CHAUCER. 251 



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 pervades 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 a picture, 

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

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

 as the dramatist must always be. The story-teller must 

 possess the situation perfectly in all its details, while the 

 imagination of the dramatist must be possessed and 

 mastered by it. The latter puts before us the very 

 passion or emotion itself in its utmost intensity; the 

 former gives them, not in their primary form, but in that 

 derivative one which they have acquired by passing through 

 his own mind and being modified by his reflection. The 

 deepest pathos of the drama, like the quiet &quot; no more but 

 so 1 &quot; with which Shakespeare tells us that Ophelia s heart 

 is bursting, is sudden as a stab, while in narrative it is more 

 or less suffused with pity a feeling capable of prolonged 

 sustention. This presence of the author s own sympathy is 

 noticeable in all Chaucer s pathetic passages, as, for instance, 

 in the lamentation of Constance over her child in the &quot; Man 

 of Law s Tale.&quot; When he comes to the sorrow of his story, 

 he seems to croon over his thoughts, to sooth them and 

 dwell upon them with a kind of pleased compassion, as a 

 child treats a wounded bird which he fears to grasp too 

 tightly, and yet cannot make up his heart wholly to let go. 

 It is true also of his humour that it pervades his comic tales 

 like sunshine, and never dazzles the attention by a sudden 

 flash. Sometimes he brings it in parenthetically, and 

 insinuates a sarcasm so slyly as almost to slip by without 



