CHAUCEK. _ 277 



That after, when the storaa is all ago, 

 Yet will the water quap a day or two. 

 Eight so, though that her forme wei"e absent, 

 The pleasauce of her forme was present." 



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 Hertzberg, in 

 his remarkably intelligent essay, is led a little astray on 

 this point by his enthusiasm. Chaucer is a great naiTa- 

 tive 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 flavor 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 narra- 

 tive poet is occupied with his characters as pictiu'e, with 

 their gi'ouping, 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 storj'- 

 teller must possess the situation perfectly ih all its de- 

 tails, while the imagination of the dramatist must be 

 possessed and mastered b}^ it. The latter puts before 

 us the very passion or emotion itself in its utmost inten- 

 sity ; 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 hi? 

 reflection. The deepest pathos of the drama, like the 

 quiet " no more but so 1 " with which Shakespeare tell? 

 us that Ophelia's heart is bursting, is sudden as a stab, 

 while in narrative it is more or less siiffiised with pit}'-, 

 — a feeling capable of prolonged sustention. This pres- 

 ence of the author's own sjTupathy is noticeable in al) 

 Chaucer's pathetic passages, as, for instance, in the 

 lamentation of Constance over her child iu the " Man of 



