hitherto unfamiliar to
English ears, is to suppose that his poems must have presented to his
contemporaries an absurd patchwork of two languages, and leaves it
impossible to explain how he should at once have become the popular poet
of our nation.

{Sidenote: _Influence of Chaucer_}

That Chaucer largely developed the language in this direction is indeed
plain. We have only to compare his English with that of another great
master of the tongue, his contemporary Wiclif, to perceive how much more
his diction is saturated with French words than is that of the Reformer.
We may note too that many which he and others employed, and as it were
proposed for admission, were not finally allowed and received; so that
no doubt they went beyond the needs of the language, and were here in
excess{39}. At the same time this can be regarded as no condemnation of
their attempt. It was only by actual experience that it could be proved
whether the language wanted those words or not, whether it could absorb
them into itself, and assimilate them with all that it already was and
had; or did not require, and would therefore in due time reject and put
them away. And what happened then will happen in every attempt to
transplant on a large scale the words of one language into another. Some
will take root; others will not, but after a longer or briefer period
will wither and die. Thus I observe in Chaucer such French words as
these, 'misericorde', 'malure' (malheur), 'penible', 'ayel' (aieul),
'tas', 'gipon', 'pierrie' (precious stones); none of which, and Wiclif's
'creansur' (2 Kings iv. 1) as little, have permanently won a place in
our tongue. For a long time 'mel', used often by Sylvester, struggled
hard for a place in the language side by side with honey; 'roy' side by
side with king; this last quite obtained one in Scotch. It is curious to
mark some of these French adoptions keeping their ground to a
comparatively late day, and yet finally extruded: seeming to have taken
firm root, they have yet withered away in the end. Thus it has been, for
example, with 'egal' (Puttenham); with 'ouvert', 'mot', 'ecurie',
'baston', 'gite' (Holland); with 'rivage', 'jouissance', 'noblesse',
'tort' (=wrong), 'accoil' (accuellir), 'sell' (=saddle), all occurring
in Spenser; with 'to serr' (serrer), 'vive', 'reglement', used all by
Bacon; and so with 'esperance', 'orgillous' (orgueilleux), 'rondeur',
'scrimer' (=fencer), all in Shakespeare; with 'amort' (this a