_SECOND AND REVISED EDITION._
LONDON:
REEVES AND TURNER, 196 STRAND.
1887.
_PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION._
It is now thirteen years since the first edition of the following text of
this important poem was published by the late Mr. Pickering, during which
time the study of our old literature and history has undergone considerable
development, and it is believed that a reprint at a more moderate price
would be acceptable to the public. Holding still the same opinion which he
has always held with regard to the superior character of the manuscript
from which this text was taken, the editor has done no more than carefully
reprint it, but, in order to make it as useful as he could, he has revised
and made additions to both the Notes and the Glossary.
The remarkable poem of The Vision of Piers Ploughman is not only so
interesting a monument of the English language and literature, but it is
also so important an illustration of the political history of our country
during the fourteenth century, that it deserves to be read far more
generally than it has been, and the editor will rejoice sincerely if he
should have contributed by this new edition to render it more popular, and
place it within the reach of a greater number of readers. Independent of
its historical and literary importance, it contains many beauties which
will fully repay the slight labour required to master its partially
obsolete language, and, as one of the purest works in the English tongue as
it existed during the century in which it was composed, it is to be hoped
that, when the time shall at length arrive when English antiquities and
English philology and literary history are at length to be made a part of
the studies in our universities and in the higher classes of our schools,
the work of the Monk of Malvern, as a link between the poetry and language
of the Anglo-Saxon and those of modern England, will be made a prominent
text-book.