Note 58 — Chapter III · Round the Town with Chaucer and the Poets of his Time

It is scarcely possible to keep within bounds one’s enthusiasm for the magnificent edition of Piers Plowman, which Professor Skeat has placed in our hands. I feel, having watched the work from its inception in 1866, when ‘Parallel Extracts from 29 Manuscripts’ was published, that if the Early English Text Society had published nothing else it would have worthily justified its existence. The labour bestowed on the work by its editor is immense, and the result is that we have for the first time a perfect text of one of the most influential works in English literature, with all the illustrative notes necessary to exhibit its vast effect upon English history.