CHAUCER. 261 



a good rule in comparative anatomy, its application, ex- 

 cept in a very limited way, in criticism is sm-e to mislead ; 

 for we should always bear in mind that the really great 

 writer is great in the mass, and is to be tested less by his 

 cleverness in the elaboration of parts than by that re-cich 

 of mind which is incapable of random effort, which selects, 

 arranges, combines, rejects, denies itself the cheap tri- 

 umph of immediate effects, because it is absorbed by the 

 controlling charm of proportion and unity. A careless 

 good-luck of phrase is delightful ; but criticism cleaves to 

 the teleological argument, and distinguishes the creative 

 intellect, not so much by any happiness of natural endow- 

 ment as by the marks of design. It is true that one may 

 sometimes discover by a single verse w^hether an author 

 have imagination, or may make a shrewd guess whether 

 he have style or no, just as by a few spoken words you 

 may judge of a man's accent ; but the true artist in 

 language is never spotty, and needs no guide-boards of 

 admiring italics, a critical method introduced by Leigh 

 Hunt, w^hose feminine temperament gave him acute per- 

 ceptions at the expense of judgment. This is the Boeotian 

 method, which offers us a brick as a sample of the house, 

 forgetting that it is not the goodness of the separate 

 bricks, but the way in which they are put together, that 

 brings them within the province of art, and makes the 

 difference between a heap and a house. A great writer 

 does not reveal himself here and there, but everywhere. 

 Langland's verse runs mostly like a brook, with a beguil- 

 ing and wellnigh slumberous prattle, but he, more often 

 than any writer of his class, flashes into salient lines, gets 

 inside our guard with the home-thrust of a forthright 

 word, and he gains if taken piecemeal. His imagery is 

 naturall}^ and vividly picturesque, as where he says of 

 Old Age, — 



