CONVERSATION ON CHAPTER LXXI.

_Mary_. You spoke, Mamma, of CHAUCER being the Father of English
poetry. Was there _any_ English poetry before the discoveries of Lord
EDWARD MARSH?

_Mrs. M_. Certainly, my dear. CHAUCER was our first eminent poet,
but, as a distinguished American critic has observed, he could not
spell. This greatly interfered with his popularity. Then there was
SHAKSPEARE, who wrote quaint old-fashioned plays quite unsuitable
for filming, but nevertheless enjoyed a certain fame until it was
proved that he never existed and that SHAKESPEARE was the name of a
syndicate; or that if he did exist he was somebody else; when all
interest in his work naturally evaporated. The abolition of rhyme,
about the year 1920, gave a fresh impetus to English poetry, and now,
as you know, almost anyone can write it fluently, whereas formerly the
easiest poems were written with the greatest difficulty. Indeed one
reads of some old poets who were not able to produce a mere hundred
lines in a day. Under the "free-verse" system, some of the Palustrine
(or Marshy) School have been known to produce as many as three
thousand lines in a day and to earn in a week as much as MILTON, an
old poet of the seventeenth century, received for the whole of his
greatest work, on which he was engaged for years.

_Richard_. You have often talked about people going into sanctuary.
What does it mean?

_Mrs. M_. Originally every church, abbey, or consecrated place was a
sanctuary, and all persons who had committed crimes or were otherwise