aning of his vision, and reads him a
sermon the text of which is, "When all treasure is tried, truth is the
best." A number of other allegorical figures are next introduced,
Conscience, Reason, Meed, Simony, Falsehood, etc., and after a series
of speeches and adventures, a second vision begins in which the seven
deadly sins pass before the poet in a succession of graphic
impersonations, and finally all the characters set out on a pilgrimage
in search of St. Truth, finding no guide to direct them save Piers the
Plowman, who stands for the simple, pious laboring man, the sound heart
of the English common folk. The poem was originally in eight divisions
or "passus," to which was added a continuation in three parts, _Vita Do
Wel_, _Do Bet_, and _Do Best_. About 1377 the whole was greatly
enlarged by the author.

_Piers Plowman_ was the first extended literary work after the Conquest
which was purely English in character. It owed nothing to France but
the {31} allegorical cast which the _Roman de la Rose_ had made
fashionable in both countries. But even here such personified
abstractions as Langland's Fair-speech and Work-when-time-is, remind us
less of the Fraunchise, Bel-amour, and Fals-semblaunt of the French
courtly allegories than of Bunyan's Mr. Worldly Wiseman, and even of
such Puritan names as Praise-God Barebones, and Zeal-of-the-land Busy.
The poem is full of English moral seriousness, of shrewd humor, the
hatred of a lie, the homely English love for reality. It has little
unity of plan, but is rather a series of episodes, discourses,
parables, and scenes. It is all astir with the actual life of the
time. We see the gossips gathered in the ale-house of Betun the
brewster, and the pastry cooks in the London streets crying "Hote pies,
hote! Good gees and grys. Go we dine, go we!" Had Langland not
linked his literary fortunes with an uncouth and obsolescent verse, and
had he possessed a finer artistic sense and a higher poetic
imagination, his book might have been, like Chaucer's, among the
lasting glories of our tongue. As it is, it is forgotten by all but
professional students of literature and history. Its popularity in its
own day is shown by the number of MSS. which are extant, and by
imitations, such as _Piers the Plowman's Crede_ (1394), and the
_Plowman's Tale_, for a long time wrongly inserted in the _Canterbury
Tales_. Piers became a kind of typical figure, like the French
peasant, _Jacques Bo