HOPKINS: CHARACTER AM) OPINIONS OF WILLIAM LANGLANLl. 355 



XIX., 424; C, XXII., 428), bishop, or ])lovvman. It will however be 

 necessary to reject Professor Skeat's explanation of these lines (C, 

 XXII., 213):- 



"Tlio b3'-gan Grace to go with Peers tlie Plouhman, 



And consailede h\-m and Conscience the cornune to soincny:'' — 



the summons being in order that the commons may be provided with 

 means of livelihood, and of defense against Anti-Christ. Of this pas- 

 sage Professor Skeat says (Notes, 268), "Here Grace is the Holy 

 Ghost, and Piers the Plowman is still Christ: the latter title not being 

 used of Christ's deputeil successors till line 258 below, though the 

 name oi /errs has been once so used above in line 18S." But there 

 can hardly be a distinction between "peers" and Piers the Plowman,- 

 particularly as the "peers" of line 188 appears in the preceding line 

 (187) at full length as "Peers the Plouhman." The special gifts that 

 are afterwards mentioned proceed from the Holy Spirit, not from 

 Piers. Moreover, at the next mention of Piers, Grace calls him "my 

 plowman upon earth," a statement fully as consistent with his 

 humanity as with his divinity. 



That objection to the suggested interpretation, which is based on 

 the account of Piers Plowaian at the dinner (C, X\'I., 138), cannot 

 be disposed of, unless we call the passage a blunder on Langland's 

 part. Here he certainly means Christ and as certainly calls Him 

 Piers Plowman; but a reason for doing so, other than that suggested, 

 is not apparent. 



We have remaining, after the passages mentioned, the final refer- 

 ence to Piers Plowman as to one who alone can save the church. 

 This reference does make him Divine; but for this exaltation of his 

 character we are now fully prepared. Piers, with the exception 

 mentioned, has been taking on more and more of the Divine char- 

 acter without merging in it the human, until at this point, with a single 

 touch, he is uplifted and glorified; and he who has hitherto 

 been a fellow laborer and a fellow sufferer as well as a guide and 

 teacher, suddenly, yet naturally, in a moment of deepest despair, 

 becomes a Savior. Thus a light still beams; and the darkness in 

 which the poem ends is not absolute, nor hopeless, but may be tlie 

 darkness before the dawn. . 



Clirist I conclude then that the conventional interpretation of 



the Moil. Piers as Christ must be accepted as the conception which 

 was undoubtedly in the author's mind when writing a certain part of 

 the poem; but that in revision, he weakened the conception of Piers 

 as Divine and strengthened that of Piers as man endowed with the 

 Divine Spirit, thus bringing into greater harmony the several parts of 

 his poem, but not comjjleting the unifying process. To support this 



