lift head and shoulders above many other trees, all nourished by the same
soil and air. If we follow this figure, Langland and Wyclif are the only
growths that tower beside Chaucer, and Wyclif was a reformer who belongs to
English history rather than to literature.

LANGLAND. William Langland (_cir_. 1332--1400) is a great figure in
obscurity. We are not certain even of his name, and we must search his work
to discover that he was, probably, a poor lay-priest whose life was
governed by two motives: a passion for the poor, which led him to plead
their cause in poetry, and a longing for all knowledge:

All the sciences under sonne, and all the sotyle craftes,
I wolde I knew and couthe, kyndely in myne herte.

His chief poem, _Piers Plowman_ (_cir_. 1362), is a series of
visions in which are portrayed the shams and impostures of the age and the
misery of the common people. The poem is, therefore, as the heavy shadow
which throws into relief the bright picture of the _Canterbury Tales_.

For example, while Chaucer portrays the Tabard Inn with its good cheer and
merry company, Langland goes to another inn on the next street; there he
looks with pure eyes upon sad or evil-faced men and women, drinking,
gaming, quarreling, and pictures a scene of physical and moral degradation.
One must look on both pictures to know what an English inn was like in the
fourteenth century.

Because of its crude form and dialect _Piers Plowman_ is hard to
follow; but to the few who have read it and entered into Langland's
vision--shared his passion for the poor, his hatred of shams, his belief in
the gospel of honest work, his humor and satire and philosophy--it is one