IV.

Langland speaks as he thinks, impetuously; a sort of dual personality exists in him; he is the victim and not the master of his thought. And his thought is so completely a separate entity, with wishes opposed to his desires, that it appears to him in the solitudes of Malvern; and the melody of lines heard not long ago occurs to the memory:

Je marchais un jour a pas lents Dans un bois, sur une bruyere; Au pied d'un arbre vint s'asseoir Un jeune homme vetu de noir Qui me ressemblait comme un frere ...[657]

Filled with a similar feeling, the wandering dreamer had met, five hundred years before, in a "wilde wildernesse and bi a wode-syde," a "moche man" who looked like himself; who knew him and called him by name:

And thus I went wide-where | walkyng myne one (alone), By a wilde wildernesse | and bi a wode-syde ... And under a lynde uppon a launde | lened I a stounde ... A moche man, as me thoughte | and lyke to my-selve Come and called me | by my kynde name, "What artow," quod I tho (then) | "that thow my name knowest?" "That thow wost wel," quod he | "and no wyghte bettere." "Wote I what thow art?" | "Thought," seyde he thanne, "I have suwed (followed) the this sevene yere | sey thow me no rather (sooner)?"[658]

"Thought" reigns supreme, and does with Langland what he chooses. Langland is unconscious of what he is led to; his visions are for him real ones; he tells them as they rise before him; he is scarcely aware that he invents; he stares at the sight, and wonders as much as we do; he can change nothing; his personages are beyond his reach. There is therefore nothing prepared, artistically arranged, or skilfully contrived, in his poem; the deliberate hand of a man of the craft is nowhere to be seen. He obtains artistic effects, but without seeking for them; he never selects or co-ordinates; he is suddenly led, and leads us, from one subject to another, without any better transition than an "and thanne" or a "with that." And "thanne" we are carried a hundred miles away, among entirely different beings, and frequently we hear no more of the first ones. Or sometimes, even, the first reappear, but they are no longer the same; Piers Plowman personifies now the honest man of the people, now the Pope, now Christ. Dowel, Dobet and Dobest have two or three different meanings. The art of transitions is as much dispensed with in his poem as at the opera: a whistle of the scene-shifter--an "and thanne" of the poet--the palace of heaven fades away, and we find ourselves in a smoky tavern in Cornhill.

Clouds pass over the sky, and sometimes sweep by the earth; their thickness varies, they take every shape: now they are soft, indolent mists, lingering in mountain hollows, that will rise towards noon, laden with the scent of flowering lindens; now they are storm-clouds, threatening destruction and rolling with thunder. Night comes on, and suddenly the blackness is rent by so glaring a light that the plain assumes for an instant the hues of mid-day; then the darkness falls again, deeper than before.

The poet moves among realities and abstractions, and sometimes the first dissolve in fogs, while the second condense into human beings, tangible and solid. On the Malvern hills, the mists are so fine, it is impossible to say: here they begin and here they end; it is the same in the Visions.

In the world of ethics, as among the realities of actual life, Langland excels in summing up in one sudden memorable flash the whole doctrine contained in the nebulous sermons of his abstract preachers; he then attains to the highest degree of excellence, without striving after it. In another writer, the thing would have been premeditated, and the result of his skill and cunning; here the effect is as unexpected for the author as for the reader. He so little pretends to such felicities of speech that he never allows the grand impressions thus produced to last any time; he utilises them, he is careful to make the best of the occasion. It seems as if he had conjured the lightning from the clouds unawares, and he thinks it his duty to turn it to use. The flash had unveiled the uppermost summits of the realm of thought, and there will remain in our hands a flickering rushlight that can at most help us upstairs.

The passionate sincerity which is the predominant trait of Langland's character greatly contributed to the lasting influence of his poem. Each line sets forth his unconquerable aversion for all that is mere appearance and show, self-interested imposture; for all that is antagonistic to conscience, abnegation, sincerity. Such is the great and fundamental indignation that is in him; all the others are derived from this. For, while his mind was impressed with the idea of the seriousness of life, he happened to live when the mediaeval period was drawing to its close; and, as usually happens towards the end of epochs, people no longer took in earnest any of the faiths and feelings which had supplied foregoing generations with their strength and motive power. He saw with his own eyes knights preparing for war as if it were a hunt; learned men consider the mysteries of religion as fit subjects to exercise one's minds in after-dinner discussions; the chief guardians of the flock busy themselves with their "owelles" only to shear, not to feed them. Meed was everywhere triumphant; her misdeeds had been vainly denounced; her reign had come; under the features of Alice Perrers she was now the paramour of the king!

