These figures are taken from a fine manuscript of the celebrated poem of Piers Ploughman,by William Langland, preserved in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge, and wirtten about the end of the reign of Edward III, or at the beginning of that of Richard II. It gives us a very good idea of the mode of ploughing with oxen, as well as of the kind of instrument then used, and of the costume of the husbandman. In one of the beams of the plough is inserted the plough-mell, or mallet, frequently mentioned in old writings. The drawing is accompanied by the old popular distich. Illustration from the poem entitled the Creed of Piers Ploughman, written about the reign of Richard II.