slavery and superstition, and he predicts the doom of the Papacy as with
a thunder-knell. Chaucer must have felt roused to his share of the
reformatory work by the success of 'Piers Plowman;' Spenser is suspected
to have read and borrowed from him; and even Milton, in his description
of a lazar-house in 'Paradise Lost,' had him probably in his eye. (See
our last extract from 'Piers.')

On account of the great merit and peculiarity of this work we proceed to
make rather copious extracts.


HUMAN LIFE.

Then 'gan I to meten[1] a marvellous sweven,[2]
That I was in wilderness, I wist never where:
As I beheld into the east, on high to the sun,
I saw a tower on a loft, richly ymaked,
A deep dale beneath, a dungeon therein,
With deep ditches and dark, and dreadful of sight:
A fair field full of folk found I there between,
Of all manner men, the mean and the rich,
Working and wand'ring, as the world asketh;
Some put them to the plough, playeden full seld,
In setting and sowing swonken[3] full hard:
And some put them to pride, &c.

[1] 'Meten:' dream.
[2] 'Sweven:' dream.
[3] 'Swonken:' toiled.