260 CHAUCER. 



give us an equal vacuity in Tupper, so persistent a uni- 

 formity of commonplace in the " Recreations of a Coun- 

 try Parson." Let us be tlianlvful that the industrious 

 Gower never found time for recreation ! 



But a fairer as well as more instructive comparison lies 

 between Chaucer and the author of "Piers Ploughman." 

 Langland has as much tenderness, as much interest in 

 the varied picture of life, as hearty a contempt for hy- 

 pocrisy, and almost an equal sense of fun. He has the 

 same easy abundance of matter. But what a difference ! 

 It is the difference between the poet and the man of 

 poetic temperament. The abundance of the one is a con- 

 tinual fulness within the fixed limits of good taste ; that 

 of the other is squandered in overflow. The one can be 

 profuse on occasion ; the other is diff'use whether he will 

 or no. The one is full of talk ; the other is garrulous. 

 What in one is the refined honhomie of a man of the world, 

 is a rustic shrewdness in the other. Both are kindly in 

 their satire, and have not (like too many reformers) that 

 vindictive love of virtue which spreads the stool of re- 

 pentance with thistle-burrs before they invite the erring 

 to seat themselves therein. But what in " Piers Plough- 

 man " is sly fun, has the breadth and depth of humor in 

 Chaucer ; and it is plain that while the former was taken 

 up by his moral purpose, the main interest of the latter 

 turned to perfecting the form of his work. In short, 

 Chaucer had that fine literary sense which is as rare as 

 genius, and, united with it, as it was in him, assures an 

 immortality of fame. It is not merely what he has to 

 say, but even more the agreeable way he has of saying it, 

 that captivates our attention and gives him an assured 

 place in literature. Above all, it is not in detached pas- 

 sages that his charm lies, but in the entirety of expression 

 and the cumulative eff'ect of many particulars working 

 toward a common end. Now though ex ungue leonem be 



