nationality, when style meant the observance of fixed and 
     complicated rules of rhetoric. To copy and circulate 
     another man’s book might be regarded as a meritorious 
     action in the age of manuscript; in the age of print, such 
     action results in law suits and damages. Writers who wish 
     to derive profit by amusing a public now write for the 
     most part in prose; until the middle of the thirteenth 
     century, only verse could obtain a hearing. Hence, if a fair 
     judgment is to be passed upon literary works belonging to 
     the centuries before printing was invented, some effort 
     must be made to realize the extent of the prejudices 
     under which we have grown up, and to resist the 
     involuntary demand that medieval literature must 
     conform to our standards of taste or be regarded as of 
     interest purely antiquarian. In the words of Renan, 
     ‘l’essence de la critique est de savoir comprendre des