“if that God that heaven and yearth made,
     Would have a love for beauty and goodnesse,
     And womanhede, trouth, and semeliness.”

But in justification of our praise, we must refer to his works themselves; to the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, the account of Gentilesse, the Flower and the Leaf, the stories of Griselda, Virginia, Ariadne, and Blanche the Dutchesse, and much more of less distinguished merit.  There are many poets of more taste, and better manners, who knew how to leave out their dulness; but such negative genius cannot detain us long; we shall return to Chaucer still with love.  Some natures, which are really rude and ill-developed, have yet a higher standard of perfection than others which are refined and well balanced.  Even the clown has taste, whose dictates, though he disregards them, are higher and purer than those which the artist obeys.  If we have to wander through many dull and prosaic passages in Chaucer, we have at least the satisfaction of knowing that it is not an artificial dulness, but too easily matched by many passages in life.  We confess that we feel a disposition commonly to concentrate sweets, and accumulate pleasures; but the poet may be presumed always to speak as a traveller, who leads us through a varied scenery, from one eminence to another, and it is, perhaps, more pleasing, after all, to meet with a fine thought in its natural setting.  Surely fate has enshrined it in these circumstances for some end.  Nature strews her nuts and flowers broadcast, and never collects them into heaps.  This was the soil it grew in, and this the hour it bloomed in; if sun, wind, and rain came here to cherish and expand the flower, shall not we come here to pluck it?

A true poem is distinguished not so much by a felicitous expression, or any thought it suggests, as by the atmosphere which surrounds it.  Most have beauty of outline merely, and are striking as the form and bearing of a stranger; but true verses come toward us indistinctly, as the very breath of all friendliness, and envelop us in their spirit and fragrance.  Much of our poetry has the very best manners, but no character.  It is only an unusual precision and elasticity of speech, as if its author had taken, not an intoxicating draught, but an electuary.  It has the distinct outline of sculpture, and chronicles an early hour.  Under the influence of passion all men speak thus distinctly, but wrath is not always divine.

There are two classes of men called poets.  The one cultivates life, the other art,—­one seeks food for nutriment, the other for flavor; one satisfies hunger, the other gratifies the palate.  There are two kinds of writing, both great and rare; one that of genius, or the inspired, the other of intellect and taste, in the intervals of inspiration.  The former is above criticism, always correct, giving the law to criticism.  It vibrates and pulsates with life forever.  It is sacred, and to be read