[2] For the general reader I fear that "The Visions of Piers Ploughman" must remain a sealed book. The last edition of Dr. WHITAKER, the most magnificent and frightful volume that was ever beheld in the black letter, was edited by one whose delicacy of taste unfitted him for this homely task: the plain freedom of the vigorous language is sometimes castrated, with a faulty paraphrase and a slender glossary; and passages are slurred over with an annihilating &c. Much was expected from this splendid edition; the subscription price was quadrupled, and on its publication every one would rid himself of the mutilated author. The editor has not assisted the reader through his barbarous text interspersed with Saxon characters and abbreviations, and the difficulties of an obscure and elliptical phraseology in a very antiquated language. Should ever a new edition appear, the perusal would be facilitated by printing with the white letter. There is an excellent specimen for an improved text and edition in "Gent. Mag.," April, 1834. [This improved text of the "Vision" and "Crede" has, since this note was originally written, been published with notes by T. Wright, M.A.; and has been again reprinted recently.] OCCLEVE; THE SCHOLAR OF CHAUCER. Warton passed sentence on OCCLEVE as "a cold genius, and a feeble writer." A literary antiquary, from a manuscript in his possession, published six poems of Occleve; but that selection was limited to the sole purpose of furnishing the personal history of the author.[1] Ritson's sharp snarl pronounced that they were of "peculiar stupidity;" George Ellis refused to give "a specimen;" and Mr. Hallam, with his recollection of the critical brotherhood, has decreed, that "the poetry of Occleve is wretchedly bad, abounding with pedantry, and destitute of grace or spirit." We could hardly expect to have heard any more of this doomed victim--this ancient man, born in the fourteenth century, standing before us, whose dry bones will ill bear all this shaking and cuffing. A literary historian, who has read manuscripts with the eagerness which others do the last novelty, more careful than Warton, and more discriminate than Ritson, has, with honest intrepidity, confessed that "OCCLEVE has not had his just share of reputation. His writings greatly assisted the growth of the popularity of our infant poetry."[2] Our historian has furnished from the manuscripts of OCCLEVE testimonies of his assertion. Among the six poems printed, one of considerable length exhibits the habits of a dissipated young gentleman in the fourteenth century. OCCLEVE for more than twenty years was a writer in the Privy Seal, where we find quarter days were most irregular; and though briberies constantly flowed in, yet the golden shower passed over the heads of the clerks, dropping nothing into the hands of these innocents.