The limits of the present publication will not admit of many extracts from this curious work, but the following description, in which NATURE, or KIND, is represented as sending forth diseases from the planets, at the command of CONSCIENCE, and of his attendants AGE and DEATH, is too striking to be omitted: particularly since it appears to have suggested to Milton his sublime description of the Lazar-house. (Paradise Lost, B. xi. 1. 475). This coincidence is remarked by Mrs. Cooper, in her "Muses' Library."

KIND' Conscience then heard, and came out of the planets,

And sent forth his Forriers, fevers, and fluxes, Coughs, and cardiacles, 3 cramps, and tooth-aches, Boils, and blotches, and burning agues,

Phrenesis, and foul evil, foragers of KIND!

There was "Harowe! and help! here cometh KIND!

"With DEATH that is dreadful, to undo us all!"— Age the hoar, he was in the van-ward,

And bare the banner before DEATH; by right he

As pox and pestilences, and much people shent. So KIND, through corruptions, killed full many; Death came driving after, and all to dust pashed, Kings and kaysers, knights and popes.

Many a lovely lady, and leman of knights, Swooned, and swelted for sorrow of Death's dints, &c.

The editions of Pierce Ploughman that usually occur, are those of Crowley, of which, as Dr. Percy informs us, there were three published in the same year, 1550. A much scarcer edition is that of 1561, published by Owen Rogers,* to which is annexed a poem of nearly the same tendency, and written in the same metre, called Pierce the Ploughman's Creed. It was evidently composed after the death of Wickliffe, which happened in 1384, and is therefore more modern than many of the poems of Chaucer, but is noticed here on account of its style and subject.

Mr. Warton says, that in a copy of the Creed presented to him by the Bishop of Gloucester, and once belonging to Mr. Pope, the latter, in his own hand, has inserted the following abstract of its plan.

Beside the editions of Pierce Ploughman, by Anstey and Rogers, there was an intermediate one by Reginald Wolfe, in 1553.

"An ignorant plain man, having learned his "Paternoster and Ave-Mary, wants to learn his "Creed. He asks different religious men of the "several orders, to teach it him: first of a Friar"Minor, who bids him beware of the Carmelites, "and assures him they can teach him nothing, "describing their faults, &c.; but that the friars"minors shall save him whether he learns his creed "or not. He goes next to the Friars-Preachers, "whose magnificent monastery he describes: there "he meets a fat friar, who declaims againt the "Augustines. They rail at the Minorites. He goes "to the Carmes; they abuse the Dominicans, but "promise him salvation, without the creed, for 66 money. He leaves them with indignation, and "finds an honest poor ploughman in the field, and "tells him how he was disappointed by the four "orders. The ploughman answers with a long in"vective against them.”

For the full explanation of this poem, it is essential to premise, that in consequence of the many abuses which had gradually perverted the monastic institutions, it became necessary, about the beginning of the thirteenth century, to establish a new class of friars, who, possessing no regular revenues, and relying for a subsistence on the general reverence which they should attract by superior talent, or

severer sanctity of manners, should become the effectual and permanent support of the papal authority against those heresies which were beginning to infect the church, as well as against the jealousy of the civil power. The new institution consisted of four mendicant orders: the Franciscans, who were also called friars-minors, or minorites, or gray-friars the Augustine, or Austin friars, and Dominicans, or friars-preachers, or black-friars: and the Carmelites, or white-friars.

For the purpose of quickening their zeal, the popes bestowed on them, many new and uncommon privileges; the right of travelling where they pleased, of conversing with persons of all descriptions, of instructing youth, and of hearing confessions, and bestowing absolution without reserve: and as these advantages naturally attracted to the privileged orders, all the novices who were distinguished by zeal or talent, excited their emulation, and ensured the respect of the people, they quickly eclipsed all their rivals, and realised the most sanguine hopes, that had been entertained from their establishment.

The mendicant orders of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, but particularly the Dominicans, very nearly resembled the Jesuits of modern times. In these orders were found the most learned men,

and the most popular preachers of the age. The almost exclusive charge of the national education enabled them to direct the public taste and opinions: the confessional chair placed the consciences of their penitents at their disposal; and, their leading members having discovered that an association, in which individual talents are systematically directed to some general purpose, is nearly irresistible, soon insinuated themselves into the most important offices of church and state, and guided at their will, the religion and politics of Europe. But prosperity, as usual, made them indolent and imprudent. They had long been envied and hated, and the progress of general civilization, raised up numberless rivals, possessing equal learning, ambition, and versatility of manners, with superior activity and caution. They quarrelled among themselves, and thus lost the favour and reverence of the people; and they were at last gradually sinking into insignificance, when they were swallowed up in the general wreck of monastic institutions.

The magnificence of their edifices, which excited universal envy, was the frequent topic of Wickliffe's invective; and this poet, who was apparently much attached to the opinions of that reformer, has given us the following elaborate description of a Dominican convent.