There is a meditative pathos-quite distinct from that attaching to death or sorrow-the pathos belonging to human life as a whole, which colours the vast majority of these poems. Is not this the dulce to which the Latin poet refers? And is not sadness inevitably inherent in all sweetness that endures ?

So sad, so sweet, the days that are no more.

But here again it may be asked what is to decide, however brilliant the talent and consummate the style, whether the sentiment of a poem is sincere, or whether it is only a skilful theatrical effect-Thackeray's "lucrative gift of tears' over again, and whether we should find any charm in it, if its author were suspected of unreality. Surely this question is one of degree. Mr. Coventry Patmore, in one of the sanest and most acute of his prose essays, strongly opposes a view, popular of late, that the value of a poet's teaching is absolutely irrespective of the poet's own private character. Mr. Patmore proposed what he thought a crucial test of this theory. He said that Byron might quite well have written (had he been in the humour) Wordsworth's lines :

To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.

It was a bit of sentiment of which Byron was certainly capable. But had he written the lines, would they (Mr. Patmore asks) have affected us

at all in the same way or degree as they have done when they formed the conclusion of Wordsworth's ode? And he answers the question in the negative, and maintains that the lines take their value and their pathos from our unconscious comparison of them with Wordsworth's poetry as a whole, and even from our reading them in the light of Wordsworth's life and career. There is much to be said for Mr. Patmore's contention. Mr. Patmore no doubt chooses a rather extreme case as his illustration. Wordsworth and Byron are, perhaps, antipodean in their purposes as in their methods.

But the question is, how far can such a canon of criticism be extended to poets in general? We all find charm, for instance, in Goldsmith. Ought we to suspect its genuineness because its author was vain, and a Bohemian? We find charm in Thomas Moore, though in his bestknown songs some of it may spring from the pathos of the melodies to which he set them. Should we deny the charm because Moore was a drawing-room sentimentalist, and drew tears from impressionable dowagers, besides showing many weaknesses of character? We are not offended by this, nor raise the cry of hypocrisy or sham. The charm belongs to the writer's individuality; to the genuineness of his instincts, of what he "sees and approves," though he may have failed to attain it in his life.

A sense of the pathetic in life and sympathy

with it, from these springs the impulse which generates charm. Mr. Lowell called "style" the one true "antiseptic" of literature. And doubtless style has kept both prose and poetry alive. Style alone will place and preserve a literary composition in the ranks of the classics. But there is something else required to make verse read again and again, and to enshrine it in our memories; and it must be to this that Horace pointed, and this which sustained his hope that he would not "all die." How much of the poetry of to-day will survive by virtue of the presence of the dulce is a question not here to be discussed. We are living in an age when consummate technique and mastery of metrical effect in verse are attained in unprecedented degree. To what extent will these merits secure permanence of attraction after the first tribute of applause has been paid?

THE INFLUENCE OF CHAUCER

UPON HIS SUCCESSORS

I

A RECENT review in the Pilot has reminded its readers of the care that is being bestowed by scholars upon the text of Chaucer's poems. Through the labours of experts, and in England notably of Professor Skeat, we are to-day in a position to separate Chaucer's genuine work from that of his disciples and imitators with a certainty hitherto unattained. But the ordinary reader and lover of Chaucer, who cannot appreciate the skill by which this result has been reached, through the study of divergences in dialect and in laws of rhyme and rhythm, may be more interested perhaps in tracing the rise or fall of Chaucer's popularity during the last five centuries. Is the noteworthy revival of Chaucer's poetry during the last few years really a rediscovery, a renascence, or has he always been a significant force and influence in English poetry, though he himself may have been little read ?

Putting aside such charming imitations of Chaucer as the Flower and the Leaf, which so long passed for the master's own, the influence of Chaucer in England during the 150 years that followed his death was not apparent. Indeed, except for satirical verses of Lydgate and Skelton, and a number of ballads, such as the Robin Hood Cycle, Chevy Chase, the Nutbrown Maid, and the like, there was nothing of note in poetry produced in England. The Chaucerian influence worked in Scotland, in the royal author of the King's Quhair, and in the poems of Henryson, Dunbar, and David Lindsay of the Mount. These had all drunk of the Chaucerian stream, and James of Scotland definitely announced himself as a disciple of the Englishman. And even in England, though there is little outward resemblance to Chaucer in such ballads as the Nut-brown Maid, it may well have been that the humanity and geniality of their themes" familiar matter of to-day," in place of worn-out themes of chivalry-were the result of a change of taste in which Chaucer had a main share. And we must not overlook that when the printing press had really come to stay, the Canterbury Tales was amongst the earliest books printed by Caxton. And it is further significant of Chaucer's popularity that some time after Caxton had first printed the Tales he discovered a more accurate manuscript and proceeded to set up the type afresh.