Page 523, C-text
The Crowned King.
[THIS piece has been inserted because it is an early specimen of the several poems that have been written in imitation of Piers the Plowman. The first 27 lines were printed by Percy in his "Reliques;" but the whole poem is now printed for the first time. As it has no title, I have given it that of The Crowned King, because this expression occurs four times; see ll. 1, 35, 51, 141; note especially l. 35. Short as it is, we can decide with sufficient accuracy many points in connection with it. The general form of it, especially that part where the dream begins, is enough to shew that it is, as above-said, an imitation of Piers the Plowman; and this will appear more clearly if the passages mentioned in the foot-notes be examined. The language is somewhat simpler and later, and the author has caught the manner of his original but imperfectly, so that the result is, as a whole, weaker and milder. In this respect, it supplies a most useful contrast to the poem of "Richard the Redeless," in which the exact style and spirit of Piers the Plowman is perfectly maintained throughout. The happiest imitations are perhaps to be found in ll. 61—72, 81—83, 86—89, 111, 118, 124, 131, 132, and especially l. 134, which is perfect. Instead of metels (a dream) we find the later form metyng. In l. 116, the alliteration breaks down badly; the writer had no business to link speche with small (thus alliterating sp with sm), and then leave out the chief-letter. The unique copy here printed is to be found in MS. Douce 95, the writing being of the middle of the fifteenth century. The MS. contains several other pieces, and on leaf 12 the date 1439 is mentioned. If we accept the various indications of date afforded by the allusions in it—and we in fairness ought to do so, because otherwise the whole poem becomes meaningless—we may very easily determine all that is necessary to be known about it. It really amounts to a letter of advice addressed to a youthful yet not incompetent king, who can be no other than Henry V. Such a line as l. 77— Thi peres in parlement · pull hem to-geders— is quite inapplicable to Henry VI., who succeeded to the throne as a mere infant, and would have been entirely superfluous if addressed to Henry IV.; whilst the language is too late for the first few years of Richard II., and the writing too early for Edward IV. As addressed to Henry V., however, the poem is at once intelligible, and has adequate reasons for existence. I have little hesitation in fixing the date of composition as being probably the month of June, 1415. The author says he had just been with some friends on
