accented syllables were counted, or reckoned of any rhythmical value; other syllables upon which there was no emphasis went for nothing, and might be introduced in any part of the verse, one, two, or three at a time, as the poet chose. Of course it would at all times be felt that there were limits beyond which this licence could not be carried without destroying or injuring the metrical character of the composition; but these limits would not at first be fixed as they now for the most part are. The elementary form of the verse in 'Piers Ploughman' demands a succession of four accented syllables-two in the first hemistich or short line, and two in the second; but, while each of those in the first line is usually preceded by either one or two unaccented syllables, commonly only one of those in the second line is so preceded. The second line,