So contentedly did he “loll” there, indeed--“so blithe of his wood-bine”--that he cared not a penny for any “diet” that day; and when it “nighed to night” and “nappe hym bihoued,” he slept the sleep of the just “vnder leues.” In his account of Jonah’s anger against God, and God’s argument in favour of sparing Nineveh, the poet elaborates as ever the Bible narrative, and the appeal for the right of the inhabitants to live is tenderer than in the more concise original. God pleads, for instance, for the “lyttel bairnes on barme (breast) that neuer bale wrought,” and the reference to “much cattle” becomes: And als ther ben doumbe bestes in the burgh many. I do not suggest that _Patience_ is better than the Book of Jonah, or as good, but that it has the vitality of an original work. The poet has a personal knowledge of character--a sense of drama, and a sense of life. Mr. Bateson’s edition of the poem was first published seven years ago. He has now largely recast and rewritten it. I have taken some liberties with his text in quoting it, slightly modernising it in places. It is an edition for students of mediæval literature rather than for the general reader. But with the help of its excellent glossary others than scholars should be able to enjoy it if they are prepared to take a little pains. And it is worth taking pains to become acquainted with so vivid and robust a poet as the author of _Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight_. INTERLUDE THE CULT OF DULLNESS Many conflicting opinions were expressed on the occasion of the Keats centenary, but everybody appeared to be unanimous on at least one point--contempt for the critics who told Keats to go back to his gallipots. We took it for granted that they were a very unusual sort of critics, and that, if a Keats were born to-day, we should give him a different sort of welcome. It is as though we had forgotten the history of literary genius and of its first reception into a jealous world. Human beings have naturally a profound respect for the great man, but they respect him most when he is dead. A dead demigod is to them infinitely better than a living lion. Their self-respect suffers if they have to live in the same world with some young fellow that overtops them. They feel, unconsciously, that by bringing him down they are raising themselves up. The Greeks pretended that it was the gods, and not themselves, who were jealous of human greatness, and they called this jealousy Nemesis. I suspect, however, that it was human beings who first felt this passion for equality. It is not in this form a noble passion. It is a passion for being equal to the people above us, not for being equal to the people below. This is the passion that cannot forgive wit or beauty in a contemporary. Some men--the finest--are entirely without it. Further, most of us yield to facts and frankly recognise genius when there is no getting away from it. But there always remains a company of the dull and the crabbed who believe