CHAUCER. 193 



a good rule in comparative anatomy, its application, except in a 

 very limited way, in criticism is sure to mislead; for we should 

 always bear in mind that the really great writer is great in the 

 mass, and is to be tested less by his cleverness in the elaboration 

 of parts than by that reach of mind which is incapable of random 

 effort, which selects, arranges, combines, rejects, denies itself the 

 cheap triumph of immediate effects, because it is absorbed by 

 the controlling charm of proportion and unity. A careless good- 

 luck of phrase is delightful; but criticism cleaves to the teleo- 

 logical argument, and distinguishes the creative intellect, not so 

 much by any happiness of natural endowment as by the marks 

 of design. It is true that one may sometimes discover by a 

 single verse whether an author have imagination, or may make 

 a shrewd guess whether he have style or no, just as by a few 

 spoken words you may judge of a man s accent; but the true 

 artist in language is never spotty, and needs no guide-boards of 

 admiring italics, a critical method introduced by Leigh Hunt, 

 whose feminine temperament gave him acute perceptions at the 

 expense of judgment. This is the Boeotian method, which offers 

 us a brick as a sample of the house, forgetting that it is not the 

 goodness of the separate bricks, but the way in which they are 

 put together, that brings them within the province of art, and 

 makes the difference between a heap and a house. A great 

 writer does not reveal himself here and there, but everywhere. 

 Langland s verse runs mostly like a brook, with a beguiling and 

 wellnigh slumberous prattle, but he, more often than any writer 

 of his class, flashes into salient lines, gets inside our guard with 

 the home-thrust of a forthright word, and he gains if taken piece 

 meal. His imagery is naturally and vividly picturesque, as where 

 he says of Old Age, 



Eld the hoar 



That was in the vauntward, 

 And bare the banner before death, 



and he softens to a sweetness of sympathy beyond Chaucer when 

 he speaks of the poor or tells us that Mercy is sib of all sinful; 

 but to compare Piers Ploughman with the * Canterbury Tales 

 is to compare sermon with song. 



Let us put a bit of Langland s satire beside one of Chaucer s. 

 Some people in search of Truth meet a pilgrim and ask him 

 whence he comes. He gives a long list of holy places, appealing 

 for proof to the relics on his hat : 



I have walked full wide in wet and in dry 



Ajid sought saints for my soul s health/ 



O 



