This needs no comment. Even the remark that every line is worth meditation may well appear superfluous. One little fact only with regard to the rhymes, common to this and the next poem, and usual enough in Norman verse, may be pointed out, namely, that every line in the stanza ends with the same rhyme-sound as the corresponding line in each of the other stanzas. A reference to either of the poems will at once show what I mean. The second is superior, inasmuch as it carries one thought through the three stanzas. It is entitled _A Balade made by Chaucer, teaching what is gentilnesse, or whom is worthy to be called gentill._ The first stock-father of gentleness-- _ancestor of the race What man desireth gentle for to be [of the gentle._ Must follow his trace, and all his wittés dress _track, footsteps: Virtue to love and vices for to flee; [apply._ For unto virtue longeth dignity, _belongeth._ And not the reverse falsely dare I deem,[35] All wear he mitre, crown, or diadem. _although he wear._ The first stock was full of righteousness; _the progenitor._ True of his word, sober, piteous, and free; Clean of his ghost, and loved busi-ness, _pure in his spirit._ Against the vice of sloth in honesty; And but his heir love virtue as did he, _except._ He is not gentle, though he rich seem, All wear he mitre, crown, or diadem. Vicesse may well be heir to old Richesse, _Vice: Riches._ But there may no man, as men may well see, Bequeath his heir his virtue's nobleness; That is appropried unto no degree, _rank._ But to the first father in majesty, That maketh his heirés them that him queme, _please him._ All wear he mitre, crown, or diadem. I can come to no other conclusion than that by _the first stock-father_ Chaucer means our Lord Jesus. CHAPTER III. THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. After the birth of a Chaucer, a Shakspere, or a Milton, it is long before the genial force of a nation can again culminate in such a triumph: time is required for the growth of the conditions. Between the birth of Chaucer and the birth of Shakspere, his sole equal, a period of more than two centuries had to elapse. It is but small compensation for this, that the more original, that is simple, natural, and true to his own nature a man is, the more certain is he to have a crowd of imitators. I do not say that such are of no use in the world. They do not indeed advance art, but they widen the sphere of its operation; for many will talk with the man who know nothing of the master. Too often intending but their own glory, they point the way to the source of it, and are straightway themselves forgotten.