At all such men and at all such things, Langland thunders anathema. Lack of sincerity, all the shapes and sorts of "faux semblants," or "merveilleux semblants," as Rutebeuf said, fill him with inextinguishable hatred. In shams and "faux semblants" he sees the true source of good and evil, the touchstone of right and wrong, the main difference between the worthy and the unworthy. He constantly recurs to the subject by means of his preachings, epigrams, portraits, caricatures; he broadens, he magnifies and multiplies his figures and his precepts, so as to deepen our impression of the danger and number of the adherents of "Fals-Semblant." By such means, he hopes we shall at last hate those whom he hates. Endlessly, therefore, in season and out of season, among the mists, across the streets, under the porches of the church, to the drowsy chant of his orations, to the whistle of his satires, ever and ever again, he conjures up before our eyes the hideous grinning face of "Fals-Semblant," the insincere. Fals-Semblant is never named by name; he assumes all names and shapes; he is the king who reigns contrary to conscience, the knight perverted by Lady Meed, the heartless man of law, the merchant without honesty, the friar, the pardoner, the hermit, who under the garment of saints conceal hearts that will rank them with the accursed ones. Fals-Semblant is the pope who sells benefices, the histrion, the tumbler, the juggler, the adept of the vagrant race, who goes about telling tales and helping his listeners to forget the seriousness of life. From the unworthy pope down to the lying juggler, all these men are the same man. Deceit stands before us; God's vengeance be upon him! Whenever and wherever Langland detects Fals-Semblant, he loses control over himself; anger blinds him; it seems as if he were confronted by Antichrist.

No need to say whether he is then master of his words, and able to measure them. With him, in such cases, no _nuances_ or extenuations are admissible; you are with or against Fals-Semblant; there is no middle way; a compromise is a treason; and is there anything worse than a traitor? And thus he is led to sum up his judgment in such lines as this:

He is worse than Judas | that giveth a japer silver.[659]

If we allege that there may be some shade of exaggeration in such a sentence, he will shrug his shoulders. The doubt is not possible, he thinks, and his plain proposition is self-evident.

No compromise! Travel through life without bending; go forward in a straight line between the high walls of duty. Perform your own obligations; do not perform the obligations of others. To do your duty over-zealously, to take upon you the duty of others, would trouble the State; you approach, in so doing, the borderland of Imposture. The knight will fight for his country, and must not lose his time in fasting and in scourging himself. A fasting knight is a bad knight.

Many joys are allowed. They are included, as a bed of flowers, between the high walls of duty; love-flowers even grow there, to be plucked, under the blue sky. But take care not to be tempted by that wonderful female Proteus, Lady Meed, the great corruptress. She disappears and reappears, and she, too, assumes all shapes; she is everywhere at the same time: it seems as if the serpent of Eden had become the immense reptile that encircles the earth.

This hatred is immense, but stands alone in the heart of the poet. Beside it there is place for treasures of pity and mercy; the idea of so many Saracens and Jews doomed wholesale to everlasting pain repels him; he can scarcely accept it; he hopes they will be all converted, and "turne in-to the trewe feithe"; for "Cryste cleped us alle.... Sarasenes and scismatikes ... and Jewes."[660] There is something pathetic, and tragic also, in his having to acknowledge that there is no cure for many evils, and that, for the present, resignation only can soothe the suffering. With a throbbing heart he shows the unhappy and the lowly, who must die before having seen the better days that were promised, the only talisman that may help them: a scroll with the words, "Thy will be done!"[661]

The truth is that there was a tender heart under the rough and rugged exterior of the impassioned, indignant, suffering poet; and thus he was able to sum up his life's ideal in this beautiful motto: _Disce, Doce, Dilige_; in these words will be found the true interpretation of Dowel, Dobet, and Dobest: "Learn, Teach, Love."[662]

The poet's language is, if one may use the expression, like himself, above all, sincere. Chaucer wished that words were "cosyn to the dede;" Langland holds the same opinion. While, in the mystic parts of his Visions, he uses a superabundance of fluid and abstract terms, that look like morning mists and float along with his thoughts, his style becomes suddenly sharp, nervous, and sinewy when he comes back to earth and moves into the world of realities. Let some sudden emotion fill his soul, and he will rise again, not in the mist this time, but in the rays of the sun; he will soar aloft, and we will wonder at the grandeur of his eloquence. Whatever be his subject, he will coin a word, or distort a meaning, or cram into an idiom more meaning than grammar, custom, or dictionary allow, rather than leave a gap between word and thought; both must be fused together, and made one. If the merchants were honest, they would not "timber" so high--raise such magnificent houses.[663] In other parts he uses realistic terms, noisy, ill-favoured expressions, which it is impossible to quote.

