Here is the master of the art; and his work, most of all, therefore, makes us doubt the practicability of the thing undertaken. He works reverently, lovingly, surely with full apprehension of Chaucer; and yet, at every word where he leaves Chaucer, the spirit of Chaucer leaves the verse. You see plainly that his rule is to change the least that can possibly be changed. Yet the gentle grace, the lingering musical sweetness, the taking simplicity, of the wise old poet, vanishes--brushed away like the down from the butterfly's wing, by the lightest and most timorous touch. "For he can make of lowe hertes highe." There is the soul of the lover's poet, of the poet himself a lover, poured out and along in one fond verse, gratefully consecrated to the mystery of love, which he, too, has experienced when he--the shy, the fearful, the reserved--was yet by the touch of that all-powerful ray which "Shoots invisible virtue even to the deep," enkindled, and to his own surprise made elate to hope and to dare. But now contract, as Wordsworth does, the dedicated verse into a half verse, and bring together the two distinct and opposite mysteries under one enunciation--in short, divide the one verse to two subjects-- "For he of low hearts can make high--of high He can make low;" and the fact vouched remains the same, the simplicity of the words is kept, for they are the very words, and yet something is gone--and in that something every thing! There is no longer the dwelling upon the words, no longer the dilated utterance of a heart that melts with its own thoughts, no longer the consecration of the verse to its matter, no longer the softness, the light, the fragrance, the charm--no longer, in a word, the old manner. Here is, in short, the philosophical observation touching love, "the saw of might" still; but the love itself here is not. A kindly and moved observer speaks, not a lover. In one of the above-cited stanzas, Urry seems to have misled Wordsworth. Stanza iv. verse 4, Chaucer says:-- "And whoso that he wol, he lougheth or siketh." The sense undoubtedly is, "and whosoever HE"--namely, the God of Love--"will, HE"--namely, the Lover--"laugheth or sigheth accordingly." But Urry mistaking the construction--supposed that HE, in both places, meant the god only. He had, therefore, to find out in "lougheth" and "siketh," actions predicable of the love-god. The verse accordingly runs thus with him, "And who that he wol, he loweth or siketh." Now, it is true, that, after all, we do not exactly know how Urry understood his own reading; for he did not make his own glossary. But from his glossary, we find that "to lowe" is to praise, to allow, to approve--furthermore that "siketh" in this place means "maketh sick." Wordsworth, following as it would appear the lection of Urry, but only half agreeing to the interpretation of Urry's glossarist, has rendered the line "To humble or afflict whome'er he will."