WALTER PATER--

XI. Sandro Botticelli




INTRODUCTION.


In England, as elsewhere, criticism was a late birth of the literary
spirit. English poets had sung and literary prose been written for
centuries before it struck men to ask themselves, What is the secret
of the power that these things have on our mind, and by what principles
are they to be judged? And it could hardly have been otherwise.
Criticism is a self-conscious art, and could not have arisen in an age
of intellectual childhood. It is a derivative art, and could scarcely
have come into being without a large body of literature to suggest
canons of judgment, and to furnish instances of their application.

The age of Chaucer might have been expected to bring with it a new
departure. It was an age of self-scrutiny and of bold experiment. A
new world of thought and imagination had dawned upon it; and a new
literature, that of Italy, was spread before it. Yet who shall say
that the facts answer to these expectations? In the writings of Chaucer
himself a keen eye, it is true, may discern the faint beginnings of
the critical spirit. No poet has written with more nicely calculated
art; none has passed a cooler judgment upon the popular taste of his
generation. We know that Chaucer despised the "false gallop" of
chivalrous verse; we know that he had small respect for the marvels