CHAUCER. 263 



There walkith none but the lymytour himself, 



In undermeles and in morwenynges. 



And sayth his matyns and his holy thinges, 



As he goth in his lymytatioun. 



Wommen may now go saufly up and doun; 



In every bush or under every tre 



There is none other incubus but he, 



And he ne wol doon hem no dishonour." 



How cunningly the contrast is suggested here between 

 the Elf-queen's jolly company and the unsocial limiters, 

 thick as motes in the sunbeam, yet each walking by him- 

 self ! And with what an air of innocent unconsciousness 

 is the deadly thrust of the last verse given, with its con- 

 temptuous emphasis on the he that seems so well-mean- 

 ing ! Even Shakespeare, who seems to come in after 

 everybody has done his best with a " Let me take hold 

 a minute and show you how to do it," could not have 

 bettered this. 



"Piers Ploughman" is the best example I know of what 

 is called popular poetry, of compositions, that is, which 

 contain all the simpler elements of poetry, but still in 

 solution, not crystallized around any thread of artistic 

 purpose. In it appears at her best the Anglo-Saxon Muse, 

 a first cousin of Poor Richard, full of proverbial wisdom, 

 who always brings her knitting in her pocket, and seems 

 most at home in the chimney-corner. It is genial ; it 

 plants itself firmly on human nature with its rights and 

 wrongs ; it has a surly honesty, prefers the downright to 

 the gracious, and conceives of speech as a tool rather 

 than a musical instrument. If we should seek for a 

 single word that would define it most precisely, we should 

 not choose simplicity, but homeliness. There is more 

 or less of this in all early poetry, to be sure ; but I think 

 it especially proper to English poets, and to the most 

 English among them, like Cowper, Crabbe, and one is 

 tempted to add Wordsworth, where he forgets Cole- 

 ridge's private lectures. In reading such poets as Lang- 



