learning: and from a natural affection I had rather it were always
Oxford that published, attracting to her service the learning,
scholarship, intelligence of all parts of the kingdom, or, for that
matter, of the world. So might she securely found new Schools of
English Literature--were she so minded, a dozen every year. They would
do no particular harm; and meanwhile, in Walton Street, out of earshot
of the New Schools, the Clarendon Press would go on serenely
performing its great work.

* * * * *

March 23, 1895. Essentials and Accidents of Poetry.

A work such as Professor Skeat's Chaucer puts the critic into a frame
of mind that lies about midway between modesty and cowardice. One
asks--"What right have I, who have given but a very few hours of my
life to the enjoying of Chaucer; who have never collated his MSS.; who
have taken the events of his life on trust from his biographers; who
am no authority on his spelling, his rhythms, his inflections, or the
spelling, rhythms, inflections of his age; who have read him only as I
have read other great poets, for the pleasure of reading--what right
have I to express any opinion on a work of this character, with its
imposing commentary, its patient research, its enormous accumulation
of special information?"

Nevertheless, this diffidence, I am sure, may be carried too far.
After all is said and done, we, with our average life of three-score
years and ten, are the heirs of all the poetry of all the ages. We
must do our best in our allotted time, and Chaucer is but one of the
poets. He did not write for specialists in his own age, and his main