body to warrent;
  That no man be so bold, priest ne clerk,
  Me to disturb of Christ's holy werke;
  And after that I tell forth my tales,
  Of bulls, of popes, and of cardinales,
  Of patriarkes, and of bishops I shew;
  And in Latin I speake wordes a few,

  To faver with my predication,
  And for to stere men to devotion,
  Then shew I forth my long, christall stones,
  Ycrammed full of clouts and of bones;
  Relickes they been, as were they, echone!
  Then have I, in Latin a shoder-bone,
  Which that was of an holy Jewes shepe.
  Good men, fay, take of my words kepe!
  If this bone be washen in any well,
  If cow, or calfe, shepe, or oxe swell
  That any worm hath eaten, or hem strong,
  Take water of this well, and wash his tong.
  And it is hole a-non: And furthermore,
  Of pockes, and scabs, and every sore
  Shall shepe be hole, that of this well
  Drinketh a draught: Take keep of that I tell!
  If that the good man, that beasts oweth,
  Woll every day, ere the cocke croweth,
  Fasting drink of this well, a draught,
  (As thilk holy Jew our elders taught)
  His beasts and his store shall multiplie:
  And sirs, also it healeth jealousie,
  For, though a man be fall in jealous rage,
  Let make with this Water his potage,
  And never shall he more his wife mistrist,
  Thughe, in sooth, the defaut by her wist:
  All had she taken priests two or three!
  Here is a mittaine eke, that ye may see.
  He that has his hand well put in this mittaine;
  He shall have multiplying of his graine,
  When he hath sowen, be it wheat or otes;
  So that he offer good pens or grotes!

Those who would prefer the thoughts of this father of English poetry, in a modern dress, are referred to the elegant versions of him, by Dryden, Pope, and others, who have done ample justice to their illustrious predecessor.

[Footnote 1: Life of Chaucer prefixed to Ogle's edition of that author modernized.]

[Footnote 2: Some biographers of Chaucer say, that pope Gregory IX. gave orders to the archbishop of Canterbury to summon him, and that when a synod was convened at St. Paul's, a quarrel happened between the bishop of London and the duke of Lancaster, concerning Wickliff's sitting down in their presence.]

[Footnote 3: Mr. Camden gives a particular description of this castle.]

* * * * *

LANGLAND.

It has been disputed amongst the critics whether this poet preceded or followed Chaucer. Mrs. Cooper, author of the Muses Library, is of opinion that he preceded Chaucer, and observes that in more places than one that great poet seems to copy Langland; but I am rather inclined to believe that he was cotemporary with him, which accounts for her observation, and my conjecture is strengthened by the consideration of his stile, which is equally unmusical and obsolete with Chaucer's; and tho' Dryden has told us that Chaucer exceeded those who followed him at 50 or 60 years distance, in point of smoothness, yet with great submission to his judgment, I think there is some alteration even in Skelton and Harding, which will appear to the reader to the best advantage by a quotation. Of Langland's family we have no account. Selden in his notes on Draiton's Poly Olbion, quotes him with honour; but he is entirely neglected by Philips and Winstanly, tho' he seems to have been a man of great genius: Besides Chaucer, few poets in that or the subsequent age had more real inspiration or poetical enthusiasm in their compositions. One cannot read the works of this author, or Chaucer, without lamenting the unhappiness of a fluctuating language, that buries in its ruins even genius itself; for like edifices of sand, every breath of time defaces it, and if the form remain, the beauty is lost. The piece from which I shall quote a few lines, is a work of great length and labour, of the allegoric kind; it is animated with a lively and luxurious imagination; pointed with a variety of pungent satire; and dignified with many excellent lessons of morality; but as to the conduct of the whole, it does not appear to be of a piece; every vision seems a distinct rhapsody, and does not carry on either one single action or a series of many; but we ought rather to wonder at its beauties than cavil at its defects; and if the poetical design is broken, the moral is entire, which, is uniformly the advancement of piety, and reformation of the Roman clergy. The piece before us is entitled the Vision of Piers the Plowman, and I shall quote that particular part which seems to have furnished a hint to Milton in his Paradise Lost, b. 2. 1. 475.

  Kinde Conscience tho' heard, and came out of
  the planets,
  And sent forth his sorrioues, fevers, and fluxes,
  Coughes, and cardicales, crampes and toothaches,
  Reums, and ragondes, and raynous scalles,
  Byles, and blothes, and burning agues,
  Freneses, and foul euyl, foragers of kinde!
         * * * * *
  There was harrow! and help! here cometh Kinde
  With death that's dreadful, to undone us all
  Age the hoore, he was in vaw-ward
  And bare the baner before death, by right he it
  claymed!
  Kinde came after, with many kene foxes,
  As pockes, and pestilences, and much purple
  shent;
  So Kinde, through corruptions killed full many:
  Death came driving after, and all to dust pashed
  Kyngs and bagaars, knights and popes.

       * * * * *
MILTON.

  —————Immediately a place
  Before his eyes appear'd, sad, noisom, dark,
  A lazar-house it seem'd; wherein were laid

  Numbers of all diseased: all maladies
  Of ghastly spasm, or racking torture, qualms
  Of heartsick agony, all fev'rous kinds,
  Convulsions, epilepsies, fierce catarrhs,
  Intestine stone and ulcer, cholic-pangs
  Demoniac phrenzy, moping melancholy
  And moon-struck madness, pining atrophy,
  Marasmus, and wide-wasting pestilence,
  Dropsies and asthmas, and joint-racking rheums;
  Dire was the tossing! deep the groans! despair
  Tended the sick, busiest from couch to couch:
  And over them, triumphant death his dart
  Shook. P. L. b. xi. 1. 477.

* * * * *

Sir JOHN GOWER

Flourished in the reign of Edward III, and Richard II. He was cotemporary with Chaucer and much esteemed and honoured by him, as appears by his submitting his Troilus and Cressida to his censure. Stow in his Survey of London seems to be of opinion that he was no knight, but only an esquire; however, it is certain he was descended of a knightly family, at Sittenham in Yorkshire. He received his education in London, and studied the law, but being possessed of a great fortune, he dedicated himself more to pleasure and poetry than the bar; tho' he seems not to have made any proficiency in poetry, for his works are rather cool translations, than originals, and are quite destitute of poetical fire. Bale makes him Equitem Auratum & Poetam Laureatum, but Winstanly says that he was neither laureated nor bederated, but only rosated, having a chaplet of four roses about his head in his monumental stone erected in St. Mary Overy's, Southwark: He was held in great esteem by King Richard II, to whom he dedicates a book called Confessio Amantis.