Then those to whom I had done good,
Durft not afford mee any food;
Whereby I begged all the day,
And still in streets by night I lay.

My gowns befet with pearl and gold,
Were turn'd to fimple garments old
My chains and gems and golden rings,
To filthy rags and loathfome things.

Thus was I fcorn'd of maid and wife,
For leading fuch a wicked life;

Both fucking babes, and children small, ̧
Did make their paftime at my fall.

I could not get one bit of bread,

115

120

125

* But it had this name long before; being so called from its being a common SEWER (vulgarly SHORE) or drain. See Story.

Which is a witness of my finne,

For being concubine to a king.

You wanton wives, that fall to luft,
Be you
affur'd that God is juft;
Whoredome fhall not escape his hand,
Nor pride unpunish'd in this land.

If God to me fuch shame did bring,
That yielded only to a king,
How fhall they scape that daily run

To practise fin with every one?

You husbands, match not but for love,
Left some disliking after prove;
Women be warn'd when you are wives,
What plagues are due to finful lives :

Then maids and wives in time amend,
For love and beauty will have end.

135

THE END OF THE SECOND BOOK,

140

145

The following old allegoric fatire is printed from the editor's folio MS. This manner of moralizing, if not first adopted by the author of PIERCE PLOWMAN'S VISIONS, was at leaft chiefly brought into repute by that ancient fatirift. It is not fo generally known that the kind of verfe ufed in this ballad hath any affinity with the peculiar metre of that writer, for which reafon I shall throw together fome curJory remarks on that very fingular species of verfification, the nature of which has been fo little understood.

R 2

ON

ON THE METRE

OF

PIERCE PLOWMAN'S VISIONS.

We learn from Wormius*, that the ancient Islandic poets ufed a great variety of measures: he mention 136 different kinds, without including RHYME, or a correspondence of final fyllables: yet this was occafionally used, as appears from the Ode of Egil, which Wormius hath inferted in his book.

He hath analyfed the ftructure of one of these kinds of verfe, the harmony of which neither depended on the quantity of the fyllables, like that of the ancient Greeks and Romans ; nor on the rhymes at the end, as in modern poetry; but confifted altogether in alliteration, or a certain artful repetition of the founds in the middle of the verfes. This was adjusted according to certain rules of their profody, one of which was that every diftich fhould contain at least three words beginning with the fame letter or found. Two of these correspondent Sounds might be placed either in the firft, or fecond line of the diftich, and one in the other: but all three were not regularly to be crowded into one line. This will be best understood by the following examples †•

"Meire og minne

Mogu heimdaller."

"Gab ginunga

Enn gras huerge."

There were many other little niceties obferved by the Iflandic poets, who as they retained their original language and peculiarities longer than the other nations of Gothic race, bad time

to

* Literatura Runica. Hafniæ 1636. 4to. -1651. fol. The ISLANDIC language is of the fame origin as our ANGLO-SAXON, being both dialects of the ancient GOTHIC or TEUTONIC. "Five pieces of Runic poetry tranflated from the Iflandic language, "1763." 800.

Vid. Hickes Antiq. Literatur. Septentrional. Tom. 1. p. 217.

to cultivate their native poetry more, and to carry it to a higher pitch of refinement, than any of the rest.

Their brethren the Anglo-Saxon poets occafionally used the fame kind of alliteration, and it is common to meet in their writings with fimilar examples of the foregoing rules. Take an inftance or two in modern characters:

*

"Ham and heahfetl

Heofena rikes."

I know not however that there is any where extant an intire Saxon poem all in this meafure. But diftichs of this fort perpetually occur in all their poems of any length.

Now, if we examine the verfification of PIERCE PLOWMAN'S VISIONS, we shall find it conftructed exactly by these rules; and therefore each line, as printed, is in reality a diftich of two verfes, and will, I believe, be found diftinguished as fuch, by fome mark or other in all the ancient MSS. viz.

when hot was the funne,
as I a fhepe were;
unholy of werkes,
wonders to heare, &c.

"In a fomer feafon,
Ifhope me into froubs,
"In habite as an harmet
"Went wyde in thys world

So that the author of this poem will not be found to have invented any new mode of verfification, as fome have fuppofed, but only to have retained that of the old Saxon and Gothic poets; which was probably never wholly laid afide, but occafionally used at different intervals; tho' the ravages of time will not fuffer us now to produce a regular feries of poems entirely written in it.

There are Jome readers, whom it may gratify to mention, that thefe VISIONS OF PIERCE [i. e. Peter] the PLowMAN, are attributed to Robert Langland, a fecular priest,

*Ibid.

R 3

born

+ So I would read with Mr. Warton, rather than either Joft as in MISS, or 'fet' as in FCC.