or Longland, Robert, the reputed author of the *Visions of Piers Plowman*, was a native of Cleobury-Mortimer, in Shropshire. Of his personal history nothing is known beyond this, that he was a fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, that he entered the church and became a secular priest, that he lived in the times of Edward III. and Richard II., and that he was one of the earliest followers of Wycliffe. The dates of his birth and death are both unknown, but internal evidence fixes, approximately at least, the time when the *Visions* were written. One passage contains an allusion to the Treaty of Bretigny, made with France in 1360, and to the disasters which brought it about; another describes the great storm of January 15, 1362, as a recent event. "It is probable," says Mr Wright, in his edition of the *Visions*, "that the poem of Piers Plowman was written in the latter part of this year, when the effects of the great wind were fresh in people's memory, and when the Treaty of Bretigny had become a subject of popular discontent." According to Bale, the poem begun, or in hand this year, was completed in 1369.

The poem purports to be a series of visions seen by the author, when he fell asleep "on a May morwenynge," among the Malvern Hills. It consists of twenty "passus," or sections, each passus forming, or professing to form, a separate dream. The connection of the various dreams with each other is so ill-sustained, that the work may be regarded not so much as a single poem, as a succession of poems. The subject and the treatment are very much the same with the *Pilgrim's Progress* of Bunyan. A parallel has been drawn between the two works, suggested in the first instance by the similarity in the names of the personages, and borne out by a resemblance on many points far more important than that merely accidental one. But the general scope of the two allegories is widely different. The *Visions* are professedly satirical, and the satire being directed chiefly against the ignorance, irreligion, and immorality of the ecclesiastical orders. Interspersed are many passages of extraordinary poetical vigour, bursts of serious feeling, and sketches of external nature. These, however, are mere digressions, and the author always returns with new and sharper zest to his favourite theme. From the idea that the *Visions* were not only a religious, but also a kind of Protestant work, they were reprinted at the Reformation no fewer than three times in one year. The fact is, however, that the anti-clerical spirit in Langland is no more decided than it is in Chaucer. Many of the allegories are whimsically ingenious, and are good types of the kind of inventions in vogue in the poetry of the middle ages. The Lady Anima, who represents the soul of man, is placed by Kind, that is Nature, in a castle called Caro, or the Flesh; and the charge of it is committed to the Constable Sir In-wit, a wise knight, whose chief officers are his five sons, See-well, Say-well, Hear-well, Work-well, and Go-well. One of the other figures is Resen, who preaches in the church to the king and his knights, teaching that all the evils of the realm are because of sin. Among the vices who are converted by the sermon we see Proud-heart, who vows to wear haircloth; Envy, lean, cowering, biting his lips, and wearing the sleeves of a friar's frock; and Covetousness, a bony, beetle-browed, blear-eyed, ill-clothed cadill. The metrical structure of the poem is accentual, and is, in fact, a revival of the old alliterative system of metre. Its success in its own day was so great as to prompt many imitations, all, without exception, quite inferior to the original.

The *Vision* has been often printed. There are two sets of MSS. of the poem, containing readings differing considerably from each other. The received version has been frequently published, but the last edition, that of 1842, by Thomas Wright, is beyond all comparison the best. The edition of 1813, by Dr Whitaker, follows the other texts, and is curious, costly, and incorrect, while the glossary and notes are contemptible.