full
and fair exercise" became a despised, almost a lost, tradition after
Chaucer's death. The rhythms of Skelton, of Surrey, and Wyatt, were
produced on alien and narrower lines. Revived by Shakespeare and the
later Elizabethans, it fell into contempt again until Cowper once more
began to claim freedom for English rhythm, and after him Coleridge,
and the despised Leigh Hunt. But never has its full liberty been so
triumphantly asserted as by the three poets I have named above. If we
are at home as we read Chaucer, it is because they have instructed us
in the liberty which Chaucer divined as the only true way.

FOOTNOTES:

[A] The Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer. Edited, from numerous
manuscripts, by the Rev. Walter W. Skeat, Litt. D., LL.D., M.A. In six
volumes. Oxford: At the Clarendon Press. 1894.

[B] Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Edited, with Notes and Introduction,
by Alfred W. Pollard. London: Macmillan & Co.

"THE PASSIONATE PILGRIM."

January 5, 1805. "The Passionate Pilgrim."

_The Passionate Pilgrim_ (1599). _Reprinted with a Note about the
Book, by Arthur L. Humphreys. London: Privately Printed by Arthur L.
Humphreys, of 187, Piccadilly. MDCCCXCIV._

I was about to congratulate Mr. Humphreys on his printing when, upon
turning to the end of this dainty little volume, I discovered the
well-known colophon of the Chiswick Press--"Charles Whittingham & Co.,
Took's Court, Chancery Lane, London." So I congratulate Messrs.
Charles Whittingham & Co. instead, and suggest that the imprint should
have run "Privately Printed _for_ Arthur L. Humphreys."

This famous (or, if you like it, infamous) little anthology of thirty
leaves has been singularly unfortunate in its title-pages. It was
first published in 1599 as _The Passionate Pilgrims. By W.
Shakespeare. At London. Printed for W. Jaggard, and are to be sold by
W. Leake, at the Greyhound in Paules Churchyard._ This, of course, was
disingenuous. Some of the numbers were by Shakespeare: but the
authorship of some remains doubtful to this day, and others the
enterprising Jaggard had boldly conveyed from Marlowe, Richard
Barnefield, and Bartholomew Griffin. In short, to adapt a famous line
upon a famous lexicon, "the best part was Shakespeare, the rest was
not." For this, Jaggard has been execrated from time to time with
sufficient heartiness. Mr. Swinburne, in his latest volume of Essays,
calls him an "infamous pirate, liar, and thief." Mr. Humphreys
re