HOPKINS: CHARACTER AND OPINIONS OF WILLIAM LANGLAND. 277 



Still have no difficulty in gathering the specific lessons which Lang- 

 land teaches in specific places. 



Through the whole composition it is evident that the poem was 

 really a growth, not a structure; or if a structure, put together in a 

 childlike way; and the efforts to reduce it to structural beauty and 

 proportion, while partly successful, were an afterthought. 



Allegory, After the visions the allegories are the most prominent 

 features, and here again Langlaud is following the example of others. 

 But Langland carries his personifications farther than any other has 

 done, except Bunyan; while he deals largely with the abstract and 

 the ideal, he loves to make it as concrete and as tangible as possible. 



quotations. There is really more of originality and more of the 

 spirit of the coming Reformation in his liberal use of quotations. 

 His purpose was twofold; to show that his own teaching was in no 

 sense revolutionary, but in accordance with the standard of the 

 church; and to make the teaching of the church plain to all. To this 

 latter end he translated the passages used, interpreted, commented, or 

 preached from them as texts, and in a homely fashion that the 

 simplest could understand. And while he could not place the Bible 

 itself in the hands of the people, he did what he could toward that 

 end, and approved the efforts of those who aimed to do more. 

 Looking at the quotations simply, we might regard the whole poem as a 

 series of sermons bearing upon daily duty as the chief topic, and even 

 the metrical form and the imagery were well adapted to make the 

 sermons effective; probably more so than Langland knew when he 

 began to write. 



s^imiies and The poem abounds in similes, proverbs, parables 

 Proverbs.. ^^^^ puns, of which a fairly complete list is given in 

 the index to Professor Skeat's edition. From Langland we may 

 learn the origin of many expressions that are current in popular 

 speech, if not in literature; as for instance, the supposedly profane 

 expression "not worth a curse," proves to be the eminently fit and 

 sensible remark, "not worth a cress" (( !, XIL, 14"^. Others especi- 

 ally striking are, "to have pepper in the nose" (B, XV., 197) for, to 

 be angry; "measuring J;he mist on Malvern Hills" (C, L, 163) as 

 preferable to meeting an attorney without money in hand; the familiar 

 and mysterious saying, "as dead as a doornail" (C, II., 184), and the 

 negative and ironical expressions, "as courteous as a hound in a 

 kitchen" (B, V., 261), "as becometh a cow to hop in a cage" (R, 

 HI,, 262). These sayings and proverbs almost without exception 

 wear the aspect of current coin of the realm, and add to the effective- 

 ness of the pictures of common life. 



