232 CHAUCER. 



jrins, but he withstands the temptation manfully, and his 

 sunshine fills our hearts with a gush as sudden as that 

 which illumines the lady s oriel. Coleridge and Keats 

 have each in his way felt the charm of this winsome 

 picture, but have hardly equalled its hearty honesty, its 

 economy of material, the supreme test of artistic skill. I 

 admit that the phrase &quot; had there a gin &quot; is suspicious, and 

 suggests a French original, but I remember nothing alto 

 gether so good in the romances from the other side of the 

 Channel. One more passage occurs to me, almost incom 

 parable in its simple straightforward force and choice of 

 the right word. 



&quot; Sir Graysteel to his death thus tliraws, 

 He welters [wallows] and the grass updraws ; 



A little while then lay he still, 

 (Friends that saw him liked full ill) 

 And bled into his armour bright.&quot; 



The last line, for suggestive reticence, almost deserves to be 

 put beside the famous 



&quot; Quel giorno piu non vi leggemmo avante &quot; 



of the great master of laconic narration. In the same 

 poem* the growing love of the lady, in its maidenliness of 

 unconscious betrayal, is touched with a delicacy and tact as 

 surprising as they are delightful. But such passages, 

 which are the despair of poets who have to work in a 

 language that has faded into diction, are exceptional. 

 They are to be set down rather to good luck than to art. 

 Even the stereotyped similes of these fortunate alliterates, 

 like &quot;weary as water in a weir,&quot; or &quot;glad as grass is of the 

 rain,&quot; are new, like nature, at the thousandth repetition. 

 Perhaps our palled taste overvalues the wild flavour of 

 these wayside treasure-troves. They are wood-strawberries, 

 prized in proportion as we must turn over more leaves ere 

 we find one. This popular literature is of value in helping 



* Sir Eger a?id Sir Grine in the Percy Folio. The passage quoted 

 is from Ellis. 



