New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1894-05-06

advance them by clerkship (clergie). and this
for the maintenance and salvation OF the honor
of all freemen of the realm" But he knew also
that he suffered the obloquy which his position
as one neither bond nor free brought upon hlm'
And he had the knowledge, which stimulated MS
pride. If 1t did not bring contentment that ne
did not put himself into the place ne held II
was when he was young that his father and his
friends sent him to school They were to blame
not he, first that in his person a common abuse
OF the times was exemplifled and second, that
he knew other way to live than In MS iohs
robes. II they had lived, he might nave au-
vanced so far as cleric that he would nave
been above the miseries Of his birth and his pow
erty But they died NJ. Jusserand's magma
ton leads him to think that here Langland refers
TO one of those medieval epidemics that made
life so precarious Men lived in those times In
the midst OF terrors. 1t was no wonder that
they became Missionaries and mystics. The poet
would have been predsposed TO melancholy IN
any case, but his pecuarities might all be ac-
counted for by some sudden calamity, which de-
prlvcd him at one blow of all those who took any
interest in his advancement. Langland mad
high hopes in his youth. He said as much
But they all depended on his patrons and they
disappeared. NJ. Jusserand. with his intimate
knowledge of times and seasons in the Middle
Ages thinks that the misfortune to when Lang
land referred may have been a pestilence mat
ragged in the West Of England in l349, when the
poet perhaps eighteen years OF age.
Without hope Of preferment he must now nNe
by that labor which he learned best lie
learned all the wretchedness that isolation and
poverty and unfulhlled desire could teach him.
To make his misery worse he married VIE
Marriage removed his last chance OF rising
in the world. His task as a chanter be-
came even more Cnerous 1t was a mere say
ing Of words for a livelihood. Thus he came to
live tive. ives-One as an ecclesiastical slave toll.
ing for a little silver. the other as dreamer OF
dreams He has depicted himself at this period
Of his existence" says VI. Jusserand, "a great,
gaunt figure dressed in solemn garments with
large folds. sad in a grief without end bewall-
ing the protectors of his childhood seeing notn-
ing but clouds on the horizon Of his life He
made friends with none. He seemed To others a
mailman. He knew their thoughts. Nor is the
fancy of mental disease ever far from his own
mind. Fool, frantic, IDIOT these are words
frequent his pen. When he looks from the
miseries of the world around him to the posi-
bilities of another world. his confession Is: "The
deeper / divine, the darker me IL thinketh." II
he had no learning, # he had remained peas
ant, then he would have been happy In the
simplest faith Thus he wavers between hope
and despair. between fear and confidence, be
tween excuses an9 austcrties. between wilfu-
ness and "willessness" In these waverngS are
10 be found some of the symptoms OF those
diseases Of the will which have been mlnutely
studied in our time. We can notice In his case
the existence Of several among the phenomena
which characterize these diseases, Sucn as HAeu
ideas. and with them. alteration or depression
Of the will" He was unable to react against
the conditions of his life. He scOrns in his verse
the very sins which he practises. lie Is true 10
himself only In his visions. There he breaches the
conservatism the optimism Of common-sense
Surely he not the only mystic in whom mad
ness had method. As Saxon and as mystic, NJ.
Jusserand holds him to be the true predeces-
sor of men whom perhaps only a French his
tOrian would venture to associate in a single
group-men 80 diverse as Role OF Hamp0le, who
HI, 70 IN
one subject and talk on another; Lord Herbert
Of Cherbury, George Fox. John Bunyan. John
Wesley. William Cowper, and Blake, the painter.
or the symbol-oving poets Shelley. Rossett and
Browning. Some Of these men. he says. border
on madness. But the link that really joins
. them TO Langland is that they are Saxon. They
90 not initiate each other. They might resent
being named together. but they are united by
'inherited blood qualities and moods" In each
of them may be seen some Of the traits OF the old
Anglo-SaxOns. who excel in depicting sonbre
and desolate scenes they are haunted by the
thought Of death. the charnel-house and the tor
lures Of hell.