SERIES THE SECOND.
[BOOK III.]
I.
THE COMPLAINT OF CONSCIENCE.
I shall begin this third book with an old allegoric Satire; a manner of moralizing, which, if it was not first introduced by the author of Pierce Plowman's Visions,[745] was at least chiefly brought into repute by that ancient Satirist. It is not so generally known that the kind of verse used in this ballad hath any affinity with the peculiar metre of that writer, for which reason I shall throw together some cursory remarks on that very singular species of versification, the nature of which has been so little understood.[746]
The following Song, intitled, The Complaint of Conscience, is printed from the Editor's folio Manuscript: Some corruptions in the old copy are here corrected; but with notice to the Reader, wherever it was judged necessary, by inclosing the corrections between inverted 'commas.'