r, "father of our English poets;" and his
learning, and "the natural of his pleasant wit," are alike judiciously
commanded. One of Puttenham's best qualities as a critic is that he
never speaks without his book; and he comes very near to discovering
Chaucer's greatest gift when noticing his excellence in
"prosopographia," a term which to Chaucer would perhaps have seemed to
require translation. At the obsoleteness of Chaucer's own diction this
critic, who writes entirely "for the better brought-up sort," is
obliged to shake his learned head.

Enough has been said in the preceding pages to support the opinion that
among the wants which fell to the lot of Chaucer as a poet, perhaps the
greatest (though Sidney would never have allowed this), was the want of
poetic form most in harmony with his most characteristic gifts. The
influence of Chaucer upon the dramatists of the Elizabethan age was
probably rather indirect and general than direct and personal; but
indications or illustrations of it may be traced in a considerable
number of these writers, including perhaps among the earliest Richard
Edwards as the author of a non-extant tragedy, "Palamon and Arcite,"
and among the latest the author--or authors--of "The Two Noble
Kinsmen." Besides Fletcher and Shakspere, Greene, Nash and Middleton,
and more especially Jonson (as both poet and grammarian), were
acquainted with Chaucer's writings; so that it is perhaps rather a
proof of the widespread popularity of the "Canterbury Tales" than the
reverse, that they were not largely resorted to for materials by the
Elizabethan and Jacobean dramatists. Under Charles I "Troilus and
Cressid" found a translator in Sir Francis Kynaston, whom Cartwright
congratulated on having made it possible "that we read Chaucer now
without a dictionary." A personage however, in Cartwright's best known
play, the Antiquary Moth, prefers to talk on his own account "genuine"
Chaucerian English.

To pursue the further traces of the influence of Chaucer through such a
literary aftergrowth as the younger Fletchers, into the early poems of
Milton, would be beyond the purpose of the present essay. In the
treasure-house of that great poet's mind were gathered memories and
associations innumerable, though the sublimest flights of his genius
soared aloft into regions whither the imagination of none of our
earlier poets had preceded them. On the other hand, the days have
passed for attention to be spared fo