and dareð siðen stille."

. . . . . .

"Cethegrande is a fis

ðe moste ðat in water is;

ðat tu wuldes seien get,

gef ðu it soge wan it flet," etc.

This kind of poetry appears to have been common until the middle of the thirteenth century; after which period we only find alliteration in songs, not used in simple alliterative couplets, but mixed up in the same lines with rhyme in an irregular and playful manner.[[16]] But there appears little room for doubting that during the whole of this time the pure alliterative poetry was in use among the lower classes of society; and its revival towards the middle of the fourteenth century appears to have been a part of the political movement which then took place. In this point of view, the poem of Piers Ploughman becomes still more worthy of attention as a document of contemporary literary history. The old alliterative verse came so much into fashion at this period that it was adopted for the composition of long romances, of which several still remain.[[17]] The use of this kind of verse was continued in the fifteenth century, and was imitated in Scotland as late as the time of Dunbar, but the later writers were evidently unacquainted with the strict rules of this species of composition.

The Anglo-Saxons, who used this kind of verse only, wrote their poetry invariably as prose. But the scribe was in the habit of indicating the division of the lines by a dot. Among modern scholars a question has arisen as to the propriety of printing the alliterative couplet in two short lines, or in one long one. It appears to me that the mode in which the dot is used in the manuscripts decides the question in favour of the short lines. The manner in which the alliterative couplet is intermixed with the rhyming couplet in the poems of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries (which also are written in the manuscripts in the same form as prose), seems to me a strong confirmation of this opinion; at least in these last-mentioned cases, the verse must have been considered as written in short lines. As the scribes quitted the custom of writing poetry in their manuscripts as prose, with the divisions of lines indicated by dots, to adopt that of arranging them in lines as we do at present, these short lines were found very inconvenient because they were obliged either to waste a great deal of parchment, or to write in several narrow columns. To remedy this, they fell perhaps gradually into the custom of writing the two parts of the alliterative couplet in one line, always, however, marking the division by a dot. They followed the same method with the shorter rhyming lines, as is the case with the old English Metrical Romance of Horn in a manuscript in the Harleian Collection.[[18]] All the alliterative poetry of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries is found written in these long lines, with the dot of division in the middle. In the fifteenth century the meaning of this dot appears to have been forgotten, and the system of alliteration so far misunderstood, that the writers thought it only necessary to have at least three alliterative words in a long line, without any consideration of their position in the line. I say at least, because they not unfrequently inserted four or five alliterative words in the same line, which would certainly have been considered a defect in the earlier writers. It is my opinion, that a modern editor is wrong in printing the verses of Piers Ploughman in long lines, as they stand in the manuscripts, unless he profess to give them as a fac-simile of the manuscripts themselves, or he plead the same excuse of convenience from the shape of his book. In either case, he must carefully preserve the dots of separation in the middle of the lines, which are more inconvenient than the length of the lines, because they interfere with the punctuation of the modern editor. If, as appears to be the case, these dots are merely marks to indicate the division of the couplet, their purpose is much better served by printing the lines in couplets. The construction of the earlier Anglo-Saxon verse, the analogy of the mixed rhyming and alliterative verses of the semi-Saxon poems, and the use of these dots in the middle of the lines in the manuscripts of Piers Ploughman, appear to me convincing proofs that it ought to be printed so. I think moreover that the alliterative verse reads much more harmoniously in the short couplets than in the long lines.

The manuscripts of the Vision of Piers Ploughman are extremely numerous both in public and in private collections. There are at least eight in the British Museum: there are ten or twelve in the Cambridge Libraries; and they are not less numerous at Oxford. As might be expected in a popular work like this, the manuscripts are in general full of variations; but there are two classes of manuscripts which give two texts that are widely different from each other, those variations commencing even with the first lines of the poem. One of these texts, which was adopted in the early printed editions, is given in the present volumes; the other text was selected for publication by Dr. Whitaker. The following extract, comprising the first lines of the poem,[[19]] will show how each text begins, and will enable those who possess manuscripts of Piers Ploughman to ascertain at once to which text they belong:—

Text I.Text II.
In a somer seson
Whan softe was the sonne,
I shop me into shroudes
As I a sheep weere,
In habite as an heremite
Unholy of werkes,
Wente wide in this world
Wonders to here,
Ac on a May morwenynge
On Malverne hilles
Me bifel a ferly,
Of fairye me thoghte.
I was wery for-wandred,
And wente me to reste
Under a broode bank
By a bournes syde,
And as I lay and lenede,
And loked on the watres,
I slombred into a slepyng,
It sweyed so murye.
Thanne gan I meten
A merveillous swevene,
That I was in a wildernesse
Wiste I nevere where;
And as I biheld in to the eest
An heigh to the sonne,
I seigh a tour on a toft, etc. 		In a somè seyson,
Whan softe was the sonne,
Y shop into shrobbis
As y shepherde were.
In abit az an ermite
Unholy of werkes,
That wente forthe in the worle
Wondres to hure,
And sawe meny cellis
And selcouthe thynges.
Ac on a May morwenyng
On Malverne hulles
Me by-fel for to slepe,
For weyrynesse of wandryng,
And in a lande as ich lay
Lenede ich and slepte,
And merveylously me mette,
As ich may yow telle.
Al the welthe of this wordle,
And the woo bothe,
Wynkyng as it were
Wyterly ich saw hyt,
Of truyth and of tricherye,
Of tresoun and of gyle,
Al ich saw slepyng,
As ich shal yow telle.
Esteward ich behulde
After the sonne,
And sawe a tour as ich trowede, etc