His vocabulary of words is the normal vocabulary of the period, the same nearly as Chaucer's. The poet of the "Canterbury Tales" has been often reproached with having used his all-powerful influence to obtain rights of citizenship in England for French words; but the accusation does not stand good, for Langland did not write for courtly men, and the admixture of French words is no less considerable in his work.

The Visionary's poem offers a combination of several dialects; one, however, prevails; it is the Midland dialect. Chaucer used the East-Midland, which is nearly the same, and was destined to survive and become the English language.

Langland did not accept any of the metres used by Chaucer; he preferred to remain in closer contact with the Germanic past of his kin. Rhyme, the main ornament of French verse, had been adopted by Chaucer, but was rejected by Langland, who gave to his lines the ornament best liked by Anglo-Saxons, Germans, and Scandinavians, namely, alliteration.[664]

While their author continued to live obscure and unknown, the Visions, as soon as written, were circulated, and acquired considerable popularity throughout England. In spite of the time that has elapsed, and numberless destructions, there still remain forty-five manuscripts of the poem, more or less complete. "Piers Plowman" soon became a sign and a symbol, a sort of password, a personification of the labouring classes, of the honest and courageous workman. John Ball invoked his authority in his letter to the rebel peasants of the county of Essex in 1381.[665] The name of Piers figured as an attraction on the title of numerous treatises: there existed, as early as the fourteenth century, "Credes" of Piers Plowman, "Complayntes" of the Plowman, &c. Piers' credit was made use of at the time of the Reformation, and in his name were demanded the suppression of abuses and the transformation of the old order of things; he even appeared on the stage; Langland would have been sometimes greatly surprised to see what tasks were assigned to his hero.

Chaucer and Langland, the two great poets of the period, represent excellently English genius, and the two races that have formed the nation. One more nearly resembles the clear-minded, energetic, firm, practical race of the latinised Celts, with their fondness for straight lines; the other resembles the race which had the deepest and especially the earliest knowledge of tender, passionate, and mystic aspirations, and which lent itself most willingly to the lulls and pangs of hope and despair, the race of the Anglo-Saxons. And while Chaucer sleeps, as he should, under the vault of Westminster, some unknown tuft of Malvern moss perhaps covers, as it also should, the ashes of the dreamer who took Piers Plowman for his hero.

FOOTNOTES:

[629] Further details on Langland and his Visions, and in particular the elucidation (as far as I have been able to furnish it) of several doubtful points, may be found in "Piers Plowman, a contribution to the History of English Mysticism," London, 1894. Some passages of the present Chapter are taken from this work.

[630] Mr. Skeat has given two excellent editions of these three texts (called texts A. B. and C.): Iº "The Vision of William concerning Piers Plowman, together with Vita de Dowel, Dobet et Dobest, secundum Wit et Resoun," London, Early English Text Society, 1867-84, 4 vols. 8vo; 2º "The Vision of William concerning Piers Plowman, in three parallel texts, together with Richard the Redeless," Oxford (Clarendon Press), 1886, 2 vols. 8vo.

[631] The reasons in favour of these dates are given in "Piers Plowman, a contribution to the history of English Mysticism," chap, ii., and in a paper I published in the _Revue Critique_, Oct. 25th, and Nov. 1, 1879. Mr. Skeat assigns the date of 1393 to the third text, adding, however, "I should not object to the opinion that the true date is later still." I have adduced proofs ("Piers Plowman," pp. 55 ff.) of this final revision having taken place in 1398 or shortly after.

[632] B. xv. 48.

[633] A. xii. 6.

[634]

_Concupiscencia carnis_ | colled me aboute the nekke, And seyde, "Thou art yonge and yepe | and hast yeres yn Forto lyve longe | and ladyes to lovye. And in this myroure thow myghte se | myrthes ful manye That leden the wil to lykynge | al thi lyf-tyme." The secounde seide the same | "I shal suwe thi wille; Til thow be a lorde and have londe." (B. xi. 16.)

