SOURCE: "The Author of The Pearl, Considered in the Light of His Theological Opinions," in PMLA, Vol. XIX, No. 1, 1904, pp. 115-45.

In the following essay, Brown describes the Pearl author as an ecclesiastic who, two hundred years prior to the Protestant Reformation, created a three-hundred-line argument equating the grace received in heaven by a baptized infant with that received by a lifelong active Christian.

Among the English poets of the fourteenth century the one who deserves the seat next to Chaucer is the anonymous author of the four poems: Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight, The Pearl, Cleanness, and Patience. The singular beauty of these poems has long stimulated scholars to the most diligent efforts to discover their author.

The first attempt to identify the unknown poet was made in 1838 by Dr. Edwin Guest [History of English Rhythms, 1882] who confidently assigned these poems to Huchown, the mysterious Scotch...