We must conclude this criticism; and we will do it with a quotation or two. One of the most beautiful passages in Chaucer’s tale is the description of Cresseide’s first avowal of her love. ‘And as the new abashed nightingale, That stinteth first when she beginneth sing, When that she heareth any herde’s tale, Or in the hedges any wight stirring, And, after, sicker doth her voice outring; Right so Cresseide, when that her dread stent, Opened her heart, and told him her intent.’ See also the two next stanzas, and particularly that divine one beginning— ‘Her armes small, her back both straight and soft,’ etc. Compare this with the following speech of Troilus to Cressida in the play:— ‘O, that I thought it could be in a woman; And if it can, I will presume in you, To feed for aye her lamp and flame of love, To keep her constancy in plight and youth, Out-living beauties outward, with a mind That doth renew swifter than blood decays. Or, that persuasion could but thus convince me, That my integrity and truth to you Might be affronted with the match and weight Of such a winnow’d purity in love; How were I then uplifted! But alas, I am as true as Truth’s simplicity, And simpler than the infancy of Truth.’ These passages may not seem very characteristic at first sight, though we think they are so. We will give two, that cannot be mistaken. Patroclus says to Achilles, ——‘Rouse yourself; and the weak wanton Cupid Shall from your neck unloose his amorous fold, And like a dew-drop from the lion’s mane, Be shook to air.’ Troilus, addressing the God of Day on the approach of the morning that parts him from Cressida, says with much scorn, ‘What! proffer’st thou thy light here for to sell? Go sell it them that smallé selés grave.’ If nobody but Shakespear could have written the former, nobody but Chaucer would have thought of the latter.—Chaucer was the most literal of poets, as Richardson was of prose-writers. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA