He thus describes heaven:

per is lyf wipoute ony dep
and þer is youpe wipoute ony elde;1
and þer is alle manere wephe to welde;"
and þer is reste wipoute ony travaille,
and per is pees withoute ony stryfe
and þer is alle manere lykynge of lyf,
and þer is bryght somer3 ever to se1
and þer is never wynter in pat countre,
and per is more worshipe and honour,
pan ever hadde kynge other emperour.
And þer is grete melodee of Aungeles songe,
and per is preysyng hem amonge.

And per is alle manere frendshipe pat may be,
and þer is evere perfect love and charite.
And per is wisdom wipoute folye
and þer is honeste wipoute vilenye;7
and þese a man may joyes of hevene call.
And yutte the most sovereyn joye of alle,
is pe syght of Goddes bryght face

in wham restep alle manere grace.

I, age. 2, wield. 3, summer.

4, see. 5, or. 6, folly. 7, villainy. 8, yet.

The following lines from the prologue to his " Speculum vita" or "Mirrour of lyf," written about the year 1350, have a historical importance from their positively stating that, at that period, English was generally understood.

In Inglys tounge y schal yow telle,

3if1 ye so long wip me wyl duelle;

Laurence Minot lived and wrote about the middle of the fourteenth century. He composed eleven poems in celebration of the following battles and exploits of King Edward III: The Battle of Halidon Hill (1333); the taking of Berwick; two poems on Edward's expedition to Brabant (1339); the Sea-Fight of Swine at the mouth of the West Scheldt (1340); the Siege of Tournay (1340); the Landing of Edward at La Hogue (1346); the Siege of Calais (1346); the Battle of Neville's Cross (1346); the Sea-Fight with the Spaniards off Winchelsea (1350); and the Capture of Guisnes (1352).

These poems, all in the Northumbrian dialect, are remarkable, if not for any poetical qualities of a high order, yet for a precision and neatness, as well as a force of expression, previously unexampled in English verse. There is a true martial tone and spirit too in them, which reminds us of the best old English heroic ballads, while it is better sustained, and accompanied with more refinement of style, than it usually is in the popular anonymous compositions of the time. As a sample we transcribe the one on Edward's expedition to Brabant, omitting the prologue which is in a different measure:

Edward, oure cumly king,
In Braband has his woning,1
With mani cumly knight;
And in pat land, trewly to tell,
Ordanis he still forto dwell

To time he think to fight.

Now God, pat es of mightes maste,3
Grant him grace of pe Haly Gaste,
His heritage to win!

And Mari moder, of mercy fre,
Saue oure king and his menzé
Fro sorow and schame and syn!

Pus in Braband has he bene,
Whare he bifore was seldom sene,
Forto proue paire iapes; "
Now no langer wil he spare,
Bot vnto Fraunce fast will he fare,
To confort him with grapes.

Furp he ferd into France,
God saue him fro mischance
And all his cumpany!

Pe nobill duc of Braband
With him went into pat land,

Redy to lif or dy.

Pan pe riche floure-de-lice
Wan pare ful litill prise,
Fast he fled for ferde;
Pe right aire of pat cuntré

Es cumen, with all his knightes fre,
To schac him by þe berd.

30

Pe princes, þat war riche on raw,3
Gert nakers strike 31 and trumpes blaw,
And made mirth at paire might;
Both alblast 32 and many a bow
War redy railed 33 opon a row,
And ful frek forto fight.

Gladly pai gaf mete and drink,
So pat pai suld be better swink,34
Pe wight 35 men þat þar ware.

Sir Philip of Fraunce fled for dout,

And hied him hame with all his rout;

Coward, God giff him care!

For pare pan had pe lely flowre

Lorn all halely 36 his honowre,

37

Pat sogat fled for ferd;

Bot oure king Edward come ful still,38
When pat he trowed no harm him till,30

And keped him in þe berde.*

40

39

I, dwelling. 2, fill the time. 3, most of the might. 4, followers. 5, jeers. 6, fleur-de-lis. 7, come. 8, Philip VI, de Valois, King of France. 9, informed

his men in those days that he had a design to fight. 10, number. II, against. 12, report. 13, prayer, request. 14, besides. 15, were full eager. 16, would (was dwelling). 17, then no glee, or joy, was given him. 18, he trusted to no better expedient. 19, about. 20, Bohemia. 21, bestride. 22, also. 23, Navarre. 24, were fairly frightened. 25, heads. 26, believe. 27, was called. 28, the village of La Flamengrie. 29, reckoned. 30, richly clad in a row. 31. caused timbals to be struck. 32, arblast, or crossbow. 33, placed. 34, should the better work. 35, stout. 36, lost wholly. 37, got put to flight. 38, came back quietly at his ease. 39, when he perceived there was no harm intended him. 40, and caught him by the beard.

WILLIAM LANGLAND.

It has undoubtedly been noticed that Minot's verses are thickly sprinkled with what is called alliteration, or the repetition of words having the same commencing letter, either immediately after one another, or with the intervention only of one or two other words, generally unemphatic or of subordinate importance. Alliteration, which we have found there combined with rhyme, was in an earlier stage of English poetry employed as the substitute for that recurrence of like beginnings serving the same purpose, which at a later period was accomplished by like endings, that is, by rhyme. To the English of the period before the conquest, until its very latest stages, rhyme was unknown, and down to the tenth century English verse appears to have known no other ornament except that of alliteration. Hence, naturally, even after the practice of rhyme had been borrowed from the Norman writers, the native poetry retained for a time more or less of its original habit. Thus, in Layamon we find alliterative and rhyming couplets intermixed; in other cases, as in Minot, we have the rhyme only bespangled with alliteration. At this date, in fact, the difficulty probably would have been to avoid alliteration in writing verse; all the old customary phraseologies of poetry had been molded upon that principle; and indeed alliterative expression has in every age, and in many other languages as well as English, 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 by any means 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 the system of alliteration is almost as regular as what we find in the poetry of the times before the conquest. This is the famous vision of Piers the Ploughman, or, as the subject is expressed at full length in the Latin title, Visio Willielmi de Petro Ploughman, that is, “The Vision of William concerning Piers or Peter the Ploughman."

According to tradition, the author of this poem, William Langland, Longland, or Langley, was a native of Cleobury Mortimer in Shropshire. He must have been born about the year 1332, and have died about 1400. He is supposed to have been educated near the Malvern Hills (Worcestershire), where he composed the first version of his poem shortly after the time of the great plague which ravaged England, A. D. 1361-1362. About the year 1377 he was living in London, where he wrote his second version of the poem, extending it to three times its former length. Subsequently he returned to the West of England, and again re-wrote his poem, with various additions and alterations, between 1380 and 1390.

The work is distributed into twenty sections, or passus, as he calls them. Each passus forms a separate vision, so that the work in reality is 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