204 CHAUCER. 



Of his goodnesse he gladed her anon 

 And said [saide] let your father s treason gon 

 Forth with mischance, and ye yourself in joy 

 Dwelleth with us while [that] you list in Troy. 



If the Italian were read with the same ignorance that has 

 wreaked itself on Chaucer, the riding-rhyme would be on its 

 high horse in almost every line of Boccaccio s stanza. The same 

 might be said of many a verse in Donne s satires. Spenser in 

 his eclogues for February, May, and September evidently took 

 it for granted that he had caught the measure of Chaucer, and 

 it would be rather amusing, as well as instructive, to hear the 

 maintainers of the hop-skip-and-jump theory of versification 

 attempt to make the elder poet s verses dance to the tune for 

 which one of our greatest metrists (in his philological deafness) 

 supposed their feet to be trained. 



I will give one more example of Chaucer s verse, again making 

 my selection from one of his less mature works. He is speaking 

 of Tarquin : 



And ay the more he was in despair 



The more he coveted and thought her fair ; 



His blinde lust was all his coveting. 



On morrow when the bird began to sing 



Unto the siege he cometh full privily 



And by himself he walketh soberly 



The image of her recording alway new : 



Thus lay her hair, and thus fresh was her hue, 



Thus sate, thus spake, thus span, this was her cheer, 



Thus fair she was, and this was her manere. 



All this conceit his heart hath new ytake, 



And as the sea, with tempest all toshake, 



That after, when the storm is all ago, 



Yet will the water quap a day or two, 



Right so, though that her forme were absent, 



The pleasance of her forme was present. 



And this passage leads me to say a few words of Chaucer as 

 a descriptive poet ; for I think it a great mistake to attribute to 

 him any properly dramatic power, as some have done. Even 

 Herr Hertzburg, in his remarkably intelligent essay, is led a 

 little astray on this point by his enthusiasm. Chaucer is a great 

 narrative poet ; and, in this species of poetry, though the author s 

 personality should never be obtruded, it yet unconsciously per 

 vades the whole, and communicates an individual quality a 

 kind of flavour of its own. This very quality, and it is one of 

 the highest in its way and place, would be fatal to all dramatic 

 force. The narrative poet is occupied with his characters as 

 picture, with their grouping, even their costume, it may be, and 

 he feels for and with them instead of being they for the moment, 



