"Now by this book you will learn that first Greece had the renown for
chivalry and letters: then chivalry and the primacy in letters passed to
Rome, and now it is come to France. God grant it may be kept there; and
that the place may please it so well, that the honor which has come to
make stay in France may never depart thence!"

Yet it is now all gone, this French romance-poetry, of which the weight
of substance and the power of style are not unfairly represented by this
extract from Christian of Troyes. Only by means of the historic estimate
can we persuade ourselves now to think that any of it is of poetical
importance.

But in the fourteenth century there comes an Englishman nourished on
this poetry; taught his trade by this poetry, getting words, rhyme,
meter from this poetry; for even of that stanza[91] which the Italians
used, and which Chaucer derived immediately from the Italians, the basis
and suggestion was probably given in France. Chaucer (I have already
named him) fascinated his contemporaries, but so too did Christian of
Troyes and Wolfram of Eschenbach.[92] Chaucer's power of fascination,
however, is enduring; his poetical importance does not need the
assistance of the historic estimate; it is real. He is a genuine source
of joy and strength, which is flowing still for us and will flow always.
He will be read, as time goes on, far more generally than he is read
now. His language is a cause of difficulty for us; but so also, and I
think in quite as great a degree, is the language of Burns. In
Chaucer's case, as in that of Burns, it is a difficulty to be
unhesitatingly accepted and overcome.

If we ask ourselves wherein consists the immense superiority of
Chaucer's poetry over the romance-poetry--why it is that in passing from