[635] C. vi. 42.

[636] C. vi. 45.

[637] On which see W. S. Simpson, "St. Paul's Cathedral and old City life," London, 1894, 8vo, p. 95: "The chantry priests of St. Paul's." A list of those chantries in a handwriting of the fourteenth century has been preserved; there are seventy-three of them. _Ibid._, p. 99.

[638] C. beginning of passus vi.; B. beginning of passus xv.: "My witte wex and wanyed til I a fole were."

[639] B. x. 181.

[640] B. x. 420.

[641]

... None sonner saved | ne sadder of bileve, Than plowmen and pastoures | and pore comune laboreres. Souteres and shepherdes | suche lewed jottes Percen with a _pater-noster_ | the paleys of hevene, And passen purgatorie penaunceles | at her hennes-partynge, In-to the blisse of paradys | for her pure byleve, That inparfitly here | knewe and eke lyved. (B. x. 458.)

And thow medlest with makynges | and myghtest go sey thi sauter, And bidde for hem that giveth the bred | for there ar bokes ynowe To telle men what Dowel is.... (B. xii. 16.)

[642] He seems to have written at this time the fragment called by Mr. Skeat: "Richard the Redeless," and attributed by the same with great probability to our author.

[643] C. iii. 211 ff.

[644] B. iii. 328.

[645] B. iv. 3.

[646] Daughter of Piers Plowman:

Hus douhter hihte Do-ryght-so- | other-thy-damme-shal-the-bete.

(C. ix. 81.)

[647] See in particular Gloton's confession, with a wonderfully realistic description of an English tavern, C. vii. 350.

[648] "Paradise Lost," canto vi. 601; invention of guns, 470.

[649] B. Prol. 112.

[650] B. xix. 474.

[651] "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. iii. p. 419. See above, p. 253.

[652] Good Parliament of 1376.

[653] B. Prol. 95.

[654] B. Prol. 49.

[655] B. Prol. 46; xii. 37; v. 57; C. v. 122.

[656] B. vi. 71; C. ix. 122.

[657] Musset, "Nuit de Decembre."

[658] B. viii. 62.

[659] B. ix. 90.

[660] B. xi. 114.

[661]

But I loked what lyflode it was: that Pacience so preysed, And thanne was it a pece of the _Pater noster_ | "_Fiat voluntas tua_."

B. xiv. 47.

[662] B. xiii. 137.

[663]

Thei timbrede not so hye.

(A. iii. 76.)

[664] Langland's lines usually contain four accentuated syllables, two in each half line; the two accentuated syllables of the first half line, and the first accentuated syllable of the second half line are alliterated, and commence by the same "rhyme-letter:"

I _sh_ope me in _sh_roudes | as I a _sh_epe were.

(B. Prol. 2.) It is not necessary for alliteration to exist that the letters be exactly the same; if they are consonants, nothing more is wanted than a certain similitude in their sounds; if they are vowels even less suffices; it is enough that all be vowels.

[665] Walsingham, "Historia Anglicana," vol. ii. p. 33. Rolls.

## CHAPTER V.

_PROSE._

For a long time, and up to our day, the title and dignity of "Father of English prose" has been borne by Sir John Mandeville, of St. Albans, knight, who, "in the name of God glorious," left his country in the year of grace 1322, on Michaelmas Day, and returned to Europe after an absence of thirty-four years, twice as long as Robinson Crusoe remained in his desert island.

This title belongs to him no longer. The good knight of St. Albans, who had seen and told so much, has dwindled before our eyes, has lost his substance and his outline, and has vanished like smoke in the air. His coat of mail, his deeds, his journeys, his name: all are smoke. He first lost his character as a truthful writer; then out of the three versions of his book, French, English, and Latin, two were withdrawn from him, leaving him only the first. Existence now has been taken from him, and he is left with nothing at all. Sir John Mandeville, knight, of St. Albans, who crossed the sea in 1322, is a myth, and never existed; he has joined, in the kingdom of the shades and the land of nowhere, his contemporary the famous "Friend of God of the Oberland," who some time ago also ceased to have existed.

One thing however remains, and cannot be blotted out: namely, the book of travels bearing the name of Mandeville the translation of which is one of the best and oldest specimens of simple and flowing English prose.