‘A Clerk ther was of Oxenforde also, That unto logik, hadde longe ygo. As lene was his hors as is a rake, And he was not right fat, I undertake; But loked holwe, and thereto soberly. Ful thredbare was his overest courtepy, For he hadde geten him yit no benefice, Ne was nought worldly to have an office. For him was lever have at his beddes hed A twenty bokes, clothed in blak or red, Of Aristotle and his philosophie, Then robes riche, or fidel, or sautrie. But all be that he was a philosophre, Yet hadde he but litel gold in cofre, But al that he might of his frendes hente, On bokes and on lerning he it spente, And besily gan for the soules praie Of hem, that gave him wherwith to scolaie. Of studie toke he moste care and hede. Not a word spake he more than was nede; And that was said in forme and reverence, And short, and quike, and full of high sentence. Sowning in moral vertue was his speche, And gladly wolde he lerne, and gladly teche.’ If letters have profited little by throwing down the barrier between learned prejudice and ignorant presumption, the arts have profited still less by the universal diffusion of accomplishment and pretension. An artist is no longer looked upon as any thing, who is not at the same time ‘chemist, statesman, fiddler, and buffoon.’ It is expected of him that he should be well-dressed, and he is poor; that he should move gracefully, and he has never learned to dance; that he should converse on all subjects, and he understands but one; that he should be read in different languages, and he only knows his own. Yet there is one language, the language of Nature, in which it is enough for him to be able to read, to find everlasting employment and solace to his thoughts— ‘Tongues in the trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in every thing.’