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He has never so much as heard of the burthen and the mystery of all
this unintelligible world. His flowers and trees and birds have never
bothered themselves with Spinoza. He himself sings more like a bird than
any other poet, because it never occurred to him, as to Goethe, that he
ought to do so. He pours himself out in sincere joy and thankfulness.
When we compare Spenser's imitations of him with the original passages,
we feel that the delight of the later poet was more in the expression
than in the thing itself. Nature, with him, is only to be transfigured
by art. We walk among Chaucer's sights and sounds; we listen to
Spenser's musical reproduction of them. In the same way the pleasure
which Chaucer takes in telling his stories, has, in itself, the effect
of consummate skill, and makes us follow all the windings of his fancy
with sympathetic interest. His best tales run on like one of our inland
rivers, sometimes hastening a little and turning upon themselves in
eddies, that dimple without retarding the current, sometimes loitering
smoothly, while here and there a quiet thought, a tender feeling, a
pleasant image, a golden-hearted verse, opens quietly as a water-lily to
float on the surface without breaking it into ripple.
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