240 CHA UCER. 



works verses that might pass without question in Milton or 

 even Wordsworth, so mainly unchanged have the language 

 of poetry and the movement of verse remained from his day 

 to our own. 



&quot;Thou Polymnia 



On Pernaso, that, with* thy sisters glade, 

 By Helicon, not far from Cirrea, 

 Singest with voice memorial in the shade, 

 Under the laurel which that may not fade. 



And downward from a hill under a bent 

 There stood the temple of Mars omnipotent 

 Wrought all of burned steel, of which th entree 

 Was long and strait and ghastly for to see : 

 The northern light in at the doores shone 

 For window in the wall ne was there none 

 Through which men mighten any light discerne ; 

 The dore was all of adamant eterne.&quot; 



And here are some lines that would not seem out of place 

 in the &quot; Paradise of Dainty Devises : &quot; 



11 Hide, Absolom, thy gilte [gilded] tresses clear, 

 Esther lay thou thy meekness all adown. 



Make of your wifehood no comparison ; 

 Hide ye your beauties Ysoude and Elaine, 

 My lady cometh, that all this may distain.&quot; 



When I remember Chaucer s malediction upon his scrivener, 

 and consider that by far the larger proportion of his verses 

 (allowing always for change of pronunciation) are perfectly 

 accordant with our present accentual system, I cannot 

 believe that he ever wrote an imperfect line. His ear 

 would never have tolerated the verses of nine syllables, 

 with a strong accent on the first, attributed to him by Mr. 

 Skeate and Mr. Morris. Such verses seem to me simply 

 impossible in the pentameter iambic as Chaucer wrote it. 

 A great deal of misapprehension would be avoided in dis 

 cussing English metres, if it were only understood that 

 quantity in Latin and quantity in English mean very 

 different things. Perhaps the best quantitative verses in 



* Commonly printed hath. 



