Lectures On The English Poets William Hazlitt

23
This is so true and natural, and beautifully simple, that the two things
seem identified with each other. Again, it is said in the Knight's
Tale--
"Thus passeth yere by yere, and day by day,
Till it felle ones in a morwe of May,
That Emelie that fayrer was to sene
Than is the lilie upon his stalke grene;
And fresher than the May with floures newe,
For with the rose-colour strof hire hewe:
I n'ot which was the finer of hem two."
This scrupulousness about the literal preference, as if some question of
matter of fact was at issue, is remarkable. I might mention that other,
where he compares the meeting between Palamon and Arcite to a hunter
waiting for a lion in a gap;--
"That stondeth at a gap with a spere,
Whan hunted is the lion or the bere,
And hereth him come rushing in the greves,
And breking both the boughes and the leves:"--
or that still finer one of Constance, when she is condemned to death:--
"Have ye not seen somtime a pale face
(Among a prees) of him that hath been lad
Toward his deth, wheras he geteth no grace,
And swiche a colour in his face hath had,
Men mighten know him that was so bestad,
Amonges all the faces in that route;
So stant Custance, and loketh hire aboute."
The beauty, the pathos here does not seem to be of the poet's seeking,
but a part of the necessary texture of the fable. He speaks of what he
wishes to describe with the accuracy, the discrimination of one who
relates what has happened to himself, or has had the best information
from those who have been eye-witnesses of it. The strokes of his pencil
always tell. He dwells only on the essential, on that which would be
interesting to the persons really concerned: yet as he never omits any
material circumstance, he is prolix from the number of points on which