of the most powerful and original poems in English literature. [Footnote:
The working classes were beginning to assert themselves in this age, and to
proclaim "the rights of man." Witness the followers of John Ball, and his
influence over the crowd when he chanted the lines:

When Adam delved and Eve span,
Who was then the gentleman?

Langland's poem, written in the midst of the labor agitation, was the first
glorification of labor to appear in English literature. Those who read it
may make an interesting comparison between "Piers Plowman" and a modern
labor poem, such as Hood's "Song of the Shirt" or Markham's "The Man with
the Hoe."]

MALORY. Judged by its influence, the greatest prose work of the fifteenth
century was the _Morte d'Arthur_ of Thomas Malory (d. 1471). Of the
English knight who compiled this work very little is known beyond this,
that he sought to preserve in literature the spirit of medieval knighthood
and religion. He tells us nothing of this purpose; but Caxton, who received
the only known copy of Malory's manuscript and published it in 1485, seems
to have reflected the author's spirit in these words:

"I according to my copy have set it in imprint, to the intent that
noble men may see and learn the noble acts of chivalry, the gentle
and virtuous deeds that some knyghts used in those days, by which
they came to honour, and how they that were vicious were punished
and put oft to shame and rebuke.... For herein may be seen noble
chivalry, courtesy, humanity, hardness, love, friendship,
cowardice, murder, hate, virtue and sin. Do after the good, and
leave the evil, and it shall bring you to good fame and renommee."