smoothness, yet with great submission to his judgment, I think there
is some alteration even in Skelton and Harding, which will appear to
the reader to the best advantage by a quotation. Of Langland's family
we have no account. Selden in his notes on Draiton's Poly Olbion,
quotes him with honour; but he is entirely neglected by Philips and
Winstanly, tho' he seems to have been a man of great genius: Besides
Chaucer, few poets in that or the subsequent age had more real
inspiration or poetical enthusiasm in their compositions. One cannot
read the works of this author, or Chaucer, without lamenting the
unhappiness of a fluctuating language, that buries in its ruins even
genius itself; for like edifices of sand, every breath of time defaces
it, and if the form remain, the beauty is lost. The piece from which I
shall quote a few lines, is a work of great length and labour, of
the allegoric kind; it is animated with a lively and luxurious
imagination; pointed with a variety of pungent satire; and dignified
with many excellent lessons of morality; but as to the conduct of
the whole, it does not appear to be of a piece; every vision seems a
distinct rhapsody, and does not carry on either one single action or
a series of many; but we ought rather to wonder at its beauties than
cavil at its defects; and if the poetical design is broken, the
moral is entire, which, is uniformly the advancement of piety, and
reformation of the Roman clergy. The piece before us is entitled the
Vision of Piers the Plowman, and I shall quote that particular part
which seems to have furnished a hint to Milton in his Paradise Lost,
b. 2. 1. 475.

Kinde Conscience tho' heard, and came out of
the planets,
And sent forth his sorrioues, fevers, and fluxes,
Coughes, and cardicales, crampes and toothaches,